Oral de spécialité LLCE; How does travelling contribute to constructing the self?

« How does travelling contribute to constructing the self? OEUVRE INTEGRALE Moon Palace and Effing's quest for identity. "Once he left the cave, Effing said, he traveled through the desert for several days before coming to the town of Bluff.

From then on, things became easier for him.

He worked his way north, slowly moving from town to town, and made it back to Salt Lake City by the end of June, where he linked up with the railroad and bought a ticket for San Francisco.

It was in California that he invented his new name, turning himself into Thomas Effing when he signed the hotel register on the first night. He wanted the Thomas to refer to Moran, he said, and it wasn’t until he put down the pen that he realized that Tom had also been the hermit’s name, the name that had secretly belonged to him for more than a year.

He took the coincidence as a good omen, as though it had strengthened his choice into something inevitable.

As for his surname, he said, it would not be necessary for him to provide me with a gloss.

He had already told me that Effing was a pun, and unless I had misread him in some crucial way, I felt I knew where it had come from.

In writing out the word Thomas, he had probably been reminded of the phrase doubting Thomas.

The gerund had then given way to another: fucking Thomas, which for convention’s sake had been further modified into f-ing.

Thus, he was Thomas Effing, the man who had fucked his life.

Given his taste for cruel jokes, I imagined how pleased he must have been with himself. → Marco is narrating Effing's story as he told it to him. --- : The stop he made at the cave is a new beginning in his life ↔ link w/ Jonas' story/ his mother's womb.

His life starts again after he made the decision of changing his name.

He let everything behind, as no one knows his true identity, he holds the power to be everything he wants. Names have an importance in his identity, and his name is strongly impacted by travels as well : --- : Reference to Thomas Moran, a painter that used his explorations to paint.

Travel defined his career as well as his identity.

Effing's and Moran's stories are quite similar since Effing used to be a painter, and first traveled to find inspiration for his works.

In that way, travel helped them construct their identity as artists and so as men. --- : There is a turning point in Effing's story, marked by the discovery of the city, which will lead to the creation of his own identity.

No one knows him, he can be whoever he wants. --- : he met the hermit during his trip, and took his identity.

He was already letting behind his name even before he went to the city, becoming already someone else.

Thomas the hermit is the reason of his whole travel, the cave and everything.

FIND MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE HERMIT --- : His change of identity is inevitable, because of the hermit's and Thomas Moran's coincidence. However, if he hadn't been on this trip for his career, he wouldn't have lost his friend, yet he wouldn't have met the hermit, and he wouldn't have realized that he needed a change in his identity. --- : description of his trip.

He hasn't planned anything at all about his wanderings, he just goes wherever he feels like it. --- : biblical reference : a “doubting Thomas” is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience.

Effing is what we can call a “doubting Thomas”. --- : Autocritique d'Effing.

En voyageant, en laissant tout derrière lui, il a renoncé à de nombreuses choses, tel que sa carrière d'artiste.

→ Le voyage permet à la fois de se trouver, mais il nous fait aussi renoncer.

Pour ce dernier, c'était une erreur. TEXTE LITTERAIRE The curious incident of the dog in the night-time. I closed my eyes again and I counted slowly to 50 but without doing the cubes.

And I stood there and I opened my Swiss Army knife in my pocket to make me feel safe and I held on to it tight.

And then I made my hand into a little tube with my fingers and I opened my eyes and I looked through the tube so that I was only looking at one sign at a time and after a long time I saw a sign that said Information and it was above a window on a little shop.

And a man came up to me and he was wearing a blue jacket and blue trousers and he had brown shoes and he was carrying a book in his hand and he said, “You look lost.” So I took out my Swiss Army knife.

And he said, “Whoa.

Whoa. Whoa.

Whoa.

Whoa,” and held up both his hands with his fingers stretched out in a fan, like he wanted me to stretch my fingers out in a fan and touch his fingers because he wanted to say he loved me, but he did it with both hands, not one like Father and Mother, and I didn’t know who he was.

And then he walked away backward.

So I went to the shop that said Information and I could feel my heart beating very hard and I could hear a noise like the sea in my ears.

And when I got to the window I said, “Is this London?” but there was no one behind the window.

And then someone sat behind the window and she was a lady and she was black and she had long fingernails which were painted pink and I said, “Is this London?” And she said, “Sure is, honey.” And I said, “Is this London?” And she said, “Indeed it is.” And I said, “How do I get to 451c Chapter Road, London NW2 5NG?” And she said, “Where is that?” And I said, “It’s 451c Chapter Road, London NW2 5NG.

And sometimes you can write it 451c Chapter Road, Willesden, London NW2 5NG.” And the lady said to me, “Take the tube to Willesden Junction, honey.

Or Willesden Green.

Got to be near there somewhere.” And I said, “What sort of tube?” And she said, “Are you for real?” And I didn’t say anything.

And she said, “Over there.

See that big staircase with the escalators? See the sign? Says Underground.

Take the Bakerloo Line to Willesden Junction or the Jubilee to Willesden Green. You OK, honey?” And I looked where she was pointing and there was a big staircase going down into the ground and there was a big sign over the top of it.

And I thought, “I can do this,” because I was doing really well and I was in London and I would find my mother.

And I had to think to myself, “The people are like cows in a field,” and I just had to look in front of me all the time and make a red line along the floor in the picture of the big room in my head and follow it. → Long sentences : Christopher has autism.

He describes everything he sees so he can catch up to them and reassure himself.

He feels the need to express his thoughts.

It is the first time that he travels alone to find his mother.

He is scared because of the thought that his father wants to kill him, and because of the travel. Scared : this is the first time Christopher travels alone.

He is confronted to the unknown.

He is trying to confort himself using his swiss army knife as a potential weapon if anyone tries to hurt him. Signs of confidence + less and less marks of his worrying: Christopher is starting to feel more confident about himself.

→ form of a list : listing everything he succeeded in so he is more confident, and know that what he still has to do is not a big deal at all. Worrying of the people he meets: despite his conviction he looks/sounds unconfortable, he is scared by his situation → his worrying is shown through the repetition of his questions and the way he tells the adress of his mother's house: he is trying to make himself understandable for the sake of his travel. DOCUMENT ICONOGRAPHIQUE Into the wild. – 42 : answer to the “ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything,” a joke in Douglas Adams’s 1979 novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

→ He found the answer to life, what it means to him : he succeeded in the construction of his own identity – He is looking in the opposite direction of the van : he is contemplating what he lost/ what he left behind but he doesn't seem to be.... »