Homework for Lesson #2, Catcher in the Rye

Sally's Essay:

Q: Do you think Holden is too individualistic and rebellious, or do you think his schools and environments are the problem? Why do you think so?

A: I think the environment influence part of his personality. He actually

does not have any really close friends, and he is always saying that “I got feeling so lonesome and rotten”. He stayed in a boarding school and even was not able to go back home on weekends. He was too free that he can kind of do the things whatever he want. Also, people around him are kind of violent. So by staying with them, with the guys that bigger than him changed him. He thought that adults should be individual and rebellious. When he was having a fight with Stradlater, he did not obey what Stradlater told him to do even when he knew he was going to be beat up and he was not though. Another really important reason is that nearly no one understands him, not Mr. Spencer, not Stradlater nor Ackly. It seemed that they are not in the same world. That’s why he became individualistic and rebellious. He is not a usual boy, he didn’t like schools or studying, he didn’t obey school rules. He is the one who really saw the dark side of this society, by the way I am not saying that he is a perfect person. Not like others, he dislike this society and because of this, he decided to kind of run away. Based on this, I think his schools and environments were the most important reason of him being too individualistic and rebellious. 

James' Essay:

Do you think Holden is too individualistic and rebellious, or do you think his schools and environments are the problem?  Why do you think so?

  I think that Holden may be too individualistic and rebellious, and also I believe that these two individual characteristics have little thing to do with the school environments, which means, Holden himself makes him to be so rebellious. We can see these features on him in two aspects which all reveal Holden’s rebellious and individualistic are not influenced by the environments in the schools he stays in.

  Firstly, school environments never make Holden be like this because Holden is keep being dropped out by schools, and so the circumstance around him must keep changing. Holden has many chances to live in different environments but he is always acting so rebellious for he always fail on tests and cannot get along well with teachers or classmates and at last be forced to leave.

  Secondly, these two characteristics can be seen when he was having a conversation with Mr. Spencer who was his history teacher. Mr. Spencer was trying to help Holden to find the right way even Holden had already been a dropout student, but Holden acted impatiently while listening to Mr. Spencer. We can see from his acting that Holden never wants to be told something about his own living. I can understand that Holden is showing his rebellious which is easily found in his age, for instance, sometimes I don’t like my parents to tell me something about my life, too. Teenagers are always like that, technically saying, it is because of the secretion of hormone inside the body. Teenagers will more or less be rebellious, and Holden is still one of them.

  To draw a conclusion, I don’t think Holden’s schools environments are the problems which makes him be too individualistic and rebellious.