Weblog 15 Question A

On page 140 of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden is disgusted at a woman who cries while watching a movie, but refuses to take her son to the bathroom. She could not have done one more thing that would of made Holden madder. Let’s analyze the situation! First of all, Holden hates movies. He hates how society and human form is glamorized and portrayed in an unrealistic way to entertain people. However, the fact that some people, like the woman sitting next to him, fail to recognize the phoniness of the movie and are emotionally moved by the romanticized, happy-ending for everyone story, is pathetic to Holden. But, the woman’s actions after her crying make Holden even madder. A little while after Holden first recognizes the woman crying, he sees that the kid next to her, who appears to be her son, wants to go to the bathroom. However, the woman replies, “sit still and behave yourself.” (Holden 139) Not only is this woman pathetic because she is so moved by a story that solves itself, but she is so entertained by the movie, that she is neglecting her own son! Additionally, Holden despises the woman because she’s phonier than the movie. If you look closely, she says, “Behave yourself” to a child who has to go to the bathroom. Having to go to the bathroom is completely a natural cause that has exactly nothing to do with bad behavior, yet this woman lies to her son that he is behaving badly just to continue watching the movie. This is an excellent example of phoniness because this woman is conveying a false message, for greedy motives.

            There are many other people throughout the novel who are just like this. Towards the beginning of his “vacation,” Holden goes to a bar called, Ernie’s, and meets someone he roughly knows, named Lillian Simmons. During his conversation with her however, Lillian acts very nice and praises him for his good looks. However, Holden quickly realizes that Lillian is only being friendly to him so that she could strike up a good impression on Holden’s older brother, D.B. Like the woman who told her son to behave during the movie, Lillian is portraying a false image of herself for different motives.

            On the other hand, characters such as the kettle drummer Holden sees at Radio City, is the exact opposite of the two previous characters. Although he is very briefly mentioned and we don’t even get to know his name, Holden praises the kettle drummer for having a passion for what he does. Despite the fact that the kettle drums might seem like insignificant work, Holden loves the way the man on the kettle drums is enthusiastic about his job, and is eager to produce the best sound that he possibly can. Unlike the previous characters who were mentioned before, the kettle drummer does his work simply because he loves to do it, not because of other underlying motivations. 

Cover- Catcher in the Rye

     On the left side of my cover, I drew the "society" that Holden lives in. It's very city-like, which characterizes New York, but if you look closely, the faces of the people have two colors. I used two different colors for the faces of the people to represent phoniness. I interpreted the word, "phony" as a person who exposed themselves differently than who they actually were, or someone who did things, not out of good will, but for other, underlying motives. The two colors represent this because it conveys the message that people portray themselves in two (or more) different ways. Also, the fact that there are many people with two-colored faces exemplifies that phoniness is very widespread and common in our modern-day society.
     If you look at Holden, he is faced away from the phony people and society on the left. I purposely made Holden face the other direction because phoniness is society's biggest problem in Holden's eyes, and he is absolutely disgusted by phony people.
     On the right side of my cover page, I drew ducks, not only because Holden constantly wonders what happens to the ducks in the winter time, but because the ducks are very symbolic of him. Ducks migrate in the winter time to warmer climates. Similarly, Holden shares the same instinct as ducks because he flees from bad situations. Additionally, if you look carefully at Holden's face, hopefully you'll observe that Holden is looking at the ducks with awe. The reason is because the ducks also resemble freedom, something that Holden desires greatly. Holden wants to be in a phony-free society, he wants to live without the restrictions that his parents and teachers enforce, and he wants to be free from his confusion, caused by his inability to understand his own feelings and communicate his own feelings with other people.


     

My Cover - Catcher in the Rye

Why do you thin Holden cries before he leaves Pencey??

     After his fight with Stradlater, Holden decides to leave Pencey Prep and hang out in New York City for a few days before going home. However, as he leaves his dormitory, Holden shouts out, "Sleep tight! Ya' morons," at the top of his lungs and sheds some tears as well. Holden's crying is quite interesting because his negative thoughts and feelings towards the people at Pencey strongly suggests that he hates the school. After some thought I came to the conclusion that Holden cries while leaving Pencey for multiple reasons.
     The first reason Holden cries is because he didn't actually "hate" his school. Holden is a very critical thinker and pinpoints the negative aspects of everyone and everything, and because the vast majority of the book is composed of Holden's negative observations, readers form the bias that Holden hates his school. However, if you look at Holden's actions, rather than his monologue, it is evident that he actually likes some aspects of the people he says so many bad things about. For example, when Stradlater tells Holden to do his english homework for him, he does it without much complain, and although Holden goes on and on about how dirty Ackley is, he goes to the movies with him and goes to talk to him after his fight with Stradlater.
     The second reason that Holden cries as he leaves Pencey is simply because he was disappointed in himself as well as his community. Throughout the book, Holden exemplifies an interesting disability to communicate with other people. He doesn't know how to express his feelings and because his thoughts and emotions aren't presented externally, there are times when he does a lot of unexpected things, like when he punches Stradlater in the face, or when he horses around with his friends. Because of his lack of communication, Holden gets very angry at the people around him for not being able to understand him, which is why he is disappointed at his community. However, it's not only with other people that Holden can't communicate. I think Holden has a lot of trouble understanding his own emotions. One of the quotes that is constantly repeated throughout the book is, "I don't know." Even while he's shedding tears while leaving Pencey, Holden says he doesn't know why he's crying. Holden's lack of understanding of his own emotions causes a lot of confusion, which is why say that he's not only disappointed in others, but himself as well.
    Lastly, the final reason why I think Holden cries as he leaves Pencey is because his departure marks the beginning of his reluctant submission towards phoniness. Right before he leaves Pencey, Holden sells his typewriter, one of the few devices that helps him communicate his own feelings, that gave him a better understanding of himself. By abandoning his typewriter, Holden blocks his emotions and feelings and submits to the phoniness of society. This can also be seen through his actions after he leaves Pencey. Right after leaving his school, Holden begins to practice phoniness very actively. He says a lot of lies to capture the attention of a classmate's mother who he meets coincidentally on a bus, and presents himself as a 21 year old, Jim Steele, to the people he meets in New York.

Comin thro the rye- Robert Burns

“Comin Thro’ the Rye” by Robert Burns was a very sexual poem that I would like to talk about stanza by stanza. In the first stanza, Robert Burns introduces a character named Jenny, and reveals very little information about her. The only two things the reader gets to know about Jenny is that she is “wet” and “poor.” Our class arrived at a general consensus that “wet,” meant that Jenny engaged in a lot of sex. “Poor” will be explained in the latter part of this essay. The second stanza visually depicts Jenny, walking through a field of rye with just her undergarments on. Once again she is referred to as “poor.”

In stanzas two and three the reader gets to learn about Robert Burns’ main argument that the world shouldn’t interfere with the personal relationships of individuals. This opinion is revealed from the lines, “If a body kiss a body, need a body cry?” and, “If a body kiss a body, need the world now?” As you can see Burns strongly believes in privacy, especially in sexual relationships.

            In the last stanza, Burns repeats the first stanza, which refers to Jenny as “wet” and “poor” once again. The word “poor” caused a lot of trouble for me because it made me think of a lot of different scenarios about Jenny that could possibly correspond with the meaning of the poem. At first, I thought Jenny could’ve been a prostitute who had to have sex, regardless of her will. And, because of her degrading work, I though she had received a lot of oppression from society, causing Burns to describing her with the word, “poor.” However, I realized that this scenario couldn’t be supported by the poem. After interpreting Burns’ main argument that relationships shouldn’t be interfered with by the public, I came to the conclusion that Jenny is a “poor” body because she can’t openly share relationships with other men, without being looked down upon by the rest of society.  

The Intangible Burdens

       In The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien, describes the things that a group of American soldiers are each carrying in the Vietnam War. He also includes the weights of each of these objects to emphasize the heaviness of these physical burdens. However, throughout the whole story, O'Brien implies the message that the intangible burdens of the soldiers are much heavier than the materials that they carry. For example, Jimmy Cross has a fanatical love for a girl named Martha, and his sexual desires for Martha distract him from the war. Additionally, as the leader of the platoon, Cross carries with him the responsibility of the lives of all the men, along with the sense of guilt he feels after Ted Lavender dies.
     Ted Lavender is also an excellent example that portrays the intensity of the emotional and mental burdens during a war. Lavender carries around tranquilizers and drugs because of his fear of getting killed. Although he carries a relatively light weight, the burden from his guilt is extremely heavy and eventually leads him to his death. On the other hand, Henry Dobbins, a big, masculine soldier, carries the biggest weapons and a lot of ammunition, thus, carrying the heaviest physical weight of all. However, he is free from the emotional and mental burdens that Cross and Lavender possess, which helps him stay focused on the war, and carry the heaviest physical burden of all.
    Lastly, one of the biggest reasons why I thought Tim O'Brien was trying to exemplify the intensity of the   intangible burdens of the war was because of something that almost every soldier possessed: A "unnecessity" or a superstitious object. Dave Jensen carries toiletries, Lavender carries drugs, Scholl carries foot powder, Kiley carries comic books, and Kiowa carries the New Testament, Dobbins carries his girlfriend's underwear, and Sanders carried around a real thumb. The reason why I put quotations around "unnecessity" is because these objects aren't needed for war, but they are things that the men have to carry for their own emotional and mental comfort.

Gryphon: THe Purpose of Intertwining the Conventional and the Unconventional

Gryphon, by Charles Baxter, is a short story about a mysterious substitute teacher, named Miss Ferenczi, written in the perspective of a fourth grader. The reason why I say Miss Ferenczi is mysterious is because of the many unconventional things she says. There are many examples throughout the story where Miss Ferenczi says very fascinating things that make the fourth graders question the accuracy of her statements, but she also intertwines conventional statements, and I think there is a purpose behind this.

During the arithmetic lesson, Miss Ferenczi makes a boy named John Wazny recite the six-times tables. However, even though John makes a mistake by saying six times eleven is sixty-eight, Miss Ferenczi says, “Well now. That was very good.” (Miss Ferenczi 41) and tries to move on with the lesson. The kids stop her and ask her why she didn’t correct John for his mistake, and she tells the children that six times eleven can equal sixty-eight in higher level mathematics, even though six times eleven is obviously sixty six. The kids find this hard to take in and they continue to question Miss Ferenczi, but Miss Ferenczi waves off their questions by telling them to consider it as a “substitute fact” and to think whatever they like.

Another example where Miss Ferenczi mixes conventional and unconventional facts is when she talks about an imaginary animal that she had seen in Cairo called a Gryphon. A Gryphon is a majestic creature that is half-bird, half-lion. Again in this situation Miss Ferenczi intertwines conventional and unconventional facts. A lion and a bird are both creatures that exist in our world, but Miss Ferenczi mixes them together to create something imaginary.

Lastly, another place where conventional and unconventional things are put together are at the end of the short story. At the end Miss Ferenczi tells the kids’ their fortunes with a set of cards that she brings into class. One by one she goes through the kids and tells them their fortunes, but when she gets to Wayne, she tells him that he will die soon. This causes her to get fired and the story draws to a close. However, the very last paragraph of the story is a large section containing factual information about insects, which contrasts heavily from the teaching style that Miss Ferenczi uses.

There were two main purposes of intertwining conventional and unconventional facts. The first was to emphasize that there aren’t that many “right” answers in our world. Everything can be viewed in multiple points of view and by intertwining conventional and unconventional facts; Miss Ferenczi expands the children’s wonder and imagination. The children’s creativity is forced to grow and they use their creativity to come up with their own answers that they believe is right.

The second purpose of intertwining conventional and unconventional facts was to make us wonder which facts were conventional and which facts are unconventional. By mixing the two types of facts together throughout the whole story, we as readers begin to wonder if even the conventional facts are true and this process of questioning was another purpose of intertwining the two types of facts.