Catcher Vignette

 Vignettes are a form of storytelling that Holden often uses in his narrative, and they usually reveal something about his personality. For example in Chapter 15, Holden tells a story about a conversation he had with a kid waiting outside of an infirmary, after his  encounter with the nuns.

 Throughout the story, Holden words things to avoid seeming caring or emotional. The way that Holden describes the religion in his conversation ," The thing was, you could tell by the way he asked me that he was trying to find out if I was Catholic ... That kind of stuff drives me crazy," shows us that while he understates his opinion, the fact that religion was a factor in how that conversation played out deeply bothered him. This makes this vignette powerful because of the unusual way that Holden reacts to it.  

 Salinger's use of italics on certain words help to add emphasis to those words by making them more noticeable to reader.

George Saunders Voice Analysis

George Saunders

In this portion of Saunders’ speech he gave at Syracuse University he talks about kindness. In this meaningful speech he employs multiple techniques in order to show his voice as a writer and speaker. Some of these techniques are narrative techniques, exhibition of perceptivity, and offering of surprising information and observations.

                In his speech and in the video that goes along with the kindness portion, Saunders uses narrative techniques to help deliver his message and voice. He does this in three ways, movement from beginning to end, dialogue, and imagery. The movement in the speech is a little abstract because the same supporting idea travels with the speech however he moves his focus from “Ellen” to how people should treat others in general. He uses dialogue such as,” Your hair taste good?” to help emphasize the bullying and rejection that Ellen had to face in his school and neighborhood. Finally he uses Imagery do describe how he saw Ellen, with her old lady glasses or her facial expression when she was bullied. His descriptions help us see in our mind what he saw when he was in school and therefore help us connect.

                The next technique Saunders uses is his exhibition of perceptivity. He uses this when he talks about how people should treat others. He explains that simply being nice to someone is not enough but you should make sure others are kind to that person as well and if that person feels alone or rejected you should attempt to change that and make them feel like they belong. This is an example of his perceptivity because the average person would probably not think about being king in the way that Saunders does. This perceptivity adds to his voice by shoeing that he is a deep thinker with string opinions that he is not afraid to argue for.

                The final technique that Saunders employs in order to create his voice is his offering of surprising information and observations. Throughout his speech Saunders shows us many things he notices and remembers about Ellen. Some of his observations include seeing her standing alone in her yard afraid to leave or his feeling of regret even 40 years later, he also includes a twist when Ellen simply moves away instead of perhaps finding friends or acceptance of some sort. This helps us see an observant side of Saunders as well as showing us a compassionate and sympathetic side from his regret all of which add a sense of wisdom to his overall voice as a writer.

Catcher in the Rye 9-10

Blog Option One:  Considering a writing technique/ studying symbolism in the text.

http://darynkagan.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/your-rattle-no-one-else-can-hear/

Please create a connection between the article above and our discussion of the baseball mitt.  In this article above, how does the writer use a simple discussion (the complaint about the rattle in the car) to push forward a greater idea?  What is this article really about? Also, could this second-half of this article apply to Holden in some way?  How so? Please quote from the article and the novel within your response. 

In both the blog above about the car and Holden’s essay we see a simple object such as a baseball glove or a rattle in a car being a symbol of a deeper and more sensitive and emotional problem within people. Just like in Catcher, no one else can understand your symbol, whether it’s a mechanic who can’t hear your rattle or a teacher who doesn’t understand your brother’s glove. This idea shows that while in the blog post the author talks about the car she is really talking about the deep rooted problems we all have in our lives. These problems can be as simple as a stressful life or trip, however, in Holden’s case he has the stress and weight and sadness of his younger brother’s death which we can see in his narration of the baseball glove that keeps him moving and now we can see that Holden has created a shell that he refuses to shed for anyone except, occasionally, the reader. Because of this shell Holden has created no one else can validate his struggle and he appears to become a troubled child who refuses to apply himself and is repeatedly thrown out of schools, but when he opens his shell for the reader we see a much more sensitive and caring Holden than the other characters see and because of this we see a diverse and complex character instead of a failure.