Pondichéry, 2015, LV1
Gaia writes to her father about living in Pagford. Imagine the letter/e-mail. (300 words)
J. K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy, 2012
The move to Pagford had been the worst thing that had ever happened to Gaia Bawden. Excepting occasional visits to her father in Reading, London was all that she had ever known. So incredulous had Gaia been, when Kay had first said she wanted to move to a tiny West Country town, that it had been weeks before she took the threat seriously. She had thought it one of Kay's mad ideas, like the two chickens she had bought for their tiny back garden in Hackney (killed by a fox a week after purchase), or deciding to ruin half their saucepans and permanently scar her own hand by making marmelade, when she hardly ever cooked.
Wrenched from friends she had had from primary school, from the house she had known since she was eight, from weekends that were, increasingly, about every kind of urban fun, Gaia had been plunged, over the pleas, threats and protests, into a life she had never dreamed existed. Cobbled streets and no shops open after six o'clock, a communal life that seemed to revolve around the church, and where you could often hear birdsong and nothing else: Gaia felt as though she had fallen through a portal into a land lost in time.
She and Kay had clung tightly to each other all Gaia's life (for her father had never lived with them, and Kay's two successive relationships had never been formalized), bickering, condoling and growing steadily more like flat-mates with passing years. Now, though, Gaia saw nothing but an enemy when she looked across the kitchen table. Her only ambition was to return to London, by any means possible, and to make Kay as unhappy as she could, in revenge. She could not decide whether it would punish Kay more to fail all her GCSEs1, or to pass them, and try and get her father to agree to house her, while she attended a sixth-form college in London. In the meantime, she had to exist in alien territory, where her looks and her accent, once instant passports to the most select social circles, had become foreign currency.
1 GCSE: diploma for students aged 14 to 16 in Britain
Quel type de texte faut-il produire ?
J. K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy, 2012
The move to Pagford had been the worst thing that had ever happened to Gaia Bawden. Excepting occasional visits to her father in Reading, London was all that she had ever known. So incredulous had Gaia been, when Kay had first said she wanted to move to a tiny West Country town, that it had been weeks before she took the threat seriously. She had thought it one of Kay's mad ideas, like the two chickens she had bought for their tiny back garden in Hackney (killed by a fox a week after purchase), or deciding to ruin half their saucepans and permanently scar her own hand by making marmelade, when she hardly ever cooked.
Wrenched from friends she had had from primary school, from the house she had known since she was eight, from weekends that were, increasingly, about every kind of urban fun, Gaia had been plunged, over the pleas, threats and protests, into a life she had never dreamed existed. Cobbled streets and no shops open after six o'clock, a communal life that seemed to revolve around the church, and where you could often hear birdsong and nothing else: Gaia felt as though she had fallen through a portal into a land lost in time.
She and Kay had clung tightly to each other all Gaia's life (for her father had never lived with them, and Kay's two successive relationships had never been formalized), bickering, condoling and growing steadily more like flat-mates with passing years. Now, though, Gaia saw nothing but an enemy when she looked across the kitchen table. Her only ambition was to return to London, by any means possible, and to make Kay as unhappy as she could, in revenge. She could not decide whether it would punish Kay more to fail all her GCSEs1, or to pass them, and try and get her father to agree to house her, while she attended a sixth-form college in London. In the meantime, she had to exist in alien territory, where her looks and her accent, once instant passports to the most select social circles, had become foreign currency.
1 GCSE: diploma for students aged 14 to 16 in Britain
Quelles conventions faut-il respecter ?
J. K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy, 2012
The move to Pagford had been the worst thing that had ever happened to Gaia Bawden. Excepting occasional visits to her father in Reading, London was all that she had ever known. So incredulous had Gaia been, when Kay had first said she wanted to move to a tiny West Country town, that it had been weeks before she took the threat seriously. She had thought it one of Kay's mad ideas, like the two chickens she had bought for their tiny back garden in Hackney (killed by a fox a week after purchase), or deciding to ruin half their saucepans and permanently scar her own hand by making marmelade, when she hardly ever cooked.
Wrenched from friends she had had from primary school, from the house she had known since she was eight, from weekends that were, increasingly, about every kind of urban fun, Gaia had been plunged, over the pleas, threats and protests, into a life she had never dreamed existed. Cobbled streets and no shops open after six o'clock, a communal life that seemed to revolve around the church, and where you could often hear birdsong and nothing else: Gaia felt as though she had fallen through a portal into a land lost in time.
She and Kay had clung tightly to each other all Gaia's life (for her father had never lived with them, and Kay's two successive relationships had never been formalized), bickering, condoling and growing steadily more like flat-mates with passing years. Now, though, Gaia saw nothing but an enemy when she looked across the kitchen table. Her only ambition was to return to London, by any means possible, and to make Kay as unhappy as she could, in revenge. She could not decide whether it would punish Kay more to fail all her GCSEs1, or to pass them, and try and get her father to agree to house her, while she attended a sixth-form college in London. In the meantime, she had to exist in alien territory, where her looks and her accent, once instant passports to the most select social circles, had become foreign currency.
1 GCSE: diploma for students aged 14 to 16 in Britain
Quel adverbe traduit l'idée de faire quelque chose de façon intentionnelle ?
J. K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy, 2012
The move to Pagford had been the worst thing that had ever happened to Gaia Bawden. Excepting occasional visits to her father in Reading, London was all that she had ever known. So incredulous had Gaia been, when Kay had first said she wanted to move to a tiny West Country town, that it had been weeks before she took the threat seriously. She had thought it one of Kay's mad ideas, like the two chickens she had bought for their tiny back garden in Hackney (killed by a fox a week after purchase), or deciding to ruin half their saucepans and permanently scar her own hand by making marmelade, when she hardly ever cooked.
Wrenched from friends she had had from primary school, from the house she had known since she was eight, from weekends that were, increasingly, about every kind of urban fun, Gaia had been plunged, over the pleas, threats and protests, into a life she had never dreamed existed. Cobbled streets and no shops open after six o'clock, a communal life that seemed to revolve around the church, and where you could often hear birdsong and nothing else: Gaia felt as though she had fallen through a portal into a land lost in time.
She and Kay had clung tightly to each other all Gaia's life (for her father had never lived with them, and Kay's two successive relationships had never been formalized), bickering, condoling and growing steadily more like flat-mates with passing years. Now, though, Gaia saw nothing but an enemy when she looked across the kitchen table. Her only ambition was to return to London, by any means possible, and to make Kay as unhappy as she could, in revenge. She could not decide whether it would punish Kay more to fail all her GCSEs1, or to pass them, and try and get her father to agree to house her, while she attended a sixth-form college in London. In the meantime, she had to exist in alien territory, where her looks and her accent, once instant passports to the most select social circles, had become foreign currency.
1 GCSE: diploma for students aged 14 to 16 in Britain
Quelle expression idiomatique traduit l'idée de tiraillement psychologique ?
J. K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy, 2012
The move to Pagford had been the worst thing that had ever happened to Gaia Bawden. Excepting occasional visits to her father in Reading, London was all that she had ever known. So incredulous had Gaia been, when Kay had first said she wanted to move to a tiny West Country town, that it had been weeks before she took the threat seriously. She had thought it one of Kay's mad ideas, like the two chickens she had bought for their tiny back garden in Hackney (killed by a fox a week after purchase), or deciding to ruin half their saucepans and permanently scar her own hand by making marmelade, when she hardly ever cooked.
Wrenched from friends she had had from primary school, from the house she had known since she was eight, from weekends that were, increasingly, about every kind of urban fun, Gaia had been plunged, over the pleas, threats and protests, into a life she had never dreamed existed. Cobbled streets and no shops open after six o'clock, a communal life that seemed to revolve around the church, and where you could often hear birdsong and nothing else: Gaia felt as though she had fallen through a portal into a land lost in time.
She and Kay had clung tightly to each other all Gaia's life (for her father had never lived with them, and Kay's two successive relationships had never been formalized), bickering, condoling and growing steadily more like flat-mates with passing years. Now, though, Gaia saw nothing but an enemy when she looked across the kitchen table. Her only ambition was to return to London, by any means possible, and to make Kay as unhappy as she could, in revenge. She could not decide whether it would punish Kay more to fail all her GCSEs1, or to pass them, and try and get her father to agree to house her, while she attended a sixth-form college in London. In the meantime, she had to exist in alien territory, where her looks and her accent, once instant passports to the most select social circles, had become foreign currency.
1 GCSE: diploma for students aged 14 to 16 in Britain
Quel adjectif correspond à l'image que Gaia a de l'endroit ?
J. K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy, 2012
The move to Pagford had been the worst thing that had ever happened to Gaia Bawden. Excepting occasional visits to her father in Reading, London was all that she had ever known. So incredulous had Gaia been, when Kay had first said she wanted to move to a tiny West Country town, that it had been weeks before she took the threat seriously. She had thought it one of Kay's mad ideas, like the two chickens she had bought for their tiny back garden in Hackney (killed by a fox a week after purchase), or deciding to ruin half their saucepans and permanently scar her own hand by making marmelade, when she hardly ever cooked.
Wrenched from friends she had had from primary school, from the house she had known since she was eight, from weekends that were, increasingly, about every kind of urban fun, Gaia had been plunged, over the pleas, threats and protests, into a life she had never dreamed existed. Cobbled streets and no shops open after six o'clock, a communal life that seemed to revolve around the church, and where you could often hear birdsong and nothing else: Gaia felt as though she had fallen through a portal into a land lost in time.
She and Kay had clung tightly to each other all Gaia's life (for her father had never lived with them, and Kay's two successive relationships had never been formalized), bickering, condoling and growing steadily more like flat-mates with passing years. Now, though, Gaia saw nothing but an enemy when she looked across the kitchen table. Her only ambition was to return to London, by any means possible, and to make Kay as unhappy as she could, in revenge. She could not decide whether it would punish Kay more to fail all her GCSEs1, or to pass them, and try and get her father to agree to house her, while she attended a sixth-form college in London. In the meantime, she had to exist in alien territory, where her looks and her accent, once instant passports to the most select social circles, had become foreign currency.
1 GCSE: diploma for students aged 14 to 16 in Britain
- Il faut rédiger une lettre / un email en réaction au déménagement à Pagford.
- Le texte met en avant le ressenti de Gaia.
- Le texte respecte les codes de la lettre / de l'email.
Dear Father,
I've been living in Pagford with Mum for six months now and things have taken a horrible turn for me… and for her. In other words, the situation has become unbearable for the two of us. I knew right from the beginning that it was a huge mistake to leave London and come live here in the middle of nowhere. There is absolutely nothing to do: no shops, no libraries, no pubs… this is no place for a girl like me.
Unlike me, Mum is delighted, she's found a job in a nearby village and spends most of her time reading boring novels and sipping tea. I've never seen her so happy. On the weekend, she does not mind spending her whole days in her pajamas ; who would show up anyway?
I also have trouble integrating into my new school. People keep looking at me as if I were an alien. Is that because of the way I dress? Or does it have to do with my accent and the way I speak? I barely have spoken two words with my classmates. They purposely ignore me.
I'm really on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand I see that mum has finally found the place that fits her life-style but on the other hand, I think I won't hold on much longer. If I fail my final exams, I may have an excuse to go back to London… then I would be living with you. What do you think of it?
I know this is probably not what you expected from me when you received my letter, but I swear this is all I'll ask from you.
With much love,
Gaia