Sujet 1 - Partie 1 · Bac Anglais Métropole remplacement 2025

Paying particular attention to the characteristics of the documents, show how they interact to explore the purpose of reading.

Réponse : This dossier, centered on the theme "Expression and the construction of the self," examines the multifaceted purpose of reading through three diverse media: a 1938 oil painting by Edward Hopper (Document A), an excerpt from Amitav Ghosh's 2019 novel Gun Island (Document B), and a 2014 speech delivered by contemporary author John Green (Document C). Together, these works investigate whether reading serves as an isolating escape from reality, a catalyst for personal transformation and unsettling desires, or an essential human connection fostering empathy and self-understanding. First, reading is depicted as a sanctuary offering physical and mental escapism. In Hopper's painting, a solitary woman sits absorbed in a book inside a train compartment. The dark window and her downcast eyes emphasize that, although physically travelling through geographical space, her true journey is internal. The book acts as a protective bubble, detaching her from the external world. Similarly, the narrator in Ghosh's novel recalls how, during his youth in Calcutta, reading was his primary "means [...] of escaping the narrowness of the world I lived in." Seeking refuge in second-hand paperbacks, he used literature to transcend economic and geographic constraints. Both documents thus demonstrate how books provide a private retreat from mundane surroundings. However, reading does not merely shield individuals from reality; it actively reshapes their worldview, sparking restlessness and displacement. Ghosh notes that novels are a "powerful medium of dreams," instilling aspirations of faraway places that can render one's immediate environment unfulfilling. He reflects that novels acted as "instruments of my uprooting," producing unsettling yearnings that mirror modern digital media's power to displace. Here, the purpose of reading shifts from passive recreation to an active, destabilizing force that triggers self-questioning and geographic mobility. Finally, literature serves as a crucial tool for constructing identity and cultivating radical empathy. While Hopper captures the solitary reader and Ghosh warns of uprooting, John Green highlights reading as an intimate, collaborative bridge between consciousnesses. In his speech, Green asserts that human beings are fundamentally trapped inside their own bodies and minds. Literature uniquely counters this solipsism by requiring readers to translate "scratches on a page into ideas," making them co-creators of meaning. Through figurative language—what he humorously calls "All That English Stuff"—reading enables individuals to inhabit another's consciousness, moving from passive observation to deeply felt experience. In doing so, it affirms both our own existence and that of others. In conclusion, these documents reveal complementary dimensions of reading. What begins in Hopper as quiet withdrawal evolves in Ghosh into an engine of longing and self-determination, and culminates in Green's view of literature as an irreplaceable means of escaping the prison of the self and connecting with others. Whether a refuge, a source of dreams or a bridge between minds, reading ultimately emerges as a fundamental way of shaping who we are and of expressing our shared humanity.