Exemple de notion

The notion I’m going to deal with is “Travel and Exile”. To begin with I’d like to give a definition of travel and one of exile. I think we can consider that travel is the action of travelling or moving, typically in a constant or predictable way. An exile is instead the state of being barred from one’s natural country, often for political or punitive reasons. In relation to the notion, the subject of my presentation will be “The fear of the unknown”. We may wonder if - when we have to make a choice - we are only scared of the unknown or we may experience other fears too. In order to answer to the question, my presentation will fall into three parts. At the beginning, I will concentrate on “I went to the woods...” written in 1854 by Henry David Thoreau, then I will analyze the poem “The road not taken” by Robert Frost published in 1916 as the first poem in the collection “Mountain Interval” before finally focusing on the sculpture “The Great Van Gogh” made in 2013 by Bruno Catalano.

My first document is “I went to the woods...” written in 1854 by Henry David Thoreau. In this text the author wants to escape civilization considering it is only composed by useless things avoiding us to concentrate on the pure essence of life. He repeats himself in imperative forms because he wants to be listened to and understood and he also wants to explain his wish and his motivations. He therefore addresses himself directly to the reader in order to share his experience encouraging people to do the same. He wants to sensibilize the reader saying that “everyone is concerned” because he thinks that all the objects we accumulate are worthless. According to him happiness is not at all the result of the possession of material things. He preaches and invites to exile as a liberation from the bonds of stereotypes, conventions and habits of our ill society. The author is a great traveler and like all good travelers he knows very well that we are all often caught in a dilemma because our choices will influence our life forever.

My second document is the poem “The road not taken” by Robert Frost published in the collection “Mountain Interval” in 1916. In this text the narrator is in a wood and stands in front of a fork being forced to choose between two paths. He has to make a decision to go on. He is afraid of making the wrong choice and he has no landmarks at all. He is alone, nobody can help him or give him advice. He is afraid of the unknown, he doesn’t know where the paths could lead him. He knows his choice will influence his future life for good and he doesn’t want to follow the crowd. Since he wants to reassure himself -before making his decision- the narrator hesitates and decides to weigh the pros and the cons. He is scared of the unknown. At the end he decides to take the less travelled path. It’s not the most popular path and it’s not the safest. The narrator knows that he might regret it but despite his regret, he is proud of his decision because it’s his own personal one. Through his experience, the poet addresses himself to the reader inviting us to be strong, never give up and go ahead always being proud of our own choices. The message is that we must accept our decisions. He wants us to listen to our own inner voice and follow our own destiny. In other words he wants everyone to be unique. Both texts show that some day in our life we will be facing

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