In the Novel Walk Two Moons written by Sharon Creech, Sal goes through internal and external change due to the death of her mother. Sal becomes angry because she is having a hard time accepting her mom’s death and feeling like she did something wrong and that is why it is hard for her. Sal meets mrs. Cadaver the woman who held her mother’s hand in her last moments and was the only survivor of a terrible bus crash. It is hard for Sal to see mrs. Cadaver living life to the fullest while her mom isn't . Ben gives Sal a pig named Blackberry to remind her of her farm and of her mother and the Blackberry kisses. Ben afterwards kisses Sal a second time. This is important because it shows Ben’s love for Sal and how much he likes her.…
talking about the worst thing they have ever done in their life. Zamora began to say that both her…
When leaving Maggie’s mother’s mobile home, Maggie turns around and say, “I’m a fighter mama.” There are many reasons as to why Maggie would've said that to her mom for numerous reasons. The first reason, would be that Maggie’s father had passed away, leaving Maggie with her mother and sister, but unfortunately they didn’t care much about her making her feel alone and abandoned. . Maggie basically had to fend for herself and she tried to get by on her own since her family couldn’t care less. Secondly, since Maggie’s family didn’t care much she had to find odd jobs to help support her through her daily life, like becoming a waiter at an old diner. Within that Maggie struggle day in and out with eating and house expenses. Lastly, even though Maggie felt alone, she kept on pushing and exceeding to the very end of her life. In conclusion, Maggie said those words because all her life was a struggle to survive and become the very best fighter there was.…
Rose grew up watching his mother Rosie at a local restaurant that she worked at, Rose seen his mother tackle more than one task at a time. He saw her solve problems within her normal workflow. “She stood at…
Twyla's mother Mary is dressed inappropriately; Roberta's mother, wearing an enormous cross on her even more enormous chest. Mary offers her hand, but Roberta's mother refuses to shake Mary's hand. Twyla experiences twin humiliations: her mother's inappropriate behavior shames her, and she feels slighted by Roberta's mother's refusal.…
In the novel Burning Up by Caroline B. Cooney the Main character is Macey Clare. At the beginning of the novel Macey keeps to herself and is not very outgoing. Then when her hair gets burned off she realizes that she needs to find out things with the fire of 1959. In the end, she becomes more adventurous and persistent. This relates to the theme Persistence will get you farther in life.…
At the end of the novel Holden takes Phoebe to a carousel. Holden realizes he’s to old to ride the carousel so he sits on the bench. When he sits on the bench it shows how he realizes he’s an adult. On the carousel Phoebe reaches for a gold ring, just like all the other kids. Holden was nervous she would fall, but then he realized she’s growing up. Holden says, “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off but it’s bad if you say anything to them. (211)” He knows if Phoebe does fall off she won’t grab the ring again because she learned from her mistake. Growing up involves taking risks, but they are necessary. You…
Phoebe is the youngest figure in his life and is at the age where she is between a child and adolescent. When Holden feels Phoebe’s innocence is threatened, he gets defensive and angry. As he walked the halls of Phoebe’s school he comes across profanity written on the wall and automatically thinks “how Phoebe and all the other little kids who would see it, and how they’d wonder what it meant, and finally some dirty kid would tell them and maybe even worry about it” (201). This upsets him because profanity is a gateway to loosing innocence completely. Phoebe created the whole gist of becoming a hero figure of The Catcher in the Rye. He kept “picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around- nobody big, I mean- except me. What I’d have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff” (173). Holden’s altruistic ideal is now proposed in words that he wants to keep children from falling off the edge, and becoming a grownup which to him is the same as death. Holden than gives Phoebe his red hunting hat as a way to never truly lose her innocence. Only to be disappointed to see her “take off my red hunting hat-the one I gave her- and practically chucked it right in my face” (207). Salinger delibritly put this in the book to show that everyone must lose their innocence at one time or another and cannot be avoided but only postponed. “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them” (211). This challenged the thoughts of Holden’s ideal of being The Catcher in the Rye. Throughout the book he constantly believes he can save others, and watching Phoebe reach for something that she might fall off of scared him, but not enough for him to go save her. He found…
Everyone is born innocent, but inevitably for one reason or another, people lose it. Childhood is when this change starts to take place. To Holden, there are two types of people, people who are innocent and and phonies, who have lost their innocence. I believe Allie had the characteristics of both sides. He competed in sports, had a wide variety of friends, and was also sensitive enough to write poems on his baseball glove. Holden's friend, Jane is sensitive like Allie. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond her control, such as her alcoholic father, her innocence is being stolen from her. Holden knows this and hopes Jane can hold on to her innocence even in the hostile environment she lives in. "Did you ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row?"(P.42) This is Holden's way of asking if she has held on to her innocence. Holden's sister Phoebe is falling into phoniness. The culprit in this case is the media. It is robbing her of her childhood and thrusting her into the life of an adult. This is shown when she begins to obsess over movie stars.…
In the staircase of Phoebe’s school, Holden finds inappropriate writing on the walls and says, “Somebody’d written “Fuck you” on the wall… it’s hopeless… if you had a million years to do it in, you couldn’t rub out even half the “Fuck you” signs in the world. It’s impossible” (221-222). By rubbing the writing off the wall, he is trying to preserve children from the loss of their own innocence by shielding them from the evil things that they have yet to learn. When he cannot rub off the swear scratched into the wall, Holden realizes there is nothing he can do to shield them from the corrupt world. He feels helpless and does not understand why innocent children must become corrupt and a “phony” (94). While watching Phoebe ride the carousel, Holden comes to a mature conclusion: “The thing is about little kids, if they want to grab the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them” (232). When Phoebe tells Holden that she is “too big” (231) to ride the carousel, he urges her to go on, in an effort to preserve her innocence. Holden does not want to admit to himself that his own sister has lost her innocence. At this point, Holden comes to accept that he cannot save children from adulthood and all of the evils that come with it.…
Holden’s fear of being intimate and a part of a relationship makes him vulnerable to being hurt. This most likely hints at his fears of the unknown, change and complexity which explains his attachment to the Natural History Museum, where “the only thing that would be different would be you” (65). As a result, he completely detaches himself from people and through his pessimistic persona, he is constantly on the lookout for reasons to hate being an adult. However, when looking at his circle of “friends,” they’re privileged, rich and adults, like him. Hanging out with them gives him the opportunity of being directly judgemental towards them rather than himself because their perspectives and conflicts are similar. With Phoebe, he feels at peace and enjoys his time with her, but her physical image (a child) overpowers her personality of being unpredictable, complex and prone to change. The placement of a child mask on his monsters (fears) forces him to confront them, but in a more positive and relaxed manner. Through this, it becomes clear that the challenging innocent questions from Phoebe challenges Holden to question his self-confidence and self-worth which then leads to his fear of “phoniness.” Through Phoebe’s suggestion of being a lawyer, Holden considers the idea and immediately swarms towards “saving innocent [guys’] lives,” but rejects it after he thinks about what he has…
The two nuns, for instance, are not phony because they are different from other Christians Holden knows. They do not spoil their conversation by asking if Holden is Christian or by asking for a donation. The nun that teaches English “[does not] even sound much like a nun” (123) when talking about books. Holden even appreciates that she does not focus on criticizing the sexual aspects of the book and instead focuses on the story itself. Phoebe and Allie also challenge society’s standards as children. They differ from other children due to their incredible intelligence and maturity that most children and other adults fail to exhibit. They even differ from other redheads, which is astonishing considering a redhead is unique in himself or herself from everyone else with brown or blonde hair. Both Phoebe and Allie further their uniqueness among the particular redheads by challenging the idea that redheads are temperamental through their kindness. Above all, Holden admires his little siblings the most for their individuality among children and their objection to social…
Holden cherishes the genuine innocence and wishes he can go back to those carefree days. Holden's exertions to save himself from growing up eventually establishes attempts to protect other children. When Holden visits his younger sister's school, he spots a few swears on walls. He instantaneously rubs the swear on the wall and becomes extremely upset at whoever wrote it. Holden really wants to rescue Phoebe and her classmates from experiencing the brutal world, just as he experienced when Allie has passed away and was taken away from him. Phoebe asks Holden what he wants to be, and he replies: “I keep picturing these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye…and nobody’s around—no one big, I mean, except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start going off the cliff.” (173) Holden wants to be the rescuer that will safeguard the innocent from growing up and experiencing pain. He wants to be the savior that he did not have in his childhood days. While saving these children, he prevents them from experiencing the pain he goes through, but these painful moments are exactly the ones that the children need to mature and develop. On the other hand, Holden never fully recoups from the death of Allie. It is Holden's impotence to shield himself of what causes him to protect others from a fate he could not save himself…
During the beginning of the book, Sal refused to empathize with others because she thought she had a bigger problem at hand, her mother. In this quote, Sal refuses to empathize with her father and how he Mrs.Cadaver, and her relevance to their family. “Who cares? I thought. Who cares how he met Mrs.Cadaver?” Sal isn’t looking at her father’s perspective and is lacking empathy to her father. She is also disrespecting her father which affects the way she is viewed. In the middle of the novel, Sal is beginning to empathize with Phoebe, when her mother leaves instead of being stubborn and ignoring. “I felt bad for Phoebe. I knew I should get up and try to be nice, but I remembered when I had felt like that, and I knew that sometimes you just wanted to be alone with the birds of sadness.” Sal is starting to empathize with others because instead of forcing a situation with Phoebe she remembers how she felt when her mother left and decided to give Phoebe space and time. At the end of the novel Sal is empathizing with people in all sorts of situations. In this quote, Sal is starting to learn more about herself than at the beginning. “It seems to me that we can’t explain all the truly awful things in the world like war and murder and brain tumors and we can’t fix these things, so we look at the frightening things that are closer to us and we magnify them…
J.D. Salinger uses glass cases and profanity to portray the importance of Holden's need to protect the youth of Phoebe and other children. Holden's need to preserve chastity also appears in characters that Holden interacts with such as Jane and Phoebe. Like Holden, I feel the need to protect my own brother from reality. I want him to remain youthful in believing in the magic of Christmas forever. I also fear the devastation he might feel when told the truth. Many of us use such innocence to shield ourselves and others from the corruptions of society. However, progression shapes people into who they are and gives reality a…