Review about the catcher in the rye

J.D. Salinger's
The Catcher in the Rye
(excerpt)

"Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead?"

At a first sight and without reading anything else more than this excerpt Holden shows his idea of dying, I mean, he tell us in his reflections what he thinks about the dead body once you are dead. For me he can't care less about life, he can't be more indifferent to what is to live, and if people take flowers to the dead ones is not to just remember them because you can do that at home or when you go to the bathroom or when you write your english blog, though to "show" them they take a time of their life to remember him and to make a "ceremony" with flowers and to cry (at the beggining), I agree that dead people probably don't mind (not saying they think) if you give them flowers or not, they are allready dead, but is a love proof to remember in that way the ones that have allready gone. For example, my mother has always told me that once she dies she wants to be burned and us to throw her ashes in the top of a mountain or a hill, she doesnt want to be burried, she hates cementeries and flowers, churches (she doesnt believe in God by the way)... but for me, throwing something that is so important in my life, someone I've loved and I'll love for ever, is imposible emotionally imposible, I prefere to go against her and burry her before throwing her to the wind and dust, because I care about her and I'll like to visit her even though she's not more here.

     Probably this way of thinking in holden is a way to prove he haven't been a bad broder, because he has a dead brother, Allie, he remembers him, but he doesnt visits him, and as an excuse to his behaviour he convinces himself that get burried and bring flowers to the deads is wrong.J.D. Salinger's 

The Catcher in the Rye

(excerpt)

The basics of reading

An initial approach to the text

Reading

• actual decoding of letters, words
• denotation, some connotation

Thinking fealing

• connotations
• initial reactions
• thoughts, memories, connections
• emotions

Moving to critical reading

What does it says?

• literal level
• basic elements

What does it means?

• ideas and issues
• suggestions, purpose

Why does it matters?

• value?
• interest?
• onnections?

Steps Toward being critical

Read

• read without a pen

Consider

• take notes
• mark the text

Analyze, synthesize

• look at small parts
• make connections
• consider other information you have

Make conclusions

• decide why these elements or ideas are important. Make conclusions about parts of the text or  the whole text.

Analyzing an image.

For me this image represents two worlds, that are totally different but together, the reality of famine and hunger and the comfortable life, in this case represented by the "fat" white hand. The image tries to make you reflect about waorld famine problem, issue present now days at almost all Africa. And to realize that there are hundred of childs and complete families dying all days because they have nothing to eat while you are sitting in front of a TV not being able to care less about it, or maybe just be ignorant on the matter.

Critical Reading

Critical Reading
Accroding to our L&L CC.

• There is no perfect or model language or act within a language.
• All cultural practices are signs systems, much like language itself.
• No language act is unbaised or innocent.
• There are many possible, often conflicting, interpretations of a text.

What I've learning to be critical when reading is to analyse the text and ask yourself what does it says? what does it means? why dos it matters or why is it valuable? To understand in a better way the texts. 

here a very interesting video of how to become a critical thinker and why that we saw at class:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-85-j7Nr9i4

Practical Criticism

You fit into me


You fit into me
like a hook into an eye
A fish hook
An open eye


1.- What is the relationship between the title and the rest of the poem?
    The text says that someone fits or its made for the writter, though the poem suggest that the one make for him/her fits like a hook into an eye, and I don`t know, but hooks weren't made to fit into eyes.
2.- What words, if any, neeed to be defined?

Hook-and-eye: A cloths fastener consisting of a small blunt hunk that is inserted in a corresponding loop or eyelet.
3.-What relationships do you see among any words in this poem?
There is a relationship between hook and eye, and the way that they are supossed to fit, though the cloth fastener named hook-and-eye are really supposed to fit, so maybe there are two interpretations for this poem.
4.-What are the various connotative meanings of the words in the poem? Do these various shades of meaning help establish relationships or patterns in the text?
As I allready said, the author plays with the meaning of hook and eye, so there are the two posibilities of understanding, a real fish hook with a human eye or the cloth fastener.
5.- What symbols, images or figures of speech are used? What is the relationship between them?
The poem make us imagine (at least me, before knowing what hook-and-eye was) a hook in a real human eye.
6.-What elements of rhyme, meter or pattern can you discuss?
I can't really see any rhyme or syllabe pattern in between the poem, I'll say it is a free rhyme poem.
7.-What is the tone of the poem?
This poem is very ironic in the way to express its ideas (the writter indeed). I'll say it has some anger or sadness behind the words.
8.-From what point of view is the content of the poem being told?
Well, I just refered to it, probably the author had a love that use to fit like an hook-and-eye, though then it became a real hook into her eye.
9.-What tensions, ambiguities or paradoxes or irony is in the text?
There is an ambiguiti in the meaning of the words hook and eye, first making us believe it is a love poem but then turning into a complete irony.
10.-What do you believe the chief paradox or irony is in the text?
That something so perfect that are supposed to be made one for each other can turn into something so painful.
11.-How do all of the elements of the poem support and develop the primary paradox or irony?
They show the fealings of the writter, and what use to be a beautifull relationship.

Class Presentation

This week we had an activity in which we have to present a topic related to Language. We make a group of three, Kitzing, Macchiavello and me. We talked about the Theories of language, specially refering to Chomsky's ideas and B.F Skinner, we developed their theories and then we make a contrast between their ideas, as they thought totally different things about language acquisition.

Tips for a better study and becoming and active reader

Underline or highlight key words and phrases of text as you read. When you return to the text to take notes, or to research an assignment question, you can easily see which points you identified as important at the first reading. Be selective, as too much highlighting on a page won't help you.
Make annotations in the margin to summarise points, raise questions, challenge what you’ve read, jot down examples and so on. You can do this in books or etexts. This takes more thought than highlighting, so you'll probably remember the content better.
Read critically by asking questions of the text. Who wrote it? When? Who is the intended audience? Does it link with other material you've studied in the course? Why do you think it was written? Is it an excerpt from a longer piece of text?
Try using sticky notes if you don't want to mark the text. Jot brief notes on one and add it to the page, partly sticking out so you can identify the page.
Test yourself by reading for half an hour, putting the text away and jotting down the key points from memory. Go back to the text to fill in gaps.
Look for ‘signposts’ that help you understand the text - words like ‘most importantly’, ‘in contrast’, ‘on the other hand’.
Explain what you’ve read to someone else.
Record yourself reading the course material or your notes, and listen to the recording while you’re travelling.


"An active reader explores, wonders, disentangles, reworks, and assembles an always imperfect meaning that can always be revisited, and is potentially revolutionary!"

New Topic: Literature

A highly developed use of language in that is the stylized manipulation on language for larger effect (purpose) and/or  affect (emotional response)

Theories of Language that we saw at class.
(5th Century) The Greeks ---> They based their study on ontology and epistemology
(early 19th Century) Romanticism ---> Poetry as an expression. Common language and simple topics .
(mid 19th Century) Scientific Determinism ---> Science became the most popular aplication, even for literature
(early 20th Century) New Criticism ---> The text is the main focus of the literature
Reader- Response ---> Reader's personal experience might very well play a substantial role in enchancing an                                 encounter with a text. The reader is the most important.
Structuralism ---> Words were signs made up of two component parts: Signifier and Signified.










Poststructuralism ---> Chomsky's ideas. Negotating not what a sign is, but what a sign is not







Marxism ---> The root of the conflicts is anchored in social class and economic differences. All texts contain subtexts.

Feminism and gender studies ---> Uncoverinig essential differences between women and men. Explores sexual identity, question of reproduction, sexuality, gender, family, love & marriage.

Cultural Poetics ---> History as the body of language

Postcolonial Criticism ---> Analise of the texts produced in colonized countries.

Wrap up question (saw at class)
1.- I agree or support the postructuralism basicly because I understood very good Chomsky's ideas and the most difficult to understand was the feminism, because for me it's hard to understand why or how can someone state ideas based on which gender is stronger, sexuality and that stuff and relate it with literature.
2.- New Criticism, I'll make him remember just that the text is the most important.

The Debate

At class we presented a group debate. The motion of the debate was "Humans are born with an ability to create language" vs. "Language is a learnt construct like the rules governing a sport".
     My group was against the motion the second motion. I worked with my classmates Ugarte and Macchiavello. Both sides of the debate had good points and  strong arguments, though we had the motion that was easier to defend as we saw it in class and we studied Saussure's theroy of language. It a pretty hard debate but our arguments were more solid as we had theories supporting us not as the other motion, that defended the motion with assumptions.
     I really liked to have a debate because, not as a test, we have to use english the best way we could to clearly express what we think and make the arguments and examples more solid.

Language and Parole

Langue and parole are more than just 'language and speech'

Langue

La langue is the whole system of language that precedes and makes speech possible. A sign is a basic unit of langue.

Learning a language, we master the system of grammar, spelling, syntax and punctuation. These are all elements of langue.

Langue is a system in that it has a large number of elements whereby meaning is created in the arrangements of its elements and the consequent relationships between these arranged elements.

Parole

Parole is the concrete use of the language, the actual utterances. It is an external manifestation of langue. It is the usage of the system, but not the system.

By defining Langue and Parole, Saussure differentiates between the language and how it is used, and therefore enabling these two very different things to be studied as separate entities.

As a structuralist, Saussure was interested more in la langue than parole. It was the system by which meaning could be created that was of interest rather than individual instances of its use.

Stereotypes and culture

     Culture this is a system of meaning of people and it includes language, laws, customs, myths, texts and daily practices (according to our CC). There are two types of culture, high culture that is that culture that makes us more complete persons like knowledge on arts, music, technology, mathematics... and low culture, that is the culture which is the one possessed by poor folk whose means do not allow them to access to a more refined knowledge of the world, it's more connected to mundane practices and streek-like habits.
      In the other hand we have Stereotypes, that are the generalization of a group of people or CULTURE. Is usually generated by media, criticism, ignorance, misunderstanding, education and differences... Stereotypes are complex and dangerous because usually people use stereotypes on everyone just because he comes from a place or looks alike  to a group and this creates conflicts, racism and bad notion of other cultures. 
       Some typical stereotypes in the world?
-All Russians are comunists.
-South Americans are indians
-Arabs are terrorists
-(for us) Peruvians are monkeys
-Blondies are dumb
-Africans have aids