He sat quietly in his chair in front of his desk. He was busy. He worked at home. Nobody knew what he did. Nobody knew who he really was. It was only their assumption that this figure was even a “he”. One thing they knew was that he always had groceries waiting for him in front of his doorstep every morning. They never saw his face either, but a silhouette at night when the lights were on. There were too many things his neighbors wanted to know about him but he remained as a mystery. His non existence made him famous in the area. People wanted to see who his person really was, but that was impossible. He’d never left his spot.

          It had been almost ten years since he left his home. He wasn’t a prisoner and he was never forced. He was happy. He was happy because the house made him feel like he was a part of something, and he never wanted to lose that feeling after what he had experienced in the past.

           There was nothing wrong with the relationship he had with his mother. They weren’t the most loving of the kind, but they loved each other enough. At least he thought they did. The last time he saw his mother was a sunny day. Sunny days are supposed to represent happiness, or it gives the setting for a start to a normal day. That particular sunny day wasn’t happy or normal. It was a day of confusion and chaos.

He and his mother went for a walk in the park. He was 10, and she was a single mother. That day, she looked distracted and her grip felt stronger to his hand than usual. After few minutes of walking in silence, she told him to sit on the nearby bench and wait for her until she came back. Without a second thought, he innocently sat down as his mother briskly walked away. He stared at her back as she made her way to her mysterious destination. Her shoulders were slumped and she looked skinnier than he had remembered. Very little did he know at the time that he was the cause of the change in her figure. He thought about her some more, and he stared down at the shadow of the bench next to his feet. His mind drifted off to another subject. It drifted and drifted until he started day dreaming. A few minutes later, when he snapped back into reality, he realized that his mother had been gone for quite some time. No big deal he thought, and so he waited. He waited until the shadow of the bench was well past his feet. Maybe she’s running a little late he thought, but as time ticked on, he became more puzzled. Where was she? The fatigued back of his mother was the last thing he saw of her, and from that day, he never belonged to anyone.

His daily routine started off with check his front door step for his grocery bags. Since he never went outside, he had his things delivered. You could get all sorts of things delivered these days. He was thankful for that. After bringing his groceries in the house, he then went to his computer and started on his job. He had a heavy workload, but the job gave him the house, so he had no complaints. When he got a fair amount of his work done, he went to the kitchen to eat his breakfast. The dining table was big. Big enough for a middle sized family. He had been part of a family before, quite a few of them too. In the end, the once thing they had in common was that they left him in the end.

After he was abandoned by his mother, he was put into care with a few foster families. His experience with his mother left him to become paranoid about being left alone. His foster family eventually grew tired of his constant need for attention. As even foster families left him, his paranoia grew worse, and he gradually lost trust in others. He thought of humans as cruel animals that were incapable of feeling sympathy for others. He distanced himself from the rest of the world and decided to stand alone in his own.

That was the start to his attachment to the house. His house would never walk away from him. The house will always belong to him as long as he belonged to it. You are never to trust other people he thought. The most he did with trusting others was with that man who delivered his groceries. He sometimes worried that he might have to starve to death if the delivery man decided not to come. He recalled the time during the blizzard last year when his groceries weren’t at his doorstep for almost a week. Even the weather was hard to trust.

He wasn’t sure what his opinion was, on catching people starting at his house. He knew that he was talked about. He knew it because every time someone walked past his house, they either tried to look into his window, or whispered something to their friend. He even found little notes in his grocery bag asking him questions about his lifestyle. Some of them asked if he can let them in sometimes. It became one of his hobbies to read these short notes. Of course he never even considered meeting the people who wrote these notes. However these notes managed to change his opinion about other people. Maybe some people do care he thought. It didn’t make him want to meet them however, as he was still scared of possible rejection. He thought that he was too good for the imperfect world to have a piece of him, but in reality, he was scared that he would be rejected along with his own imperfections. Of course these thoughts stayed within the walls of the house. .

Reread I.ii.90-131 and I.ii.135-174. What is Cassius suggesting and how does he build his argument?

The main goal for Cassius is to persuade Brutus into joining him and his conspirators against Caesar. Although Caesar is about to become the ruler of Rome, Cassius and a group of other men do not think that he is worthy as a leader. He tries to flatter Brutus and talk about his positive qualities, suggesting that Caesar's qualities aren't any better than him. Cassius starts building on his argument by relating his personal opinion to his situation. He tells Brutus about his past experience with Caesar and how Caesar is not physically qualified as a leader but more as a sick girl. Cassius then goes on to talk about where Brutus stands in the situation. Cassius goes on to flatter Brutus. For example, Cassius tells Brutus that their value is equal by saying "Write them together, yours is as fair a name", meaning that Brutus's name is just good as Caesars. He also says "Weigh them, it is as heavy", indcating that Brutus is just as dense with knowledge and depth. Cassius also brings in the delicate topic of fate. He says "Men at some time are masters of their fates", which is a way of giving Brutus power, as he leaves the responsibility of Brutus's fate. Cassius successfully manages Brutus to join him using different aspects and stand points of the situation.

How might you refute the argument that Holden's plight derives from him simply being a misanthrope and/or hypocrite?

     I think Allies death is very well related to Holden’s current personality. He might not be the cynical character with only a few windows open for the world. Holden detests phony people, usually indicating adults and treasure the moments of childhood. Allie died as a child, therefore in Holden’s memory, Allie is preserved as the pure and innocent being that never has to grow up. Because of how much Holden values childhood and innocence, he probably sees that Allie has reached a point in life that Holden hasn’t. Allie’s death also angers him because he doesn’t see a reason to why the innocent have to die while the phony people live on. He sees the rest of the world has people who do not deserve the opportunity they have been given, caused Holden to have a negative approach towards them.     Another reason to why Holden has his back turned to the world is because of his experiences in the past. He has seen and been in the negative extremes of life. Firstly, he has witnessed the death of his friend, and the reaction of the people around him. He said, “He was dead, and his teeth, and bold, were all over the place, and nobody would even go near him.”
He emphasizes how the people around him acted so coldly to the incident by not even showing a little bit of sympathy. He has seen how humans can be so selfish and cold-hearted, which made him grow a negative opinion about them.
Holden’s second unfortunate experience is indicated after he left Mr. Antolini’s house. After quickly leaving Mr. Antolini’s house from the panicking experience, Holden says, “When something perverty like that happens, I start sweating like a bastard. That kind of stuff’s happened to me about twenty times since I was a kid. I can’t stand it.”
Here, Holden tells the reader that he has been molested by an adult. Seeing a cruel side of adults made him lost faith and trust in them. He is traumatized by his past events and cannot lose the thought of including adults in a positive thought or experience. Holden might not just hate them, he might fear them too.

Weblog 15

How might Holden describe an intelligent conversation? What might Holden exclude when defining intelligence?   
Holden finds value in sincerity. The reason he calls other people phonies because he thinks that they are typical people who aren’t genuine. In chapter 19 Holden thinks back to when he was young. He says “He’s the best drummer I ever saw. He only gets a chance to bang them a couple of times during a whole piece, but he never looks bored when he isn’t doing. Then when he does bang them, he does it so nice and sweet, with this nervous expression on his face.”
This shows us how Holden finds interest in people who have a passion for what they do. Even though it may be a small job, he wants to see people make small positive impacts. In order to be passionate and sincere, it is important for one to know oneself very well. They should be able to interpret their feelings and connect with others. Holden will find a conversation intelligent when he is talking to someone passionate about something they love. He finds intelligence in knowing oneself before anything. We can see that Holden has a different interpretation of intelligence when he says “He had the largest vocabulary of any boy at Whooton when I was there. They gave us a test.” He talks about how the world around him had set the standards of intelligence through a test, which he mocks in a sarcastic tone. Holden just sees the test as a limit society sets. Holden sees intelligence in something else. He would describe an intelligent conversation as a talk of sincerity. Holden will exclude society’s standards of intelligence when he defines it. He calls most people phony’s so it is obvious that he will ignore their understanding of intelligence.  

Catcher in the Rye Book Cover

Book Cover Weblog

The most significant parts of this book are the ducks that are flying away. Holden talks about the ducks in the central park pond quote often. When he asks the taxi driver about where the ducks go during the winter time, Holden is indirectly asking for direction in his future. The question can be translated to “What should I do when I have nothing left?”. Holden is a confused teenager who is unsure about his future. I think the ducks in the pond also indicates a similar situation that Holden is in. During the winter, the pond starts freezing from the edges, and starts narrowing down the pond’s area as the weather gets colder. In the end, the ducks will have a smaller place to stay, causing them to leave and look for another place when the whole pond freezes. While the ducks represent Holden, the freezing ice represents the pressures around Holden. There are certain pressures in Holden’s life that he wants to escape from in order to move on to his future but he cannot find the answers to do so, which is why he asks the taxi driver his question.

Another important part of the cover is Holden’s red hunting hat. I think this hat is linked into Holden’s personality. It represents his individuality because of its bright colour. However, the way Holden doesn’t wear it around others tells the reader about his confidence. I think he doesn’t want to be judged for who he is, which is why he doesn’t want to show his hat that defines him. When Holden puts on his hat, it’s when he decides that the pressure and judging around him isn’t there. Although Holden might be confused about his future, his hat somehow relieves him of the pressures around him .

Why do you think Holden cries before he leaves to Pency?

I think there are various reasons to Holden crying before he leaves Pency. An obvious reason would be because of regret. Pency is not the first school that he left and I think he’s sad because he failed to get through another school year. He also probably has some emotional attachments to his school since he had friends there such as Ackley, although Holden seemed to be a lonely figure, he often showed a connection to Ackley and sometimes Stradlater. This leads to another reason to Holden crying. I think he felt that people didn’t understand him and felt like nobody was there to accompany him in the world. When he went to see his history teacher, Holden didn’t feel like he was receiving support from any of his teacher’s words. Right before he decided to leave Pency, he had a big fight with Stradlater about a stubject that Holden was extremely sensitive about. Lastly, he visit’s Ackley’s room Holden feels that he does not receive emotional comfort from someone he relies on, which heightens his sense of loneliness. His crying also shows his confusion about his future. I think Holden has an identity crisis so he doesn’t know who he really is, and doesn’t know what his next steps will be. His questions about the ducks prove this, because the question indirectly means, “What should your next step in life be if you really have nothing left?” They crying might indicate the emotional strain that he is going through. Holden’s troubled emotional state is subtly mentioned through his actions such as the times why he becomes violent for no reasons and sometimes feeling lonely for the smallest reasons. Maybe the crying was a temporary emotional breakdown.