In paragraph 2, the sentence “In France they manage these things better” most likely refers to which of the
THE SOUL OF MAN UNDER SOCIALISM
By
Oscar Wilde
(Note: Please keep in mind that as this text was published in 1891, it and the following four questions refer to journalism in England and France in the late 1800s.)
In the old days [in England] men had the rack [a medieval torture device]. Now they have the Press [a Imprensa]. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralising….We are dominated by Journalism….The tyranny that it proposes to exercise over people’s private lives seems to me to be quite extraordinary. The fact is that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits [hábitos de um comerciante], supplies their demands….[But] the private lives of men and women should not be told to the public. The public have nothing to do with them at all.
In France they manage these things better. There they do not allow the details of the trials that take place in the divorce courts to be published for the amusement [divertimento] of the public. All that the public are allowed to know is that the divorce has taken place and was granted on petition of one or other or both of the married parties [as partes casadas] concerned. In France, in fact, they limit the journalist, and allow the artist almost perfect freedom. Here we allow absolute freedom to the journalist and entirely limit the artist. English public opinion, that is to say [quer dizer], tries to constrain and impede and warp [distorcer] the man who makes things that are beautiful in effect, and compels the journalist to retail [vender a varejo] things that are ugly, or disgusting, or revolting in fact, so that we have the most serious journalists in the world and the most indecent newspapers. It is no exaggeration to talk of compulsion. There are possibly some journalists who take a real pleasure in publishing horrible things, or who, being poor, look to scandals as forming a sort of permanent basis for an income. But there are other journalists, I feel certain, men of education and cultivation, who really dislike publishing these things, who know that it is wrong to do so, and only do it because the unhealthy conditions under which their occupation is carried on [mantida, exercida] oblige them to supply the public with what the public wants, and to compete with other journalists in making that supply as full and satisfying to the gross popular appetite as possible. It is a very degrading position for any body [grupo] of educated men to be placed in, and I have no doubt that most of them feel it acutely.
Adapted from the essay The Soul of Man under Socialism, published in 1891.
FGV 2023 - QUESTÃO 43
In paragraph 2, the sentence “In France they manage these things better” most likely refers to which of the following?
A) French men and women are less careful about hiding their private lives than are English men and women.
B) Compared to the English, the French have relatively little interest in the lives of celebrities.
C) Private lives in France have greater protection against the Press than do private lives in England.
D) The Anglo-Saxon concept of “Freedom of the Press” is unknown in France.
E) Under the legal system of France, divorce proceedings are more civilized than they are under the legal system of England.
QUESTÃO ANTERIOR:
GABARITO:
C) Private lives in France have greater protection against the Press than do private lives in England.
RESOLUÇÃO:
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