Dossier pour le bac

Litté Anglais: Voyage and Return Stories

To discuss the notion of Voyage and Return Stories we've studied three documents about adventures stories. The first document is an extract from a book by Arthur Ransome entitled Swallows and Amazons, the second document is an extract from The Coral Island entitled A Perpetual Summer by Robert Ballantyne and my personal document is the trailer of the animated adventure comedy film entitled The wild Life ( Robinson Crusoe Movie ) directed by Vincent Kesteloot and Ben Stassen.

We will use these documents to show how Robinsonades manage to help readers travel on a journey of discovery.

First, Robinsonades manage to help readers travel on a journey of discovery by giving them the opportunity to see new places. Through the places that readers discover throughout the story, it allows them to see where the characters live, how the characters describe their new environment, and how they adapt to it. Thus, thanks to all this, it also allows readers to know, to discover places that are unknown to them in different aspects. For example, in the second document, A perpetual Summer, the boys are enjoying their lives on the island. They are fishing for food, they are also hunting hogs and use their skins to make shoes. They are discovering Nature, its joys and pleasures just as the readers does by reading. They are leading a life of adventure in the wild, a happy life because it is described as an ideal and pleasant life, there seems to be no clouds above their heads, so, they live and sleep under the stars. In addition, the author tells this story with places in a rather positive way. In my personal document, the tiny isolated South Pacific Island is characterised as being a perfect little piece of Eden because of blue skies, beautiful turquoise water, and lots of delicious fruit. The character Robinson Crusoe lives very well his life of shipwrecked on this island paradise, he takes things in hand, he looks for food, he builds a shelter and also paradoxically the animals on the island helps him to survive by bringing him fruit, water and building with him a shelter with pieces of the ship. With this animated film, we can discover a beautiful place and also it makes us realize the importance of having a place to live especially when you are on an island in the middle of nowhere. In addition, we can notice that this document shows us a positive aspect of living on a beautiful island even if initially it was very difficult for the character to adapt to it because it is of course normal not to want to remain solitary on A desert island. In addition, we discover not only a new landscape but it allows us to travel through the beauty of nature that is described. Thus, with these two documents we succeed to travel on a journey of discovery thanks to the description of the beauty of places.

Secondly, Robinsonades manage to help readers travel on a journey of discovery by creating within them a journey of the imagination. On the one hand, we have this world of the imagination that is a book and on the other, the real world, the one in which we live. Of course, movies also have the power to project us into imaginary worlds as we can see with my personal document. For instance, in the first document, Hullo Ronbinson Crusoe, the most striking thing about this extract is the presence of several worlds. First, there is the real world, the reality where Titty and her mother actually, on the island, together, playing a game. There is also the world of the imagination, the world of Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday. Finally, it can be argued that Titty has created a world of her own, the secret world of a child. However, there is no dividing line between the worlds, no border. It falls from one unique world, it emphasizes the power of the imagination. This shows that with imagination there are no limits. In addition, in this excerpt,  the voyage is a journey of the imagination of the mind, and a journey through time. Thus, a journey of the imagination allows to readers to travel without moving and without limits and so, this allows to travel on a journey of discovery.

...