AN INDIAN IN WASHINGTON
Publié le 07/02/2012
Extrait du document
For the people of Washington it was late aftemoon or early evening, i couldn't say which. The time and the light didn't match, as they did in Bombay. Of that drive i remember green fields, wide roads, many motor cars travelling fast, making a steady hiss, hiss, which wasn't at ali Iike our Bombay traffic noise. I remember big buildings and wide parks; many bazaar areas; then smaller bouses without fences and with gardens like bush, with the hubshi standing about or sitting down, more usually sitting down, everywhere. Especially I remember the hubshi (1). I bad beard about them in stories and bad seen one or two in Bombay. But I bad never dreamt that this wild race existed in such numbers in Washington and were permitted to roam the streets so freely. 0 father, what was this place I bad come to ?...
«
our apartment door.
The corridor was long: doors, doors.
The
iUuminated ceiling was decorated
with stars of different sizes;
the .colours were grey and blue and gold.
Below that imitation
sky 1 felt like a prisoner.
V.
S.
NAIPAUL.
In a free state.
1971, p.
26-27,
in Penguin Books Edition.
1973.
1.
Commentaire dirigé
1) What are the elements that cause the lndian narrator's
surprise in Washington? Does he feel happy in his new sur
roundings? 2) Comment upon his refiections
at the sight of the negroes
in the streets.
3) What sort of a person is the narrator?
4)
He will have to adapt himself life in Washington and to the
American way
of life in general.
Try and imagine the process
of his adaptation.
l.
Version
Traduire le premier paragraphe (de
"For the people ...
" à "1 bad
come").
1) What are the elements that cause the Indian narrator's sur
prise
in Washington? Does he fee[ happy in his new surround
ings?
.
The first element of surprise for the Indian narrator belongs
· :o the realm of atmosphere: it is the gap between the time and
the light.
Ail the other elements belong to the sphere of material things.
There is,
at first, the noise of the city, with its deafening effect.
Besides, the architecture
of Washington, with its skyscrapers
altemating with small bouses and their unfenced private
gardens, seems to be quite different from the one in Bombay.
But it is mainly the size
and the number of things which strike.
»
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