The Catcher In The Rye Ending

The Ending

From the way that Salinger ended the story, the ending did satisfy me. I believe that the book was not about Holden going home and seeing his parents reaction, but I believe it was about Holden’s adventure to release his worries about saving innocence. Holden spends the whole book in depression and finally at the end of the book he becomes happy. Throughout the book he is falling off the cliff in the adult world, and he is trying to protect himself and Phoebe form it. It isn’t until he sees the “Fuck you” (201) written all over the place, that he realizes that he cannot change the way the world works because there are too many Fuck you’s for him to get rid of. When he goes to the carousel and lets Phoebe ride by herself, while just sits there in the rain, this shows that he has accepted the fact that he can’t protect anybody from the corrupt adult world. This happens at the moment where he is sitting on the bench, “for quite a while. I got pretty soaking wet… I didn’t care, though. I felt so damn happy all of a sudden,” (212-213) and the rain is cleansing Holden. He doesn’t care about getting wet because the rain is cleaning him and helping him release his worries, making him feel happy because he can just continue living his life. It was a very appropriate way to end the book in my opinion, because he has resolved the “conflict” of the story (falling off the cliff to the corrupt adult world) and this is the only time he is happy for a change. 

Holden Caufield Voice

Ryan Irwin                                                                                                             April 27, 2012

This morning I woke up from the goddam sound of my phone alarm. I hate the sound, I don’t know why; just the sound of it, I just hate it. After I was done getting ready and all I went downstairs and asked my mom for a lousy ride to the subway. She said yes and she got ready right away, you’d like her, you really would. She is always looking to do anything to help others out. Anyways on the way out of the house I felt like going downstairs and shooting the bull with my brother for a while, but then I realized he was probably sleeping because he would have been out late or something. As I was walking out the door I practically tripped over my dog Charlie.

“You goddam moron!” I yelled at him, and then he went scurrying off like nothing even happened and all. When I got in the car I waited for my mom for about ten minutes before she came out. She claimed she had do her hair and all,

“What took you so long I am going to be late for school!” I said to her,

“Watch it, I can take as long as I want, I don’t have to drive you, you know,” she said. She was very smart and witty; it was almost like you shouldn’t even bother arguing with her, because no matter how hard you tried you would always lose. When she dropped me off at the subway, we said goodbye and as I walked in I saw this very good-looking girl and when I went to take out my tickets I dropped them all over the floor. The rest of the subway ride was pretty smooth though, and the handlebars weren’t too greasy this morning. When I finally arrived at school I got to my first class and figured out that I didn’t do my crumby homework.

Catcher In The Rye Mapping Assignment

View ENG2D Catcher in the Rye in a larger map

Holden Caulfield First Impressions

Holden Caulfield First Impressions                                                Ryan Irwin

I think Holden has a lot of emotions built up inside because he always expresses himself as a very polite person but the way he thinks in his head is completely different. He is stubborn because he pretends to be nice and pretends to listen, but in his head he really doesn’t care and he isn’t going to listen to the advice. I think he shows so much anger because he kind of dislikes himself. He says that he hates phonies and he is very judgmental but he is a phony because who he is, is completely different from how he portrays himself. Overall I think I would be his friend because he seems to be a very nice person on the outside and he kind of struggles with school and himself. He spends so much time criticizing other people that he doesn’t pay attention to his own flaws like his smoking habits, and his grey hair. He seems to be very troubled and it is hard to see what he cares about really because he is always changing his opinion. He says he likes the person at the start, but then he starts to name out almost every flaw the person has. I think a reason that he makes fun of other people is that he is self-conscious about himself. He doesn’t have very good lungs anymore and he hates phonies even though he is a phony. 

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken

By: Robert Frost

Video By: Ryan Irwin

Chewing Gum Sonnet

Chewing Gum

I like to chew it when I’m not happy 

It is flavour wrapped in caramel chew

When it enters it appears so snappy

Before it is bit it sits there like glue 

Who is Julius Caesar?

Julius Caesar Blog

            Although the play is called Julius Caesar, he is not in many scenes and how Shakespeare defines his character is unclear. I see Julius as weak and like “an adder” (II i 14), which represents Caesar because if he is crowned/hatched, he will grow mischievous, forget the Romans and leave dust in their faces. Although there are many interpretations, his character is mostly revealed to the reader through others talking about him. When Brutus is debating whether to kill him he says; “That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder”(II i 22) and when Julius achieves the “upmost round” (II i 24) “he then unto the ladder turns his back”(II i 25), looks up and abandons where he came from by “scorning the base degrees” (II i 26). This means he will climb the ladder of power, and when he reaches the top he will abandon the Romans he climbed over. Cassius does not support Caesar and he tries to convince Brutus to kill Caesar. Cassius describes Caesar as weak and he uses lots of sarcasm when he speaks about him; “he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus” (I ii 135-136), and us “petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonourable graves” (I ii 136-138). Here he refers to Caesar as a Colossus (sarcastically) which is a huge important like figure, and he says that everyone has to follow him only to find themselves to die with no honour. Caesar was cocky and arrogant, but he did great things for Rome in the past. Yet he was too old and weak at the time he was killed.

I commented on Matthew Clark’s blog