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

LOTF Chapter 11 Reaction Paragraph

Ryan Irwin                                                                                                                    October 24, 2011

Surprisingly I am not that surprised that Piggy was killed at the end of the chapter. I know that since Jack’s tribe already killed one person they would hesitate to kill another person, this time it is someone they strongly dislike. You could tell that Jack’s tribe was slowly going insane and soon enough they would crack and do something stupid. Also when Jack throws the spear at Ralph after Piggy is killed just shows that since they’ve gone so far in there madness that there is only one way to go from now on, and that is to continue being savage. I feel like Golding has really captured reality with this novel. This is what would happen if some kids were stuck alone on an island. There will always be the few kids that know what the right thing to do is, and there will always be a bunch of kids that will only care about being cool and having fun. All the events in the book have been slowly leading up to this big main event, and Jack’s crew has edged closer and closer to becoming savage enough to do this.