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

Throughout the book, The Catcher in the Rye, we see that Holden gets himself in a lot of tough situations, such as getting in a fight with Stradlater, or even getting kicked out of Pencey. Behind every problem there is a reason why. The difficult situation some readers find is that Holden cannot accept the corrupt world. He believes that the majority of the people on this planet are phonies. As I have said before, behind every story there is a reason. Holden could have started believing the world was so unfair after the loss of his younger brother. In the book, there are only a couple people Holden admire, his two siblings, Allie and Phoebe, Carl Luce, and the two nuns. The only reason why he does not think of them as phonies is because they have valuable qualities. They please Holden, they interest Holden, and they also amuse Holden. Holden does not shun himself away from others. We see that Holden still interacts with people throughout the book. Therefore, he is not a complete misanthrope. When Holden’s younger brother passed away, Holden had no idea how to handle this situation. The day of Allie’s death, we find him in the hospital. Holden does not know how to control his feelings. Therefore, he takes them out on the world. He wants to believe the world is corrupt for taking away his beloved younger brother. Holden gets himself into difficult situations for his actions. We cannot always say, “Oh, it’s because his younger brother died.” There are a lot of people out there that lose a valuable family member, but we do not see them failing at life. They want to succeed, and carry on with their life. Holden just uses his brother’s death as an excuse to escape from the real world, and enter his idealistic version of a “real world” so that he does not ever have to face reality. This part of Holden is immature.  

Holden’s claim that he loves the museum

Every since Holden was a little boy, he would always visit the Museum of Natural History. It was his favorite part of New York. He knew the museum like the back of his hand. Holden claims that he loves the Museum of Natural History because nothing ever changes. Since the age of a young boy and till now, the Eskimo is still fishing for the fish, the Native American woman still has her bum showing, and the birds are still “flying” in the air. The museum exhibits would and always will be in the right place. That was one of the reasons why he loved it so much. For Holden, the museum was a place for him to escape from reality. Everything there would stay the same. Holden didn’t adapt to change very well. He has that sort of personality. He wanted his own life to stay the same and never change. Holden’s love for the museum represents that he can’t adapt to reality. In the world we live in today, there will always be phonies. But, Holden can’t accept that fact and doesn’t understand why people change so often. He wants his life to be simple, never changing, and comprehendible. Another reason why Holden claims he loves the museum is because the exhibits will never judge him back, and he can do all the judging. We can tell from the book that Holden has a lot of interest in the museum. For example, he always ends up near there whenever he finds himself in some sort of problem. For instance, the time when he went on a date with Sally and got in a huge fight. He found himself walking towards the museum. And another example is when he is about to leave his family behind, but his last farewell place is near the museum. The museum is a big symbol in Holden’s life. He wants to cling onto something that he knows will never change.

The Cater in the Rye Cover page

I decided to draw my cover page of Holden smoking a cigarette in the streets of New York. As I was reading throughout the book, I realized that Holden is very depressed. He criticizes the people around him, calling them all phony. He isolates himself from the world and even his friends. That is why I drew Holden a lone, smoking his cigarette. The cigarette symbolizes the stress he has built up inside of him. Every time he exhales the smoke, it is him exhaling the stress and getting it out of his system. In the picture, the smoke shape is of duck. The reason for this is because throughout the book, Holden constantly mentions the duck to the taxi drivers. In English class, we learn that repetition means it is something important the author is trying to point out. The ducks could mean freedom, or even moving on. As we all know, the ducks tend to migrate when the climate becomes colder. Maybe, the author is trying to say Holden is trying to migrate from his past and start a new, better life. As you can see, the only object that I have colored in is the red hunting hat Holden has on his head. The reason of this is because the hat symbolizes the color of Allie's and Phoebe's hair color. No matter where he goes, he always has his two beloved siblings along with him. The hat gives him security and acts as a barrier for Holden. We realize that he always puts on his hat when he feels lonely or uneasy. Also, I drew Holden with the ear flaps down. There is an instance in the book, when Holden is walking on the streets and puts his earflaps down. To me, I believe he is doing so because he is muting the world out. 

Why do you think Holden cries before he leaves Pency?

Holden leaves Pency due to the fact that he cannot handle the morons and the phonies at his school. He realizes that it would be easier to leave earlier than the actual day he is supposed to. Before he left, Holden put on his red hunting cap and yelled out, “sleep tight ya morons!” Then after, he looks at the hallways and begins to cry. Holden starts to cry because he feels as if he never accomplishes anything. He never finishes what he has started. It could be the burden of being the only child in his family that is not successful in life. After being kicked out of a very prestigious school, and never having the chance to wear those hockey skates that his mother gave him makes him depressed inside. In the book, Holden portrays himself as a dark boy who is alone and usually finds himself thinking more than talking. Holden’s cries also portray the failures he has gone through. Not only did he fail almost all his classes, but he does not even have the guts to talk to a girl he has not kept in touch with for a really long time.  Personally, I believe Holden’s cries are full of shame for all the past mistakes he has made. Before he does cry, he puts on his red hunting cap. The red hunting cap is a symbol of his younger brother and sister’s hair color. Having that cap on his head makes him remind himself of his own childhood. Throughout the book, we realize that Holden always puts on his red hunting cap when he wants to be isolated from others. Kids find themselves isolating themselves from the problems they face. In a way, Holden is a kid. The red hunting cap makes him childish. That is why he cries before leaving Pency and yells out “sleep tight ya morons”. 

Robert Burns, "Comin Thro' the Rye" Interpretation

As the class was reading “Comin Thro’ the Rye” by Robert Burns, it was a hard poem to understand. Although, it was hard, it seemed to have a lot of meaning behind each word. The word choice of the author was in Scottish, but when we translated them to English, it made a little more sense. In my perspective of this poem is a little different than the others. The author is writing a poem about a girl named Jenny. It takes place in the 1870’s. Jenny is weak and alone and the only tangible object she has with her is her own petticoat. She is walking on the fields alone, dragging her feet behind each step. Not wanting to take another step further because she is afraid of what will happen next. Jenny is wet and she does not know what to do. She has no one to go to for comfort or even companionship. She is wet because it has just rained; the rain signifies the sorrow she is going through. The rain could be another way of presenting her tears. She is shunned from the rest of the world for a crime she has committed. She has committed adultery. The explanation to why I think she has committed adultery is because the author says, “Gin a body meet a body… Gin a body kiss a body.” The word ‘gin’ stands for ‘when’ or ‘if’. When a body meets a body, they kiss. She could have had a husband, but when she met another form of a manly body she kissed it. Although, the author writes as if no one is on her side. It shows that he is. He questions why the world thinks she is looked down upon. This is because he questions why she should cry. He believes Jenny should be strong and not let the others put her down.

In Gryphon, describe three ways Baxter intertwines the conventional and unconventional and for what purpose this interplay is used.

In the story, “Gryphon”, Charles Baxter wrote it in a way to expand the imagination of the readers. Not only does it include unconventional and conventional facts, but puts them in ways where readers can understand why he did so. The story starts off with Mrs. Ferenzi coming in as a substitute teacher. The first things the students realize are the marionette lines on her face. It wasn’t normal for people to have marionette lines on their faces. This could be both conventional and unconventional. Unconventional because most people do not have it and usually is shown on puppets. But, it is also conventional because Charles Baxter actually had a teacher who had marionette lines. The marionette lines on the teacher reminded the protagonist, Tommy, of Pinocchio. He also could have been reminded of Pinocchio because he too is a puppet and not real. There was something unreal about Ms. Ferenzi, as if she belonged in another world. Her thoughts and views of certain things were different than most people viewed them. Baxter did a successful job at intertwining the unconventional when it came to the students doing arithmetic. A student named John Wazny was up for doing the tables of six and answered six times eleven is sixty-eight. When a student catches his mistake she tells the teacher, but Ms. Ferenzi replies, “Yes. So it is. But, and I know some people will not entirely agree with me, at some times it is sixty-eight” (41, Gryphon). This was an example of “substitute facts”, which are either simply wrong incorrect. But, they can also be myths or imaginations. She says the answer is sixty-eight because she likes to expose the facts, which can be true and false, to the kids just to expand their sense of wonder. Not only does it give the kids to view things in different ways, but also help them be a little more creative. Lastly, when Ms. Ferenzi was teaching the class about Egypt, she adds in how she saw an actual Gryphon. But, a gryphon is known to be an imaginative creature or practically a myth. Although she knows that the gryphon is not real, she says she saw it because she wants the kids to be exposed to exotic facts and possibilities. Overall, all Ms. Ferenzi was trying to do was expand the kids imagination, by mixing a little bit of truth and false statements in her teachings.

How Jhumpa Lahiri expresses the unmet needs of the characters through her short story, "Intepreter of Maladies"

In the short story, “Interpreter of Maladies”, Jhumpa Lahiri uses the minor action and subtle details to express the unmet needs through Mrs. Das, Tina, and Mr. Kapasi. Mrs. Das married at an early age not able to enjoy her young life. She had a baby in her early twenties and while her friends were out playing, she would be testing the milk on her hands to see if it was warm for her baby. She met her husband, Mr. Das in high school and married him after college. By doing so, she was not able to enjoy her love life with other men. She felt as if she was unloved, unappreciated, and jealous of those who did not have children. Mrs. Das did not feel love from her husband because he was always busy at work and never had the time to give his all to her. She felt unappreciated because she was always at home, taking care of Ronny and no one acknowledged it. This lead to her cheating on her husband, although it was completely wrong to do, it allowed her to have some fun and feel wanted for once in her life. Tina, Mrs. Das’s daughter also has unmet needs. She always wants love and attention from her mom, which she never gets. Tina tries hard to me like her mother, but Mrs. Das never realizes. In the short story, Tina has a white American doll she always carries around. She plays with that doll because she does not get attention from her mom. The doll symbolizes her mother, the short hair, the American heritage, and the clothes. Because she cannot get the love and appreciation from her own mom, she puts out her anger towards the doll. She throws it around and abuses it, showing to respect for it at all. She shows the opposite reaction to her mom, showing her kind side while hiding the other and expresses through her doll. Besides Mrs. Das and Tina, Mr. Kapasi too has unmet needs. His wife shows no appreciation towards his job and life, which leads him to lose interest in her and starts to have feelings towards Mrs. Das. She was the only woman who ever acknowledged his job and appreciated what he did. The unmet needs in “Interpreter of Maladies” makes this short story a bit more interesting, not only does it hype up the scene and make you wonder what’s going to happen next, it also leads you to make your own endings and have your own little short story towards the end.