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The writer in his time


A writer can be a witness of his time. To reflect on society and politics, writers often write essays, pamphlets or novels. He tackles and denounces social evils or puts forward idea to resist and fight. He can use wit, irony or humour in order to voice his opinion in his writings. He can behind fiction or utopia to shock the reader into awareness of a problem. We also see “ how writers criticize society?”
For that we'll see 3 documents.

The first document is an extract of The Great Gatsby writing by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. F.S.Fitgerald was an american novelist. His works mostly portray American life in the 1920s, also called “Jazz Age”. Together with Hemingway, he belongs to the Lost Generation writers of the 1920s. ( The Lost Generation is a group of artists and writers fled to Paris in the post World War I years, living the bohemian lifestyle and rejecting the values of American materialism). Fitzgerald writing The Great Gatsby in 1925. In this extract we have a narrator who is Nick Carraway. He is Gatsby's neighbour. The scene takes place at Gatsby's house. He is throwing a big party. Nick describes Gatsby's parties. We are introduced to Gatsby's lavish showy world. For examples in lines 19 “enough coloured lights to make a christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden” or line 21 “no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones, etc”.
Nick has been invited to the party but it's not the cast for all the guests. They are compared with “moths”-> they come and go uninuted. They may come only because it's a lavish party.
Different steps in the organization of the party:Fist, the butlers and caterers prepared the food and drinks for the party. In the afternoon, Gatsby took his guests to his beach and entertained themon his boat. By 7 o'clock the orchestra arrived and the party started. When he arrives, Nick doesn't know what Gatsby looks like. He has never seen him and his invitation was brought by his butler.
Gatsby, the host who is throwing the party is now here to be seen. He seems to be generous because he replaced Lucille's gown when she had torn it on a chair.
There are many rumours about Gatsby's: he is said to have been a spy during the war; he is said to have killed a man once.
For the guests, the rumour they most believe in is the first one because Gatsby had apparently fought for America during the roar.

The second document is a poem of William Blake. The poem names London. W.BLAKE was a pre-romantic poet. In this poem he describes people's suffering. The city seems to have been tamed. He may refer to a less of freedom. The poem is composed of 4 stanzas. Blake also denounces the exploitation of women with his reference to the Harlot (prostitute). Sexual and marital union were taited by the threat of death: marriage hearse (love and desire combined with deat and destruction = oxymeron).
This new baby was born in poverty to a cursing, prostitute mother.
Blake considers it is his role to expose the evils of his time. London was dogged, plaggued by crime. He thinks people are responsible for their own fate because they don't try to react, to make things change. He blames all the institutions of power but also the victims who don't try to solve their problemes. He uses the presend tense, which makes us think that what he says is timeless, as if it were a general truth.

And the last document is a extract from the novel 1984, written by George Orwell in 1948. Winston and his colleague Syme are talking about Newspeak, the language created by Big Brother, a dictator whose goal is to destroy words to reduce language to a minimum. This language is part of a more ambitious project which is to prevent people from thinking. If you have no words to express your thoughts, you stop thinking and you become a robot in the manipulative hands of a totatitarian society. When reading this excerpt, we realise how important words are in our life. Orwell denounces how citizens are manipulated by their political leaders. The new language is designed to prevent people from thinking and expressing their thoughts

The three documents denounced the society. The autors expressed their ideas in different genres, poetry and short stories and at different times, but it comes to the same as they pass a message to the reader, as he even shared their lives. His novel 1984, inspired by real events, is a vision of the extreme power some people can impose on human beings.