Extract
[...] The essayist dismantles the image of this perfect America by asserting that . ] here everything is false » and refers to a comparison with a completely industrial society, ' false, the kind of music spread over us by I don't know what torrential and mechanical devices He thus invites us to re-question the true nature of Man and the meaning of his actions, proclaiming that the free man is not found there. He denounces the 'stigmata of devouring and soulless civilization » and warns the people of Europe, observing with fear that « I am perhaps no longer, myself, than a simulacrum of man, an imitation of Duhamel . [...]
[...] Resources: - Luce-Marie ALBIGÈS and Marine VASSEUR, 'The United States' intervention in the First World War', History through Images [online], accessed December 03, 2019. [...]
[...] Il especially attacks the 'culture' of America and its effects. Thus, the vivid description made of its slaughterhouses, in full effervescence, cruel and unbearable, makes one shudder, showing scenes of another America, that of the underside of the decor, of its smallness, of its mediocrity and of its absurdity. It exposes ' L'animal that has just died, falling into the scalding pan » and thus warns the reader 'Syou have never breathed in the wild and stale smell of the slaughterhouse . [...]
[...] In fact, the pro and anti-Americanism that underlies this story, to a large extent, holds, more than a disagreement over values and the influence of American culture, in line with Dadaism in France, a broader questioning of the civilisation sense of the world and this, at the initiative of the traumatic experience of the Great War. The illusory springs of the civilisation shock cannot contain a fear much greater than that of the simple 'monster' American. By syllogism, therefore, Duhamel appeals to a revival of the sense of Humanity, in all its dimensions. [...]
[...] First, the man depicts a world that is astonishing, made up of multiplescenes » : everything and surprises, from its hygiene control modes to its skyscrapers, from its public advertising hegemony to its election parties, from its racial segregation modes to its production modes. The organization of American society is perceived in its details, its adjustments of the infinitesimal. He describes fragments of fleeting scenes, cut, sometimes colliding like snapshots taken with a single glance, by the passing visitor. We observe comical scenes if they were not believable such as the taking of the oral temperature of all passengers. Duhamel exposes here a vision: that of superficiality that is given to see in a deviating world. [...]
