Do Not Go Gentile Into That Good Night

I personally like this poem. In the beginning, I thought this poem was very confusing, but the third time I read it, I realized what it really was about and I could draw conclusions from it. It lets the reader interpret a lot if different things into the words presented. In my case, I think that this poem is about a son and father, where the father is dying and the son has to say good bye. He wants to keep him alive, and tries to convince him to survive. This is a very sad situation; the more I think about it, the more felling of frustration for the son get evoked in me. Every sentence in this poem really has a meaning, either to emphasize on something, or to inform the reader on what's happening. This poem is really worthwhile reading because it displays a tragic situation of life, which most of us will most probably have to realize once.

Outline for others, yes or no?

I personally feel that sharing an outline in general, is a good idea, but not in this situation. We are supposed to write a very important essay, with OUR OWN IDEAS, and own skills. We shouldn't be doing this with the thoughts and time someone else has invested into his or her outline. I completely understand that Mr. Doubt wants us to see other outlines and the ideas someone else had, but I would ask for some respect in this situation. For example, I sit next to Ika, who hasn't done any of this work yet, and now I should pass him my outline, although he hasn't even invested one single second into thinking about what his essay could be about. This is unfair. I do not want to share my outline in this situation. No, I am not dying to use my outline in order to write my essay, but I would prefer to have it, and use its assistance, rather than having to do it all out of my head.

Chapter 17

In this chapter we can clearly see how lonely and frustrated Holden is. He complains about “phony” people, but acts like one himself. Indirectly, he describes his life and how sad it actually his. Although he has to wait ages for his friend, he forgives her straight away just because of her looks. He relies on her because otherwise, he would be very lonely. He doesn’t have the possibility to meet anyone else, although it is his home town. As the time passes, she acts stranger and stranger; she is flirting with other guys, however, he still stays with her, and takes her to the ice-skating rink. After long conversations, asking her to leave with him into the wild, and marry him; she rejects, consequently, he insults her, and as a result leaves by himself. He stays lonely.

Motifs - Museum

The museum of natural history is a motif representing what environment Holden would like to live in. It is a simple world that never changes, which isn't confronted with problems such as death, and phoniness. Holden isn't very comfortable with his surrounding environment, he would like people to be more real; they act on a daily bases, he cant stand this, and clearly differentiates from them.
(pg.109) "The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be there just finishing catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the dears would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. "

This quote clearly shows how much Holden likes the Museum and why. He has already been there when he was a small child, with his school. He likes the way nothing ever changes. It stays identical, no matter how often you go. No one is faking or acting differently than they usually do. No one can act phony, everyone is calm. He would really like to live in a place like this.

Skaz

The story "skaz", written by David Lodge, is referring to the writing style “skaz”. The origin and meaning of the word skaz, comes from the Russian language. Suggesting "jazz" and "scat", as in "scat-singing", to the English ear is what it is described as in the story. This text analyzes “The Cather in the Rye”, it is written in first-person narration, in which the character is “I”, which makes the reader feel part of the story. The type of vocabulary and syntax are also described in this story; colloquial speech is used, which should make something seem as if it is more real. Although no one would really speak like that in real life, the reader always interprets it as real. Ernst Hemingway said: “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn”. Holden Caulfield is a perfect example of this, with a small difference that he is more educated and sophisticated, and the son of a wealthy New Yorker. Besides that, the characters are very similar, both are youthful escapers from a world of adult hypocrisy, venality, and love to use their own favorite word, phoniness.
After a lot of analyzing of both books, Lodge starts to discuss Holden’s narrative style. His style makes it sound like speech rather than writing. It seems as if it was teenage speech because a lot of repetition and slang is used. Words such as “jerk”, “bored as hell”, “phoney”, “big deal”, “killed me” and “old” are used on a very regular, repetitive bases. He exaggerates a lot, with a device called hyperbole, a very good example of this: “You’d have thought they haven’t seen each other in twenty years”. In addition, the syntax used is very simple, and basic. He also uses short sentences, which make it seem as if his writing isn’t very developed. Not to forget, his speech includes a lot of grammatical errors.
Although it is very easy to analyze the mistakes that Salinger makes in his writing, on purpose, it isn’t easy to understand why the reader is so interested in reading this. It isn’t perfectly developed nor is it a great example of grammatical performance or anything like this. The reader is just addicted to this kind of writing. As jazz musicians would say, it swings, and that’s why we are interested in it.

Chapter 7 and 8 Summary

Chapter 7: In this chapter Holden talks to Ackley for a while, and tries to sleep in Ackley's room. He cant sleep because he constantly has to think about what Stradlater and Jane are doing. He gets so annoyed by not being able to fall asleep, and Ackley's phoniness, that he decides to leave for New York already a few days earlier than planned. He plans to stay there undercover for a few days until his parents got his report card. He leaves through the hallway and says “Sleep tight, ya morons!”, and then leaves Pencey forever.

Chapter 8: Holden walks to the train station and catches a train to New York. On it, he meets the mother of a fellow student called Ernst Morrow. He tells lies about how good and famous he is, and that he would have been the new class president if he wouldn't be so shy and tell everyone to not vote him. He says this because he thinks that this will make a mother proud. When she asks him for his name and why he is leaving so early from Pencey, he says that his name is Rudolph Schmidt, and that he is leaving to New York to get a brain tumor operation.

My Personal Hero Story

The eight steps of my hero’s journey:

The Call: Paul asking James and his friends on the street if they want to meet and get to know each other better.

The Threshold: When James leaves the house against his parents will and enters the new unknown territory of Paul, which he has never seen before.

The Challenges: First of all, he has to stand up against his friends, and agree to meet Paul. Then he has to argue with his parents, and do something against their will. He goes through his window just to meet Paul.

The Abyss: When he arrives in town he has to find the café he has never seen before. Although it takes him a long time to find it, he doesn’t give up, and wants to keep his promise.

The Transformation: James overcame his fear to meet with Paul and enter the cafe, and realizes he is a really nice person.

The Revelation: He realizes that he was right in saying that the people who say that people who don’t wear expensive clothe and drive expensive cars are not as good as those who do is wrong; but he learned that not everyone that has money, has to show it. This is a completely new situation with which he is confronted. He has never heard of that before, and this really makes him think.

The Atonement: He meets with other kinds of people which he hasn't done before; he makes new great friends, which are really nice, and don’t only use and wear expensive things.

The Return: When he returns, his parents and friends at first are very confused; as he explains what people can be like, everyone is really convinced of him, and Paul. His idea has been very well accepted, and to honor him, his parents and friends don’t wear brand clothes for a whole week.

Protagonist description:

James wasn’t known to be brave; he was a rather shy seventeen year old, and two years younger than all of his friends. He played in the first Swiss soccer league, and thought he was the best of all, but never really said it. He earned very good money, and showed it very obviously by only wearing brand clothe with huge logos, and driving big cars. His five best friends were just like him, all convinced they were the best, and the coolest. They were satisfied stating that the "cool" people have to wear brand clothe, and drive big cars. They didn’t even talk to people that didn’t look cool in their opinion, they laughed at him. They gave them the feeling of being bad people because they didn’t have as much money. James was always with them and laughed, but never said a lot, he was too shy to stand out and deep inside thought different than his friends. He hated how they acted, but was scared to show and say so. He drove a big car and brand clothe because he wanted to have friends and be just like all others, not because he felt better if he had any of this. He was confronted with a situation he didn’t want to, and didn’t know how to get out of it. He was scared that his friends wouldn’t want to be with him anymore if he changed his clothing style, and if they left him, he would have had nobody left. He thought that he would be all by himself. He waited for the right moment to say what he thought for years and years, but it had never come.