Thème Général: the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (Extracts)
Pauline GIROUD - Strasbourg
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 (extracts)
Anticipation à partir du titre et de la couverture du livre
Eventuellement écrire au tableau: type of document? Kind of writing? Who? Content? Tone? Register?
What type of document is this?
This is an extract from a novel which must be written like a diary.
What kind of writing can you expect?
We can expect the narrator to relate moments of his live that he considers as important
Personal details of his life
Secret wishes and hopes
Adrian Mole: who is he? What is he writing?
He apparently is a 13-year-old teenager so he must be telling about his teenage life. He might be talking about girls, school, his relationship with his parents, friends, etc.
What tone can you expect?
"13 ¾" gives us the hint that the boy's writing may be quite humorous. Besides, the book cover is full of colours and small drawings, which gives an impression of freshness and colourful imagination, creativity. Indeed, he is a 13 year-old-boy and we can obviously expect some light and colourful comments and not serious and solemn statements of course.
Lecture - compréhension globale
Characters (+ info: Name? Age? Occupation? Personality?...)
Adrian Mole – 13 –
Mother – housewife (but she intends to get a job) – not really mother-like, she doesn't really care about her boy's well-being
Father –
Grandmother – seems to be the only one who cares
Nigel – 13? – Adrian's school friend – belongs to a higher social class, at least a better educated family
Mr Lucas, the neighbour – seems to be the mother's lover (?)
Time of the year?
Beginning of the year, during Xmas holidays
Place?
Presumably in England
Social class?
Working class, lower class?
Main events mentioned in Adrian's everyday life?
His parents' getting drunk
His mother's not wearing the apron Adrian offered her at Christmas
The family dog's always behaving badly or getting in trouble
Adrian's having spots
Health (Adrian's and his lack of vitamin C, his parents' being ill)
Nigel and his seemingly perfect life
Mr Lucas' suspect visits to his mother
From the information you collected, write a short paragraph to present the document
Elucidation du vocabulaire (voir fiche)
compréhension détaillée
What are the main themes or points of interests to be developed in a commentary?
Laisser 10-15 minutes aux élèves pour réfléchir, puis reprendre les thèmes au tableau. Décider de 4 ou 5 thèmes à étudier/développer. Les élèves travailleront en groupe de façon autonome (environ 1h): ils devront réfléchir au thème choisi, justifier avec des exemples tirés du texte et développer. Enfin, ils présenteront leur recherche à la classe qui prendra des notes. Pour terminer, nous déciderons d'un ou plusieurs plans possibles pour le commentaire. Evaluation finale: les élèves rédigeront le commentaire.
Exemple de thèmes (+ notes diverses):
Adrian's relationship with his parents (and grandma)
They seem never to talk to him, except sharply ("go and buy an orange then" line40).
He has to act as an adult around the house since his parents have given up (cooking, taking care of the dog…)
Takes advantage of his grandmother by showing her his neat and tidy room so that she'll give him money.
Relationship with his friend Nigel
Jealousy (no spots, went abroad, goes out with Pandora…). From Adrian's point of view, eventhough Adrian doesn't actually put it in words, Nigel appears as the boy with a perfect life, perfect presents, perfect skin (!) so he hates him for it… but he also seems to be his only friend. Kind of love-hate relationship?
(Is the reader/the diary Adrian's only friend? Is that the reason for having a diary?)
Humour : how is it built? How does it work?
naivety
short sentences
unexpected statements (peculiar way of thinking)
Tone
funny, fresh but also deeply sad and miserable at the same time
Writing of a 13 year-old (naive, cute, funny) but who has quite his share of problems and who might be pretty sad inside.
Diary writing as a genre: in what way does diaries differ from usual narratives? How does it manage to be effective?
no description (since it's not supposed to be read by someone except the writer of the diary who obviously knows already about his family!)
no dialogue
very personal details
There are not many details and the writing is not really elaborate, so how does the reader manage to get so much from so little? How does a young boy's diary manage to tell as much as a detailed-narrative?
That's the interesting point in this book: we, the reader, know actually more than the writer himself. He just writes the facts, without being able to analyse them, maybe because he is too young or because he doesn't really want to, but we as adults are more able to decipher, to understand what is really going on in this house: his mother is certainly having an affair with the neighbour, Mr Lucas. Adrian's father seems to know about it since the parents had an argument after Mr Lucas left, and his mother cried. The mother doesn't really care about her boy (she doesn't wear the apron, and she is apparently quite sharp with him), the dog is really badly treated; Adrian doesn't seem to understand that keeping the dog in the coal shed means mistreating him, but for us it is obvious.
That's also what makes these extracts quite sad: Adrian writes about his life with naivety, but he doesn't realize that his life is not that of a 13-year-old boy. He does the cooking for the whole family because they're all ill (or drunk…?), he visits the dog at the vet, he takes care of the house… all this, without Adrian's intervention in trying to call to our pity, brings out a load of sadness mixed with compassion in the reader.
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