Commentaire composé The Brooklyn Follies Texte 1 Passage introduction Ligne 1 à 45 J. Giordano

In this passage, the narrator is taking distance from the world in order to slip slowly into a tomblike environment.

1) Taking distance from the world :

The narrator, knowing his days are numbered is trying to retire from the world. He is taking distance from people, from his family, from a world he mostly disagree with, in order to reach a relative rest or serenity, to reach loneliness . There are « the others » and himself, he is an identified human being « I » and people around are anonymous « someone » line1. The Neighbors are unknown « no idea who they were » line11 and the narrator likes it like that, line 12 « I didn’t care ». The Neighbors are absent, line12 « they worked nine-to-five jobs » To support the idea that the narrator doesn‘t match any longer with the world he is living in, the author use the negative form excessively in the passage ; line 3 « I hadn’t been back », line 4 « nothing, », line 11 « no idea », line 12 « i didn’t care », line 13 « none », line14 « no children », line22 « i didn’t », line 25 « I didn’t have a job », line 37 « i didn’t give a flying fuck to projects » which also insists on his renunciation to life, line 45 « not once ». Trough his family, the narrator expresses how disappointed by people his is and at the same time he asserts his being positively different. The author uses irony to underline this idea : « My daughter is not stupid » , line 29, means that she definitely is. The development that follows denounces the idea that diplôma and qualifications are a security for intelligence. Despite a long list of qualifications, his daughter, like most people is not able to say anything but « platitudes » line33,(or example « a living hell » line 43, ) line 45 in 29 years « she never came up with an original remarks, with something absolutely and irreducibly of her own », she is not