Homework for Lesson #4, Catcher in the Rye

JAMES' ESSAY

Then, in around 250 words, please write a reflection on anything you would like to talk about regarding the book. It could be an analysis of a character, a symbol, a quote, or a specific scene that really caught your eye, or it could be a larger idea or observation that you have regarding the book. Why do you find it interesting? How do you think that observation or analysis impacts the rest of the book? 

  The Catcher In The Rye is really a very special book, and I believe it is so different from any other books that I have read before. One of my friends once recommended this book to me, and I luckily got a chance to read the novel in English in our reading class.

  To be honest, I felt a little bit boring when reading the very beginning part of the novel, because I could not know who is Holden and what did he want to do. The story seemed like just telling the readers about Holden being kicked out school by schools, and I could not understand the meaning of many other specific scenes such as conversation between Holden and Mr. Spencer or between Holden and his roommate. I am not good at guessing or conjecturing the characters’ thoughts, even when reading some literatures in our Chinese class in school. The novel didn’t seem to be interesting, to my own opinion. 

  But I no longer found this is a fantastic book! I really feel so interested reading it, not only because Holden is built up just like a real person in my life, but the way that the author narrates that whole story attracts me a lot. The author, J.D. Salinger wrote this novel in a stream-of-consciousness way, which I have never read or heard about. Stream of consciousness is a type of novel that contains lots of narrations about imagination or feelings, and Holden’s distinct characteristics are completely showed in this way. For instance, the paragraph in Chapter 13 about Holden’s imagination of himself bravely facing the guy who stole his gloves and then beating him on the ground, and the most interesting part is that Holden stop imagining and keep saying “ I’m so yellow”, which may mean that he considers himself being so cowardly for he can only imagine instead of actually doing this sort of revenge acting.

  In the novel, the character’s inner heart is totally exposed by the author, so we readers can easily understand and treat the characters like an old friend because we know them so well and even find ourselves in them.

  I always just cannot stop reading the book, and the story seems is becoming much more interesting as Holden is keep wandering out of home. Also, I expect some sharp turns in Holden’s life and I think I will always be with him.

SALLY'S ESSAY 

I want to talk about the writing style of this book. The time span of this book is really short, even no more than 2 days, but it described a lot of things. It seemed that many things had happen. There are many things that the writer must explain or introduce, but the writer combine these explanations and introductions with the story or events happen in the book. Although the book only described Holden’s two day experience, the story has many viewing back and things about the past. Like when Holden’s brother Allie was first mentioned, it was because Holden was writing about his baseball mitt. Then the story told us many things about Allie. It seemed that Holden was recalling some of his memories. Also, when Holden felt like praying, the writer write about the Bible in Holden’s view. From this only two days adventure, we get to know many things about Holden, people around Holden and the environment he lived in his point of view. It give us many details. Beside, many explanations does not bored the reader, because the structure was really interesting. A paragraph telling his experience, and another telling his past or describing details. The reader kept moving between the past and the present, but it’s not confusing which seemed fantastic. These changing make the story more interesting and fun to read, which also made this a really good story.