The Catcher In The Rye

The Catcher in The Rye is a book based around the main character Holden Caulfield. The book begins with Caulfield standing on a hill watching his schools football game. This was his fourth school he has attended after failing out of his first three schools he had attended. Caulfield is now about to be expelled from his current school, Pencey High, after failing four out of the five classes he takes there.

In my opinion i feel Holden Caulfield has many social issues that he does not tend to properly and ends up affecting his life in a negative way. Holden seems to have many problems with his roomate Stradlater and his neighbor to his dorm, Ackley. The smallest things about these two people seem to annoy him very much. I feel most of his problem with Stradlater is because of his recent date with Jane, who Caulfield had recently dated before. Throughout the book there were many examples that made me believe that Caulfield basically liked being alone and very kept to himself. He seems like he would be fine if he was the only person that existed. Because of his recent incident with Stradlater hes decides to leave Pencey three days early and head to Manhattan.

I also feel that Caulfield has a problem making up his mind on what he wants to do. He will put his mind to something then when he is about to do it he backs out and tries to find another option. For example, when he agrees to pay five dollars to the elevator operator at the Edmont hotel for the prostitute. He payed the money then when the prostitue came up to his room he made up an excuse that he has had a spinal operation to get out of the situation hes in. Caulfield also seems to have many problems with the women he encounters in New York. He goes on a date with Sally Hayes amd tries to persuade her to run away with him to Massachusetts or Vermont. When she refuses he becomes annoyed with her and she then leaves shortly after and refuses to listen to his appologies.

I do not exactly know what happens to Caulfield at the end of the book but i know he does not fulfill his dreams of becoming a "catcher in the rye." He says he plans to attend a new school in the fall and is very optimistic about his future.


Focus: I had kind of a hard time writing this blog entry because there was no specific prompt to respond to but i did the best i could. If there is anything to focus on out of my blog I think it would be the way I portray the character of Holden Caulfield and his social problems.

Death of a Salesman

After reading both The Great Gatsby and The death of a Salesman I noticed a few similarities bewteen each stories main character. Willy Loman and Gatsby both lived their life by trying to live a dream. Gatsby wanted his dream life to be with Daisy because that was his true love. Gatsby eventually gets a chance to be with Daisy but he ends up dieing. Willy Loman has somewhat of a similar story as Gatsby. His dream life was becoming a very successful business man. I think this was his dream life because thats all he really knew how to do because thats basically what he did his job his whole life. The only problem he has was that his sons Biff and Happy did not have successful careers and that hurt Willy a lot. Biff and Happy tried to make their father as happy as possible but Willy had one plan in his mind set out for his sons which did not work out and ended up being the result of Willy's death. Both Gatsby and Willy tried their best to accomplish what they wanted done in their life, and they tried at any cost possible but they both ended up losing their lives in the long run. Maybe if they were of the damage they were causing people around them that really cared about the both of them then the reuslts of each story might have been different. I believe that Gatsby and Willy really were good men but just let the dream of living a perfect life get in the way of them really living a long and perfect life with people around them that loved and cared for them.


Focus: one thing I would like readers of this blog to focus on is the similarites between both characters of Willy and Gatsby. Also, how they ultimately ended up having the same result in their lives because of the way they lived it.

Third Quarter Reflection

So far blogging has gone well for me and I really like it a lot. Blogging has been valuable to me as both a reader and writer. With blogging I get to view the other wrtings of the students a little bit more easily then with the old way we used to do it and its easier to find whoevers page you want faster. Also, as a writer I get to compare my styles of writing with the styles of writing of some of the other students. If blogging continues the way it has been going then I would not mind doing blogs over the next quarter. Blogging has not changed the community between my class and the other class that much but it did give me a chance to view a lot of my classmates writings and some writings from the other class that I probably would have never read before. I think blogging is a good thing and if it is effective then it should be continued throughout the rest of the year.