Blog #6: "Surroundings" 2012 Free Response Essay & Reflection

In the Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the character of Holden is surrounded by the physical setting of a large urban city, where he surrounded by people, however, his personal experience with death makes him feel ironically alienated as he feels conflicted about maturity and adulthood.

In the novel, it is evident that Holden has many people in his life that want to support him, but he rejects everyone time after time. His behavior is, in part, a result of his brother, Allie’s, death. More importantly, it is from the moment that he leaves his boarding school a few days before he’s about to get expelled, that initiates his downward spiral into his psychological break down. He wanders around New York City, a city full of crime and corruption, for many days. In the course of these few days, he tries to make connections with old friends, ex-girlfriends, and other adults that he trusts. Unfortunately, he is unable to trust anyone and sees them all as “phonies”. Holden uses this word frequently, he claims that the world is full of deception, but really he is uses this word as an excuse to prematurely judge those who show maturity. He refuses to apply himself in school and refuses maturity in spite of the adults that have tried to counsel him. In this case, it is clear that his physical surroundings and cultural surroundings (in that people expect a boy of his age to be able to work towards a better future) are what is further deteriorating his situation and making him feel alienated.

At one point in the story, Holden tries to lose his virginity while he is staying at a hotel in the city. He clearly wants to experience this aspect maturity, but ultimately rejects the prostitute that he pays for. The man who found Holden the prostitute says that it will only cost five dollars, but the prostitute demands for ten dollars. Holden only gives her five because that is not what the man told him. The man and the prostitute end up storming into his room and the man beats him until Holden reluctantly gives him the money. The irony lies in Holden’s reaction to all this, he is so upset that he is in tears, not because he of the incident itself, but because the man had lied to him. This scene shows Holden’s innocence as he still expects good out of people. Later on, when Holden is as the Natural Museum of History to see his young sister, he sees the words “F*** you” written on the walls. He is extremely angered by this as young kids visit the museum frequently; he wipes it off the wall. This evidence of a tainted world that exists in the presence of innocent children disgusts Holden and adds to his hatred towards adulthood.

The most memorable moment in this novel is when Holden describes to his younger sister the only job that he would be happy doing in this world. He describes a rye field on the edge of a cliff full of young children running around, and his job is to catch them before they fall off. The children falling off the cliff symbolizes the loss of innocence, and Holden’s wish to catch them symbolizes his want to protect the children from the corruption of the outside world. This explains why he is so angered by the graffiti that he sees earlier. Essentially, Holden refuses to apply himself in almost all aspects of his life because his experiences in his surroundings (cultural and physical) hold evidence to dishonesty and evil that he associates with adulthood, therefore, he refuses to accept maturity. Ultimately, the more adults (and people who exept maturity) try to understand Holden, the more he rejects them as he becomes more suspicious of their motives; he tries to perserve childhood innocence and guard the naïve from the adult world.

Reflection:

After experiencing both the prose passage and poetry essays, I felt more relaxed writing the free response essay because it felt like there were no limits or boundaries, allowing a formulation of an unique answer instead of fulfilling the requirements from a selection of possible answers. As a result, this essay was more fully developed than my other essays and I was able to extract a more thorough analysis. Some of the highlights of my essay include: the reference in the last paragraph to the title of the novel in order to explain the metaphor of Holden’s dream to be “the catcher in the rye”, connecting my analysis to the larger thematic implications such as the inevitability of adulthood and Holden’s desire to safeguard the innocent youth from a dark world, the irony in that Holden is surrounded by human presence but feels alienated at the same time, and the irony in that Holden holds a cynical view of the “phonies” but also does not expect to be lied to as the man did from the hotel (regarding the cost of the prostitute). Overall, I articulated how Holden’s surroundings change his “psychological and moral traits and illuminated the meaning of the work as a whole”. In addition, I think that my well-developed analysis indicates that I would have scored a seven rather than a six.

Despite my success in answering the prompt and extending it further to the societal and thematic effects, my essay lacked the “apt and specific textual support” and the display of “more effective control of language”. Adding a few more quotes (I only state one) would have allowed my evidence to seem more focused and pertinent rather than rambling on, summarizing the piece. I also lacked the sophisticated discourse structure and smooth transitions that are found in the nine to eight range essay; my points are related, but the evidence is not fluidly connected.

In order to improve in the future my first goal would be to briefly outline my essay prior to writing it. I will try to organize my evidence in a particular way so that it flows (at least chronologically) and shows elevated writing ability through its smoothness. My second goal would be to study and review more work form the literary canon as I had trouble recalling the details from The Catcher and the Rye. Although it is one of my favorite pieces of work, I could not recall the specific names of the minor characters so I had no choice, but to use generalized titles like “the man from the hotel” and “the prostitute”. This knowledge will allow to me to be able to find “apt and specific textual support”.

My third and final goal would be asking myself the following guiding questions (which I did happen to address in my essay): Which piece of work am I familiar with enough to answer the prompt and be able to draw specific pieces of evidence from? What are the literal and figurative effects of the topic of the essay on the character(s)? How do these effects extend to society and the overall theme(s) of the work?