Rousseau's Moral Decline in The Confessions

Extract

[...] Rousseau then describes a survival strategy: he "stole his time" (l. to find a tiny freedom in nearby activities, "occupations of the same kind" (l. but this time chosen by him. The contrast between the "medals" he secretly engraves and the violent punishment that follows marks the deep misunderstanding between the creative child and the authoritarian adult, since the latter goes so far as to "beat him to a pulp." (l. for this fact." The master's speech, reported indirectly \"saying that I was practicing making counterfeit money\" emphasizes the sense of injustice experienced by the young Rousseau: the accusation is absurd, and he dismantles it by confessing with humor his ignorance of what \"the true\" money is (l.10). [...]

[...] The passage is structured in three stages: the trade that could have pleased, the moral degradation, then the loss of naivety, marked by the anecdote of the roast (l.36) that the child refuses by habit of punishment. How Rousseau uses the retrospective narrative to tell the progression of his moral degradation. We will first analyze the presentation of a trade that he would have liked, before studying how the violence of the master will gradually wear down his interest and his joy, transforming him into a fearful child, both at home and in his loving family. [...]

[...] Rousseau initially hopes to progress in this art, impressing the one he admires first, mentioning \"the talent of the engraver\" whose \"perfection\" he hopes to \"attain\" (l. 3). However, this natural inclination is immediately contradicted by a series of restrictions introduced by would have perhaps succeeded, if the brutality of my master and the excessive constraint had not repelled me" (l. 3). The narrator thus learns, by the opposition between the potential would have succeeded" and the obstacle "brutality" that the vocation to become is quickly spoiled. [...]

[...] For this assignment, I focused on the way the adult narrator recounts the progressive degradation of an interest and its repercussions on a spirit full of good will. I therefore tried to formulate a problem that revolves around this angle. The cutting of the movements was thus: the first presents an activity that Rousseau highlights the attractions by evoking the drawing and the burin, leaving a pleasure immediately contradicted by "the brutality of the master" who attacks a child who is disposed to learn." The second movement shows the moral disintegration caused by this tyranny: Rousseau describes the fear, dependence, and the appearance of vices that he directly attributes to this oppression. [...]