Book report for the catcher in the rye Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Book report for the catcher in the rye - Essay Example In many ways, the life of the main character, Holden, resembles that of Salinger. For example, just like Holden, Salinger had a difficult school life that was mainly characterized by poor performance. Also, Salinger lived a lonely quite life, which may be considered similar to that of Holden. The book criticizes the 1950’s culture through Holden. It highlights societal attitudes of ignorance to human conditions. It is the phony nature of Holden’s society that leads him to a nervous breakdown. At the beginning of the novel, Holden describes Pencey as phony. He sees most people surrounding him as phony. On his last evening at Pencey, he picks a fight with his roommate, Stradlater. He is offended by the idea that his roommate gets romantically involved with Jane Gallagher, one of Holden’s ex-girlfriends who he still admires. Holden feels that Stradlater is taking advantage of Jane, and picks a fight. The fight prompts him to leave Pencey immediately. He sets off by midnight and takes a train to New York City. On arrival, he checks into Edmond Hotel and spends two nights there. While there, he is mostly drunken and lonely. One of his most memorable experiences was with a prostitute whom he paid without getting her services. The prostitute turned out to b e unsatisfied and came back for more money. He later meets his Carl Luce, and old acquaintance and Sally Hayes, his on-and-off girlfriend. Both meetings leave him more lonely. He later sneaks into his parents’ house to visit Phoebe, his kid sister whom he’s more comfortable around. Talking to Phoebe brightens him up and he heads to visit Mr. Antolini, his ex-English teacher. He wakes up to find Mr. Antolini petting his head in a perverted way, which upsets him. His view of his society as phony heightens as he walks around his kid sister’s school and he keeps seeing swear words. He visions himself as the Catcher in the rye – the guardian of children.

Select 5 poems by Emily Dickinson and analyze them Essay

Select 5 poems by Emily Dickinson and analyze them - Essay Example The poems depart â€Å"from traditional forms as well as conventions of language and meter,† and are characterized by â€Å"her abstract, spare musicality and contemplative introversion† They encompass a wide range of emotions, from sorrow to love (Poets. org.). Emily Dickinson’s poems demonstrate her unique themes, style and use of poetical elements. In â€Å"I'm nobody! Who are you?† Dickinson uses her characteristic, unusual dash-like punctuation. The two quatrains are in iambic meter. The poem is satirical in tone and mocks a society which admires self-aggrandizement. Dickinson uses the simile of the frog to represent a self-important public figure. She goes on to use the derogatory word â€Å"bog† as a metaphor for a vacuous society which cannot identify true worth. By directly addressing the reader and using the word â€Å"us,† Dickinson establishes an immediate rapport and empathy with the reader and defiantly announces her self-identi ty outside social circles. There is a strong note of irony in the poem, as it is evident that the poet actually considers the â€Å"Nobodies† to be superior to the â€Å"some bodies† valued by pretentious society. In â€Å"It Sifts From Leaden Sieves†, Dickinson describes the great beauty of a winter landscape, giving it a sense of calm which soothes the reader. Nature here is seen as a source of peace and beauty. Again, Dickinson make effective use of several metaphors: the â€Å"leaden sieves† refer to gray, overcast winter skies, while â€Å"it† is the snow which dusts the landscape like flour; â€Å"Alabaster Wool† and â€Å"fleeces† represents snowflakes which are fluffy and white like wool and also cold like stone (alabaster); the earth is a face whose wrinkles and ups-and-downs are smoothed over by the snow. In a striking alliteration: â€Å"To Stump, and Stack - and –Stem† (Dickinson 13), the poet emphasizes ever y aspect of the snow-covered landscape. The snow is powdery flour, it is soft and fluffy wool, it is cold snow, it is a heavenly veil which covers the face of the earth, it is lace with ruffles the posts. The poem captures the beauty of winter through a wealth of imagery and metaphor. The poem, â€Å"I Like to See it Lap the Miles,† is in the form of a riddle. It uses metaphor to compare a train to a horse. The poet effectively conveys the image of the train as an iron horse which is voracious in its appetite for land and laps, licks and feeds itself. She also coveys the power of this ‘iron horse’ by metaphorically comparing it to the Boanerges, or sons of thunder. Dickinson uses weak rhyme in this poem, with words which have similar, but not identical, sounds: â€Å"up† and â€Å"step;† â€Å"peer† and â€Å"pare;† â€Å"while† and â€Å"hill;† â€Å"star† and â€Å"door.† There is an underlying strain of a ntagonism in the poem, as seen in the alliterative â€Å"horrid, hooting† (Dickinson 11). Dickinson is critical of the industrial invasion of the natural world by the railroad and feels that man’s closeness to nature is hindered by the effects of civilization. Dickinson’s poem, â€Å"Some Keep the Sabbath in Church,† clearly shows that she sees God in Nature. The quatrains show the traditional true rhyming pattern. The use of alliteration: â€Å"Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice† (Dickinson 5); â€Å"Sexton – sings† (8) and the capitalization of the keywords add emphasis to the poem. As is usual in her poems, Dickinson uses metaphor liberally: she compares the bobolink to the choir and to the sexton, the orchard to