Version élève → LLCER anglais · Lycée général · 1re · Première

Séquence 2 · Monsters within: Mary Shelley, Stevenson and the Gothic

Why do we invent monsters, and what do they reveal about us?

Bonjour !

Dans cette séquence de langues, littératures et cultures étrangères (anglais), tu vas chercher à répondre à la grande question écrite en haut de la page. Elle se fait en 2 séances. Pour chaque séance : lis la consigne, étudie les documents, réponds aux questions sur ta feuille ou sur l'ENT, puis recopie l'essentiel dans ton cahier. Tu peux imprimer cette page avec le bouton « Imprimer ».

À la fin, je serai capable de :

Les mots importants

Gothic fiction, horror, the uncannythe double (Doppelgänger)first-person confession, unreliable narratorVictorian respectability, dualitythe Romantic and Victorian scientist

Ressources de la séquence

Les notions, les repères et les pistes pour aller plus loin, utiles pour toutes les séances.

Les notions à maîtriser

Gothic
Genre born in the 18th century (Walpole, The Castle of Otranto, 1764): ruins, transgression, the supernatural, terror.
Double
A second self who embodies what the first represses (Jekyll and Hyde).
Confession
First-person account written by the culprit: Jekyll's « Full Statement » closes the novel.
Frame narrative
A story told inside another story; Shelley's 1831 introduction frames the novel with the tale of its origin.
Transgression
Crossing a moral or natural limit: creating life, splitting the self.
Victorian respectability
Social code of reputation and self-control which Hyde's freedom destroys.

Repères

DateÉvénement
1816Villa Diodati, near Geneva: Byron's challenge; Mary Godwin begins her story.
1818First edition of Frankenstein, anonymous.
1831Revised edition, with the author's introduction.
1886Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Pour aller plus loin

Sources et bibliographie

Mon parcours : je choisis mon rythme

Séance 1 · A waking dream: how Frankenstein was born

65 min

Séance approfondie : cours développé, documents sourcés, activités exigeantes avec coups de pouce.

La question du jour

Can a nightmare become a myth?

Mon plan de travail

Le cours à lire · The 1831 introduction

In 1831 Mary Shelley added an introduction to her novel. She tells how, in the summer of 1816, near Geneva, Lord Byron proposed that each guest should write a ghost story. After days of « blank incapability of invention », she had a waking dream: she saw a « pale student of unhallowed arts » bringing a body to life. The aim of the Gothic is clear: to « curdle the blood ». Her vision already contains the novel's moral question: the scientist mocks the work of the Creator. She calls the book her « hideous progeny », a monstrous child.

Document 1 · Mary Shelley, introduction to Frankenstein (1831), the challenge

Autobiographical preface, 1831 (public domain).

"We will each write a ghost story," said Lord Byron; and his proposition was acceded to. […] I busied myself to think of a story,—a story to rival those which had excited us to this task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror—one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart.

Source : Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, introduction, 1831 (full text on Wikisource).

Pour bien lire ce document :

acceded to: accepté ; curdle: cailler, glacer ; quicken: accélérer.

Document 2 · Mary Shelley, introduction to Frankenstein (1831), the vision

Same text.

My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I saw—with shut eyes, but acute mental vision,—I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. […] And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper.

Source : Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, introduction, 1831 (full text on Wikisource).

Pour bien lire ce document :

unbidden: sans y être invitée ; unhallowed: impies ; phantasm: fantôme, vision ; engine: machine ; progeny: progéniture.

Activité 1 · Understand

12 min
Essentiel

Supports : Documents 1 and 2

Consigne :

Read the documents and answer in English.

  1. What was the origin of the story?
  2. What effects did Mary Shelley want to produce on her reader?
  3. What did she see in her vision?

Ce qui est attendu (6 pts) : Comprehension

Activité 2 · Analyse

18 min
Essentiel

Supports : Document 2

Consigne :

Analyse the vision.

  1. How does the writing make the scene vivid?
  2. Why is the experiment « frightful »?
  3. What does « hideous progeny » suggest?

Ce qui est attendu (7 pts) : Analysis

Activité 3 · Speak

15 min
Travail à rendre

Supports : Documents and lesson

Consigne :

Record 2 minutes: « Tell the story of how Frankenstein was born, as if you were Mary Shelley speaking to a journalist. »

Ce qui est attendu (7 pts) : Oral production

Trace écrite · document à compléter (papier ou ENT)

Complète la trace écrite avec les mots de la banque, puis recopie-la dans ton cahier.

bloodByrondreamprogeny

*Frankenstein* was born from a challenge by Lord ______ in 1816 and a waking ______. Mary Shelley wanted to « curdle the ______ ». She calls her book her « hideous _______ ».

Séance 2 · Man is not truly one: Jekyll's confession

65 min

Séance approfondie : cours développé, documents sourcés, activités exigeantes avec coups de pouce.

La question du jour

Is the monster another person, or a part of ourselves?

Mon plan de travail

Le cours à lire · The double

The novel ends with Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case, a first-person confession. Jekyll, a respected doctor, has always hidden his « pleasures ». His studies lead him to the « truth » that « man is not truly one, but truly two ». His drug separates the two sides: Edward Hyde is not a stranger but Jekyll's own evil self, smaller and younger because it has been less exercised. The transformation is a birth (« the hour of birth or death ») and a pleasure (« like wine »). Stevenson shows the cost of Victorian respectability: what is repressed comes back as a monster.

Document 1 · Stevenson, « Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case » (1886), the theory

Novella, 1886 (public domain).

With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens.

Source : R. L. Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 1886 (full text on Wikisource).

Pour bien lire ce document :

shipwreck: naufrage ; outstrip: dépasser ; polity: société organisée ; multifarious: multiples ; denizens: habitants.

Document 2 · Stevenson, « Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case », the first transformation

Same text.

The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a mill race in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine.

Source : R. L. Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 1886 (full text on Wikisource).

Pour bien lire ce document :

pangs: douleurs ; subside: s'apaiser ; heady: enivrant ; mill race: bief de moulin ; braced: revigoré.

Activité 1 · Understand

12 min
Essentiel

Supports : Documents 1 and 2

Consigne :

Read the documents and answer in English.

  1. What truth did Jekyll discover?
  2. What physical sensations does the drug cause?
  3. How does Jekyll judge his new self?

Ce qui est attendu (6 pts) : Comprehension

Activité 2 · Interpret

18 min
Approfondissement

Supports : Documents, lesson

Consigne :

Write a paragraph (about 150 words): « Hyde is not a monster from outside but a part of Jekyll. » Discuss.

Ce qui est attendu (8 pts) : Written production

Activité 3 · Translate

15 min
Travail à rendre

Supports : Document 1

Consigne :

Translate into French « that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. »

Ce qui est attendu (6 pts) : Translation

Trace écrite · document à compléter (papier ou ENT)

Complète la trace écrite avec les mots de la banque, puis recopie-la dans ton cahier.

confessiondoublerepressedtwo

Jekyll's « Full Statement » is a first-person __________. He concludes that « man is not truly one, but truly ______ ». Hyde is his ______, the evil self he had _________.

Fiche à trous · je complète

Complète le texte avec les mots de la banque (sur papier ou dans le document de l'ENT).

bloodghost storyonestudent

In 1816, Lord Byron proposed: « We will each write a ___________ ». Mary Shelley's aim was to « curdle the ______ ».

She saw « the pale _______ of unhallowed arts » kneeling beside the creature.

Jekyll concludes that « man is not truly ______, but truly two ».

Ce que j'ai appris

Les 3 idées que je retiens :
Une phrase en anglais que je veux retenir :
Ce qui reste difficile pour moi / ma question pour le professeur :