The Catcher in the Rye

Holden Caulfield is the main character in "The Catcher in the Rye" he is in the center of this adventurous tale of a misguided teens journey home. Reading this was far different that any other book I have ever read before. It goes against all of the normal guidelines that most books have. It seemed to be just a big journal or diary kept by Hold Caulfield himself.

Holden Caulfield has many problems in this novel. He is almost always depressed, often seems lonely, and hates pretty much everyone. He has a horrible attitude, he walks around with the attitude that he is better than everyone else and if you are not as good as him he doesn't like you. A perfect example is when his roomate, Marc Cross, has his suitcases out and Caulfield comments on how cheap his suitcases are. He makes the assumption that just because Cross's suitcases aren't as expensive as his he isn't as good as him. For a person to hate someone just because their suitcases are "cheap" is completely insane. That is just one example of Caulfield's attitude towards people, not just in this situation but throughout almost the entire novel.

When Caulfield is walking the streets one day he sees a family with a little boy walking in the street close to the curb singing the song "Catcher in the Rye" this is where the story gets his name. Caulfield says that this gets him happy and he is no longer depressed after hearing the little boy sing the song. This of course after he as trouble the night before with the woman he encountered. So, this brightens up his day when he hears the little boy singing. It amazed me how something so small can change his day around.

At points in the story Caulfield is very similiar to me to a person with a children's mindset. He always seems to ask simple questions and really wants to know the answers, like a child. Always asking question after question, usually with a simple answer or an answer to which no one really cares about or cares to find out about. Caulfield's famous question is "Where do you think the ducks in Central Park go when the water freezes?" He first asks this question when he is in a cab and tries making small talk with the driver. The driver thinks he is just playing around with him but Caulfield really is interested in the answer. This is not the only time when he asks this to someone. Caulfield sometimes takes on the mindset of a child with his simple questions, the simple things that excite him, and the extremely simple things that make him angry.

Focus: My first paragraph. I'm still having a hard time opening up these "free-write" blogs and don't know how well I'm doing with them.

Death of a Salesman

"The Great Gatsby" and "Death of a Salesman" are common in their approach to the time period of the 1920s. Gatsby and Willy Loman both had the idea of money and power. Gatsby got his money by doing illegal things whereas Willy was the average salesman. Willy relied on his personality, being well liked, good looking, and smart to be the best salesman he could be. Although this novel did not take place during the 1920s, Willy Loman believed in many of the same ideas of that period. The American dream of wealth and what you can become and the dreams you can achieve with the money you have. Willy is struggling to regain his old self. He begins to find it hard to return to the power he once had as a salesman that everyone came to, but more important to him, the salesman that everyone loved.

Willy begins to feel afraid and trapped so he turns to things such as cheating on his wife, contemplating suicide, and turning on his children, in particular Biff. The reason for these drastic actions is hard to explain, and I think that there is no real answer. The reason for him cheating on his wife in my opinion is that he feels insecure that he can not support her anymore. So, he goes off and cheats on her out of his insecurity. The suicide attempts I think are Willy coming to the fact that in his eyes he is done. There is nothing more for him to accomplish in his life, he has hit his highs and his lows just like everyone else and he can't put up with it anymore. So he turns the his last option, death. The children problems are just the typical father son dillemas of the father not wanting his sons to end up like him. He wants the best for them and them to be better than he is and he doesn't want them to end up to what he has fallen into.

Willy has his problems just like anyone else, but in my opinion his biggest problem his not being able to realize that the past is the past and that times have changed, he isn't the same salesman he once was. That is the problem that leads him to take the actions that I have previously stated. He has it stuck in his head that he is the same salesman he once was and that he can still be that same salesman that everyone fell in love with.

Focus: I would like whoever comments to look at my second paragraph and the questions and answers I give.