le Hors Série n° 2 de Représentations, consacré à la journée d'études sur Steinbeck, qui a eu lieu le 08 février 2008 à l'université de Grenoble, est disponible à l'adresse suivante:

http://w3.u-grenoble3.fr/representations/

choisir hors-série 2 dans le bandeau de gauche.



Journée d'Etude John Steinbeck - concours 2008

articles réunis par Claire Maniez et Denise Ginfray


table des matières


Avant-propos


Rédouane ABOUDDAHAB
"There's a woman so great with love-she scares me" : Éthique(s) de The Grapes of Wrath

Elisabeth BOUZONVILLIER
Traces et migrations dans The Grapes of Wrath

Claire MANIEZ
The Grapes of Wrath de la page à l'écran : enjeux de la représentation

Marianne CAMUS
Boire et manger dans The Grapes of Wrath

Marie-Odile SALATI
Des mots et des hommes : parler, prêcher, écouter dans The Grapes of Wrath

Denise GINFRAY
(En)jeux esthétiques et idéologiques dans The Grapes of Wrath : Lien social et poétique de l'écriture


Abstracts / Résumés

A propos des auteurs

Non-teleological ideas derive through “is” thinking, associated with natural selection as Darwin seems to have understood it. They imply depth, fundamentalism, and clarity-seeing beyond traditional or personal projections. They consider events as outgrowths and expressions rather than results; conscious acceptance as a desideratum, and certainly as an all important prerequisite. Non-teleological thinking concerns itself primarily not with what should be, or could be, or might be, but rather with what actually “is”–attempting at most to answer the already sufficiently difficult questions what or how, instead of why.
Steinbeck, Sea of Cortez.

Our own interest lay in relationships of animal to animal. If one observes in this relation sense, it seems apparent that species are only commas in a sentence, that each species is at once the point and the base of a pyramid, that all life is relational. […] It is a strange thing that most of the feeling we call religious, most of the mystical outcrying which is one of the most prized and used and desired reactions of our species, is really the understanding and the attempt to say that man is related to the whole thing, related inextricably to all reality.
(Ibid.)

"The Grapes of Wrath ends not with an event, a “plot development” or twist, but with a scene. This final scene is not a resolution of the conflict for the Joads. We know that they will be further hurt by their own and other men's illusions. The scene is rather a resolution for the reader, who has been taken in tow by the narrator to witness one set of conditions after another. It is almost as if we as readers had been shown a series of slides recording “that which happens” in this environment and that. The resolution, significantly, is one for the observer, rather than for the observed. No novel, it seems to me, could operate more in the spirit of science than this."

The rationale behind this fiction would seem to lie in the fact that scene most clearly and directly expresses the condition of what “is.” Thus, plot moves from condition to condition, and the structure of Steinbeck’s novels usually involves contrast and parallel of condition, almost musical in its contrapuntal patterning.
(ibid.)

Benson, Jackson J. “John Steinbeck: Novelist as Scientist.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 10.3 (Spring 1977): 248-264, 261.

« Imaginaires Américains: Steinbeck et Ford »
http://w3.univ-tlse2.fr/cas/steinbeck_ford.html

Actes du Colloque du vendredi 25 janvier 2008
Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail

Textes réunis par Aurélie Guillain et Wendy Harding

Part I: Richard Ford’s A Multitude of Sins

Brian Duffy, Dublin City University : « In the Beginning, in the End:
Notes on Framing and Narrative in A Multitude of Sins », 1-7

Wendy Harding, Toulouse II : « Enigmatic Signposts: Titles in Richard
Ford's A Multitude of Sins », 8-14

Simone Pellerin, Montpellier III : « Narcissus was here: Ford's
Protagonists and the Strange Wide World », 15-24



Part II: John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath



René Alladaye, Toulouse II : « Distance et point de vue : Steinbeck
et l'art de la feinte. Une lecture de l'entrée en scène de Ma Joad
» (Ch. 8, p. 75 "Pa stepped inside" - 76 "'You didn' bust loose ?'"),
25-29

Michèle Bonnet, Besançon : « La Hudson Super Six: la machine et le
corps », 30-36

Yves-Charles Grandjeat, Bordeaux III : « ‘They was a coyote
squawkin' near by’: An Eco-critical Reading of The Grapes of Wrath
», 37-47

Aurélie Guillain, Toulouse II : « Regroupements dans The Grapes of
Wrath : une vision dynamique du groupe social », 48-54

Sylvie Mathé, Aix-Marseille I : « Rendons à Hemingway… In Our Time et
The Grapes of Wrath: vignettes et chapitres intercalaires », 55-62
(à paraître)
Clara Mallier, Bordeaux III : « Association et dissociation dans The
Grapes of Wrath », 63- (à paraître)

Selon Warren Motley, la “grille de lecture” de Ma est « matriarcale » :

[Ma] interprets the migration according to the actual experience of the migrants rather than by the inherited and now meaningless patriarchal myth of the frontier. In the West Pa Joad thinks he will find relief from poverty through his individual labor. But his dream depends on land. When he cannot find it, he is crushed. While Ma Joad hopes one day to own a house of her own, a goal of individual fulfillment Steinbeck endorses, she gradually expands her belief that survival until that day depends on keeping the “family unbroken” to include a broader group. (Motley 408)

Steinbeck aurait été fort influencé par la lecture de l’anthropologue Briffault :

[…] the Joad family shifts from a patriarchal structure to a predominantly matriarchal one. So doing, they dramatize the influence of the anthropologist Robert Briffault on John Steinbeck as he tried to understand the Depression » (Motley 397).

Working from Briffault’s theories on the matriarchal origin of society, Steinbeck presents Ma Joad’s growing power as a source of communal strength sheltering human dignity from the antisocial effects of individualism. (Motley 397-398)

See Motley, Warren. “From Patriarchy to Matriarchy: Ma Joad's Role in The Grapes of Wrath.” American Literature 54.3 (Oct. 1982): 397-412.

L'UFR d'études anglophones et le CEMRA (Centre d'Etudes des Modes de Représentation Anglophones) de l'Université Stendhal - Grenoble III organisent le vendredi 8 février 2008 une journée d'étude sur « Les Raisins de la colère » de John
Steinbeck.

Grande salle des colloques - Bâtiment G - 4ème étage


Matinée (modérateur : Denise Ginfray)

9 h 15 : Denise Ginfray, Claire Maniez : présentation de la journée

9 h 30 : Rédouane Abouddahab (Université Lumière-Lyon 2) : « 'Somepin worse'n the devil' : Ethique(s) des Raisins de la colère ».

10 h 20 : Elisabeth Bouzonviller (Université de St-Etienne) : « Traces et migrations dans The Grapes of Wrath »

11 h 10 : Claire Maniez (Université Stendhal-Grenoble 2) : « The Grapes of Wrath de la page à l'écran : enjeux de la représentation »

12 h - 14 h : pause repas

Après-midi (modérateur : Claire Maniez)

14 h : Marianne Camus, (Université de Bourgogne) : « Boire et manger dans The Grapes of Wrath »

14 h 50 : Marie-Odile Salati (Université de Savoie): « Des mots et des hommes : parler,
prêcher, écouter. »

15 h 40 - 16 h : pause café

16 h : Denise Ginfray (Université Blaise Pascal-Clermont-Ferrand 2) : « Écrire, décrire,
représenter : The Grapes of Wrath, (en)jeux esthétiques et idéologiques »

16 h 50 - 17 h 30 : table ronde, questions

Organisation : Claire Maniez (claire.maniez@u-grenoble3.fr)
et Denise Ginfray (Dginfray@aol.com)

Capes 2008
r.abouddahab@free.fr


Passages à préparer pour le TD

30 janvier : “The owners of the land came … like Pa and Grampa did” (pp. 34-36)
06 février: Chapter 14 (pp. 151-153)
13 février : “‘Hm-m,’ he said … The rain had passed now, but the sky was overcast”
25 février “Ahead, beside the road … and smiled mysteriously” (451-453).
05 mars: correction du devoir.



Passages stratégiques (mais PAS EXCLUSIFS) pour l’entraînement


Chapter 3 (pp. 18-19),
pp. 38-39: “The tractors came over … I’m going through the dooryard after dinner”
pp. 75-77: “Tom heard his mother’s voice … on the back of the stove”
pp. 82-84: “Ma said quietly, ‘You’re welcome’ … a voice out of the ground”
pp. 103-105: “Grampa was still the titular … Ma was powerful in the group”
pp. 108-111: “Now that they were committed to going … the fire sighed up and breathed over the box”
pp. 226-229: “All night they bored … he looked at the long wrapped body”
pp. 244-247: “The young man picked up … outa somebody”
pp. 249-251: “Tom walked around … and Connie’s answering”
pp. 264-267: “ ‘Now, you,’ the deputy said … a curious look of conquest”
pp. 278-281: “A second little caravan drove … the dim lights felt along the broad black highway ahead”
Chapter 21 (pp. 282-284)
pp. 288-291: “Tom walked down the street … and squatted around it”
pp. 322-324: “Ma struggled to her feet … somepin nice”
pp. 325-326: “The migrant people … An’ he looked big—as God”
Chapter 25 (pp. 346-349)
pp. 379-381 : « […] He turned away and strolled down the street … ‘course I talked to all of ‘em”
pp. 385-387: “They moved quietly … numbness, and his whole head throbbed”
Chapter 29 (pp. 432-434)
pp. 445-447

I thank the Swedish Academy for finding my work worthy of this highest honor.

In my heart there may be doubt that I deserve the Nobel award over other men of letters whom I hold in respect and reverence - but there is no question of my pleasure and pride in having it for myself.

It is customary for the recipient of this award to offer personal or scholarly comment on the nature and the direction of literature. At this particular time, however, I think it would be well to consider the high duties and the responsibilities of the makers of literature.

Such is the prestige of the Nobel award and of this place where I stand that I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession and in the great and good men who have practiced it through the ages.

Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches - nor is it a game for the cloistered elect, the tinhorn mendicants of low calorie despair.

Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed.

The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, their responsibilities have been decreed by our species.

Humanity has been passing through a gray and desolate time of confusion. My great predecessor, William Faulkner, speaking here, referred to it as a tragedy of universal fear so long sustained that there were no longer problems of the spirit, so that only the human heart in conflict with itself seemed worth writing about.

Faulkner, more than most men, was aware of human strength as well as of human weakness. He knew that the understanding and the resolution of fear are a large part of the writer's reason for being.

This is not new. The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.

Furthermore, the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat - for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally-flags of hope and of emulation.

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man, has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

The present universal fear has been the result of a forward surge in our knowledge and manipulation of certain dangerous factors in the physical world.

It is true that other phases of understanding have not yet caught up with this great step, but there is no reason to presume that they cannot or will not draw abreast. Indeed it is a part of the writer's responsibility to make sure that they do.

With humanity's long proud history of standing firm against natural enemies, sometimes in the face of almost certain defeat and extinction, we would be cowardly and stupid to leave the field on the eve of our greatest potential victory.

Understandably, I have been reading the life of Alfred Nobel - a solitary man, the books say, a thoughtful man. He perfected the release of explosive forces, capable of creative good or of destructive evil, but lacking choice, ungoverned by conscience or judgment.

Nobel saw some of the cruel and bloody misuses of his inventions. He may even have foreseen the end result of his probing - access to ultimate violence - to final destruction. Some say that he became cynical, but I do not believe this. I think he strove to invent a control, a safety valve. I think he found it finally only in the human mind and the human spirit. To me, his thinking is clearly indicated in the categories of these awards.

They are offered for increased and continuing knowledge of man and of his world - for understanding and communication, which are the functions of literature. And they are offered for demonstrations of the capacity for peace - the culmination of all the others.

Less than fifty years after his death, the door of nature was unlocked and we were offered the dreadful burden of choice.

We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God.

Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world - of all living things.

The danger and the glory and the choice rest finally in man. The test of his perfectibility is at hand.

Having taken Godlike power, we must seek in ourselves for the responsibility and the wisdom we once prayed some deity might have.

Man himself has become our greatest hazard and our only hope.

So that today, St. John the apostle may well be paraphrased: In the end is the Word, and the Word is Man - and the Word is with Men.

Abouddahab, Rédouane. « Figures de la rupture et de la conciliation : conscience communautaire et traditions américaines », John Steinbeck : The Grapes of Wrath. Ed. Christine Chollier, Paris : Ellipses, septembre 2007.

Astro, Richard. “Steinbeck's Post-War Trilogy: A Return to Nature and the Natural Man.” Twentieth Century Literature 16.2 (Apr., 1970): 109-122.

Benson, Jackson J. “John Steinbeck: Novelist as Scientist.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 10.3 Tenth Anniversary Issue: III. (Spring, 1977): 248-264.

Britch, Carroll and Lewis, Clifford. “Shadow of the Indian in the Fiction of John Steinbeck.” MELLIS 11.2 (1984): 39-58.

Cannon, Gerard, « The Pauline Apostleship of Tom Joad », College English 24.3 (1962): 222-224.

Carlson, Eric W. “Symbolism in The Grapes of Wrath.” College English 19.4 (Jan., 1958): 172-175.

Chollier, Christine, ed. John Steinbeck : The Grapes of Wrath. Paris : Ellipses, septembre 2007. [Ensemble de 8 études consacrées à l’œuvre.]

Crockett, H. Kelly, “The Bible and The Grapes of Wrath.” College English 24.3 (1962): 193-199.

Daiches, David. “A New Trend in American Fiction.” The English Journal 29.6 (Jun., 1940): 435-445.

Dougherty, Charles T. “The Christ-Figure in The Grapes of Wrath.” College English 24.3 (Dec., 1962): 224-226.

George, Stephen K., ed., The Moral Philosophy of John Steinbeck, Lanham, Maryland, Scarecrow Press, 2005.

Hauck, Richard B., “The Comic Christ and the Modern Reader.” College English 31. 5 (Feb., 1970): 498-506.

Le Fustec, Claude, ed. Lectures de Steinbeck : Les Raisins de la colère. Rennes : PUR, octobre 2007.

Lingo, Marci. “Forbidden Fruit: The Banning of The Grapes of Wrath in the Kern County Free Library.” Libraries & Culture 38.4 (2003): 351-377. [The banning of the book from the Library + the huge numbers of migrants who went there]

McElderry, B. R. Jr. “The Grapes of Wrath in the Light of Modern Critical Theory.” College English, Vol. 5, No. 6. (Mar., 1944), pp. 308-313. [art and reality]

McWilliams, Carey. Factories in the Fields: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1939. [Révèle le « vrai visage » de la Californie: exploitation, violence…]

Owens, Louis. “ ‘Grampa Killed Indians, Pa Killed Snakes’: Steinbeck and the American Indian.” MELUS 15.2 Varieties of Ethnic Criticism (Summer, 1988): 85-92.

Shockley, Martin Staples. “The Reception of the Grapes of Wrath in Oklahoma.” American Literature 15.4 (Jan., 1944): 351-361.
–––. “Christian Symbolism in The Grapes of Wrath.” College English 18.2 (Nov., 1956): 87-90.

Dialogisme et polyphonie
http://www.fabula.org/atelier.php?Dialogisme

Polyphonie, polyphonisme
http://www.fabula.org/atelier.php?Polyphonisme%2C_de_Bakhtine_%26agrave%3B_Ricoeur

Bibliographie Steinbeck
http://web.univ-pau.fr/saes/pb/concours/bibliconc/08/bibliosagreg2008/steinbeck.pdf