It’s very obvious that this is a woodcarving of an old man. But what does this symbolize? You might say it ‘s an artifact so it shows beauty; you might say it represents an old man because that’s the way it appears to be; you might say it’s a gift from others… There are lots of different answers. However, I think it symbolizes happiness. How so? According to the owner of the woodcarving shop, he said, in the old man’s left hand, which is behind him, he is holding the happiness. And even more interesting is that, he told me, the eyes are the expression of the woodcarving, so he only carves the eye part when he feels happy, so that every woodcarving will appears to be happy as well. In that area of Japan, people see this “old man” as a guardian angel that will protect them from bad things and give them happy lives. So I think it symbolize happiness.
What are reasons school might have for banning/censoring a book?
If a book has inappropriate language, violent scenes, sexual scenes, moral issues or unacceptable contents, the book would likely to be banned. These are reasons that've caused a book to be banned. I think now, if a book starts having bad influence on students, the school would likely to ban it. Is it ever appropriate for a school to remove a book? I think it depends. I think if the school removes a book because of bad influence that has been caused, it's appropriate. But, if no damages were made, and the school is just simply fear of the influence that it might brought, it's inappropriate to remove it, because bad language doesn't mean it's a bad book, it might be a really good book. And also the school shouldn't remove a book because they think the students can't handle it, maybe they can and think the book is interesting and useful , who knows. When should students/teachers be allowed to read what they want? I think as long as no bad influence was made, students and teachers should be allowed to read what they want. Holden, as the main character, also the narrator of the book has appeared to be an unreliable narrator. Personally, I think how Holden sees things effect on how he describes things. Because in the book, it’s not hard to see his negative attitude since he always thinks everything is phony. I think, that, in some ways, has affected the way he views other things. Also, I think things that happened to him have affected him as well. For instance, the death of Allie, made him even lonelier, so sometimes, he can’t see things really clearly. In the book, I’ve read something that makes me feel like Salinger is trying to say that Holden isn’t totally honest to us and there’s more to the story. For instance, the way he acted after he heard about Stradlater is dating Jane, tells me that there’s more to the story. According to Salinger’s description, Holden basically was furious about the whole “Stradlater dating Jane” thing. If Jane really is just an old friend, Holden wouldn’t be so overreacted about this, and he wouldn’t pick a fight. And Holden doesn’t really say much about Jane and him except for telling us they are old friends that make us wondered. Another thing, Holden doesn’t really talk about his parents for some reasons that he didn’t say so I think there’s definitely more to the story, which means Holden isn’t being a reliable narrator.
I think the reason that Salinger tells Holden’s story in first person is because Holden is the one that experienced everything. He, as a teenager, views things differently as adults. Telling story in his perspective can attract more young readers since the language and the thoughts in the story are similar to what teenagers used to say. Also, I think telling story by the person who experiences it can make the story more vivid. If the story was told through third person or from another character like Phoebe, I don’t think the story will be as interesting as now. Because other characters or people didn’t experience Holden’s life so he can’t possibly tell Holden’s story and if the narrator is really being changed, I think lots of part will be left out since other people won’t see what Holden sees. Thus, the story will be changed, as well as those thoughts about things. Once upon a time, there was a big forest, and I, as a wolf, as the only wolf in the forest, had been living there for a long time. The life here was pretty boring, because the animals that used to live here had moved away because of me. Until one day, there were three little pigs, which claimed they went from home to seem their fortune. It has been a long time since I ate something, so I decided to check it out, to see if there’s any fresh flesh.
On my way, I happened to see a little pig talking to a man with a bundle of straw, so I hided into the bush and eavesdrop. “Good man, give me that straw to build me a house.” Said the little pig. The man gave the straw, and the little pig built his house with it. How stupid the little pig is. Didn’t he know house that made of straws could be destroyed easily? Later, I paid him a visit. “Little pig, little pig, let me come in.” But that naïve little pig said “No, no, by the hair of my chiny-chin-chin.” How naïve. I think it’s time to show him what I was capable of, so then I huffed, and I puffed, and I blew his house in. He was so scared that he was begging for mercy on the ground. But still, I ate him without hesitation. From reading the first page of the catcher in the rye, to be honestly, I don’t really know very much about the book, however, I did learn something from it.
The style of the book is pretty simple, and there aren’t many long or complex sentences in it. And about the tone and mood, from reading just a few sentences, I have a feeling that the narrator is a little bit impatient and all. Maybe he’s even a bit angry. Keep reading. I guess most people have the same feeling there as I did when I was reading it: the diction is very special. How so? On the first page, there are already words like “lousy” “damn” “goddam” and even “prostitute”. So we can see that maybe the character is a teenager and may not be a behaved one, kind of a bad boy maybe. Also, I noticed the author used “I” in most of the sentences so that I think the narrator is the main character himself, Holden Caulfield, and moreover, he’s telling the story about himself. At the beginning of the book, he told things like some background information about himself, however, he stopped after he mentioned his parents, I think maybe he’s one of those people that doesn’t like others know too much about him. After I finished reading the first page of the novel, somehow, I felt like I can’t really see the theme because he started to talk about things that happened last Christmas, which makes me confused because I couldn’t see how is it related to the title of the novel. But he started to reveal some clues of the theme after the first page… Anyways, finally, I think this book is a little bit irony, because the language he uses maybe, and also the attitude and how he sees things. How is Holden Different from Harry Potter? Why might Young Readers Prefer Harry Potter over Holden?9/10/2013 <The catcher in the rye> and the <harry potter> are equally important in the American literature. However, they are very different from each other. The main character of the catcher in the rye, which is Holden Caulfield, is a teenager boy who got kicked out of school. He didn’t want to do anything but hanging around with friends, hiring prostitute, getting drunk and all. Maybe he has a pure thought inside him but what he has shown to people is definitely not what a good teenager would do. Harry Potter is a real hero that in a magical world. He uses his wisdom and of course magic to defeat the bad wizards to achieve the balance of the world and to save people. What we’ve got here have already shown that how different they are. I would say we couldn’t compare those two because those two people are like, living in different planets. They don’t really share much in common, not the era, not the place they’ve lived, and definitely not the things they’ve experienced.
In my opinion, I think teenagers might prefer Harry Potter to Holden since teenagers always like to read about stories that have passion, not those stories that make people depressed. As I mentioned, Holden is not a well-behave teenager. He says bad words and even more he thinks every one is phony, and especially the world itself. I don’t think the book revealed a good message to students. However, for the Harry Potter, it always talks about how brave and intelligent Harry is. It always talks about how he uses his wisdom and magic to accomplish his goal. Even if there was a bad situation like when he met some devils, he tried to fight back and he never gave up. He has a very positive mind. And I would say the Harry Potter sends a healthy message to teenagers then he push them to fight for justice, and always do the right things. That’s what we call a spirit and a positive attitude. The catcher in the rye is a novel written by J. D. Salinger. I read it over the summer. It’s about someone that seemed to be a bad boy since he has done lots of things that teenagers shouldn’t be doing, but actually he’s a good person inside him… After I finish it, I really think it’s a book that worth reading.
In my opinion, I strongly support teenagers to read the catcher in the rye. Because firstly, this book is one of the world famous novels, and the importance of reading this book is significant. Secondly, I think this book is easy to understand since the writer used a teenage boy, Holden Caulfield, as the narrator of the book, so that the language he used was very similar to what teenagers always say and what teenagers always think. And also I think the story is very interesting because within the three days time, he experienced different things, all the good things and also the bad things. While I was reading it, the story surprised me a lot. Thirdly, the idea that revealed from this book is very good for the teenagers. The story shows us what’s a real world is like. In the book, after Holden got kicked out of the school, he went to bars, hanged out with friends and did different sorts of things and met with different sorts of people. He realized how phony the world is, and good things don't always happen. The only way to keep all the good things around is to protect them by himself. So I think by reading this book, teenagers can see more about this cruel and phony world. And I think the book can also be guidance to teenagers because it can tell them how to face the real world. Or maybe, make them realize when you are out there; you have to depend on your own. That’s why I think teenagers should read it. However, I can’t say it’s absolutely perfect because when I was reading the book, I found many bad words in it. In every chapter, I saw words like “Goddam” “Bastard” “Chrissake” “fuck” and so on. I’m aware that those are bad words and I don’t really know why he wrote things like that. But I assume they are just expressions of how much he hated this phony world. Also, another defect was that, back in the 70s, many teachers in United States has been forced to resign because they used this book in class with students. Moreover, some college universities’ libraries even have banned this book. However, later on, the society started to realize the value of this book so that they unbanned this book and thought it’s a book that every teenager in United States should read it. Despite the book isn’t perfect, I still think the message that was revealed in this book was quite helpful for teenagers. I really feel teenagers can learn much from just reading this book. So I agree that teenagers should definitely read this book. In my definition, I think being an adult means to have responsibility and to be independent.
First of all, I think taking responsibility is the first step of becoming an adult since the moment you become one, it’s time for you to take action of what you do and what you say. For instance, in china, legally, people reach adulthood at the age of 18, which means, if you do something violates the law, you have to go to jail or something because the court considers you are able to take responsibility for your own actions. However, I don’t think being an adult legally will really make you an adult. What I mean by that, if you are over eighteen, but you still don’t know what’s right to do, that’s not an adult at all. I think a person has to be mature to take responsibility because when you are a child, you are allowed to be childish, you can say anything you want to and no one would blame you. But if you are an adult, that’s a different case. People won’t forgive you for consequences of you being immature; you have to be responsible and live up to your words. So I think being responsible is essential to an adult. Secondly, I think being independent is a way to show people that you are an adult. Nowadays, some college students think they are adults just because they don’t live with their parents any more and they get to choose their paths to future but they forget that when they are in college, parents still pay for their tuition fee. That’s not independent at all. I would say being independent is that you have the ability to make a living by yourself and to face this cruel society because society doesn’t always have good things. Like what I’ve read in the book <catcher in the rye>, the main character Holden Caulfield always thinks himself as an adult, but I don’t see it that way. He used his parents’ money to hang out with friends and even pretended to be an adult in bars. That’s not right. However, the way he thinks at the end of the book is good. In the book, there was this part when he said he wanted to be a catcher in the rye, so that he could pretend children from dangerous things because he thought those bad things in this world are way more than those good ones, so he wanted to pretend those very few good things. I think that’s a very adult thinking but that doesn’t really mean he is an adult. So I think being an adult isn’t an easy thing to do since it requires people to be responsible and independent. However, these are just my own opinions. I’m sure there are a lot more different definitions in this world. All in all, becoming an adult isn’t as easy as we think it is. |