Naît on libre ou le devient-on

Oral anglais

Notion 1 : Places and forms of power

Hello

First of all i’m going to speak about the notion « places and forms of power » but first i’m going to give a definition of the notion.

Power is the capacity to exercise control or authority over others. It can be a person , a group , or a nation having great influence over people. There are different forms of power like political power , the power of media, Power of a photo...

It can be positive , as power can be used to live together but there are flip sides ( like abuses of power , feeling or a sense that someone is superior to us ..)

This year in class we studied severals documents about the notion places and forms of power.

We will especially be interested by diffenrents kind of power in our society and attempt to answer the question :

How from differents notions of power can we defend something?

To answer to the question i will present three differents documents :

- The first document is a Photo taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936

- The second document is a song written by Woody guthrie and sing by Martin Hoffman in 1961

- The third document is an Article from the New Yorker written by Amanda Petrusich in March 2018

The first document that i decieded to take is « The Migrant Mother » it’s a famous photo taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936 after the Great Depression after the Wall street Crash in 1929.

Dorothea Langue was working for Farm Security Administration and she was documenting the impact of federal programs in improving rural condition. At this period they were a lot of people by the edge of the road , extremely unpopular and they were going to the East of America to find jobs ..

Families were forced to abandon they farms because they were not able to pay mortgages or to grow crops..

In the Famous photo « The migrant mother » , we can see 3 childreens with their mother , leaning on her.

They are very dirty .. and they are probably from the lower class , the may focus attention is on the mother , she has a deep and unique look very charismatic and enigmatic she has a charisma mainly in her position ( her face..)

 We can also find in the photo a king of symetry , the photo is very harmonious , she has the power to protect her childrens.

This photo is so powerful because it’s a true story , a real story !

It’s very intresting to see that only with the power of her photo Dorothea Lange can change something !

It’s  very interesting to see that have power is necessary to defend something and here Dorothea Lange with only her camera she decieded to show the real life , the real hard working and hard living conditions.

And this is why i love this photo ! Because after seeing the photo the gouvernenment rushed a shipment of food to the camp and we can conclude that only a photo can be so powerful and can change something , because here the governement reacted !

The second document that i decieded to take is a song written by Woody Guthrie in 1948 and sing by Martin Hoffman.

The title of the song is « Plane Wreck at Los Gatos » , Woody Guthrie is a american songwriter , he was one of the most significant figures in America for folk music.

He decieded to wrote this song during the dust bowl period. This song deals with deportees more particulary about a group of friends .They were killed in a Plane Crash At Los Gatos near Mexico because they were getting deported.

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