Salinger is the writer who gives us, the reading audience, the speaker Holden Caulfield to listen to, and Holden tells us about the topic his madmen days.
My question is "Why?" or "What is Salinger's purpose in having Holden tell us about his 3 madman days?"
The answer is the theme of the text.
The definition of theme is a sentence which carries a universal message from the author to the audience about some aspect of being human.
There are multiple messages, and the message you locate is often related to who you are as a reader.
A writer's purpose is usually one of three--to inform, entertain, or to persuade--or it is a mix of all three in some combination.
At this point in your reading, you have enough information from Salinger to develop a working theme or an idea about why Salinger introduced us to Holden and his Madman day #1.
In your comments, suggest
- what we might learn from listening to Holden and thinking about his experience so far.
- what we might find entertaining
- or what we might be persuaded to do or not do.
Follow up with a reason(s) why you think this might be Salinger's purpose and/or a possible working theme by referring to the specific part(s) of the book by page number that inspired you to say so.
14 comments:
From listening to Holden we might learn that it is never good to lie bvecause once you lie, you will lie multiple times, it will get very confusing and all of your lies could end up backfiring.
We might be persuaded to never tell lies to anyone.
I think this might be a possible working theme because Holden recognizes the consequences of lying- " I'M THE MOST teriffic liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful...It's terrible."(Page 16)
After listening to Holden's first madman day we learned that Salinger wants to inform us about common human mistakes. Salinger is informing us through Holden's experiences that people should not be proud of their mistakes and should be mature about them by taking the punishment that they endure. An example of where Hplden is not mature is on page 13 when Mr. Spencer asks him about flunking out of Elton Hills and he responds by saying, " I didn't exactly flunk out or anything. I just quit, sort of.", showing that he gave up and ran from his troubling school life.
We might learn what it is like to go to a boarding school and different difficulties there are by doing so. I found it entertaining read about when Mr. Spencer read Holdens essay aloud on page 11. Also not to go to a boarding school because it seems to have caused holden problems with his family. A working theme could be that depending on the person boarding school can be difficult and stressful.
After Holden's first madman day we learn that Hodlen is very immature but wants to be seen as mature. The author informs us that by the various actions Holden does through out the first day like his argument with Stradlater, and the fact that he runs away from his school and hides out until he has to go home. we seen that he wants to be mature by he is always trying to talk to older people like the three girls at the club and Ernies mother on the train, also the fact that hes always trying to drink and go to clubs. what we might find entertaining is the fact he lies to Ernies mother and made him seem better than he his to his mother than he actually was.
After reading about Holden's first mad man day I learned that it never good to lie. The reason for this is because once you start lying you have to keep the lie going and if that person ever found out the truth they wouldn't trust you. It's always never good to lie because if you don't tell someone the truth they might have different feelings about you or something that happened. You also feel bad when you lie because you know the other person should know the truth and that their really not better off not knowing the truth. The page I found this explaining it best is on page 16 were he says " I'm the most teriffic liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful...It's terrible."
After reading about Holden's first mad man day we learned that Salinger wants to inform us of mistakes that teenagers typically make. They lie and lie, but once one lie backfires you're screwed. I think this could be part of the message because Salinger mentions lying quite often in the book. The best example is on page 16, "I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful..It's terrible."
After reading about Holden's first mad man day I have learned that lying will almost never benefit the person that is telling the lie. Also, I agree with Matt when he says that Salinger is using Holden and his experiences to show how every decision and action will result in a consequence/punishment.
From reading this book so far, I learned that when you lie so much, no one will believe you when you tell the truth. If you lie, it will backfire on you so your better off not lying.
It's interesting to see his lies backfire.
We can persuade people to not lie. Nothing god comes out of lying. "I told you about ten times, I don't owe you a cent. I already have her the five-" (page 101) Holden lies so much that when he was telling the truth they didn't believe him and they ended up taking five more dollars.
We learned from listening to Holden that we should always try our best in school and to never lie because it can make us regret it in the future. We could be persuaded to try our best so that we can have a successful future and not regret it in the future. "Oh I feel some concern for my future, all right.Sure. Sure,I do." I thought about it for a minute. " But not too much, I guess Not too much, I guess. "You will," old Spencer said."You will, boy. You will when it's too late." (pg 14)
From listening to Holden and thinking about his experience so far, we might learn about the consequences of our actions, such as lying, and we might also learn to not pass up opportunities like he does with Jane. It is entertaining how much he tries to be an adult and associate himself with adults. For someone so young, he seems to put so much thought into life and the people around him. Holden's character might persuade us to not lie and get ourselves caught up in the type of situations and trouble that he does. The quote that gave me this idea is the same one the Sam used; "I am the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful...it's terrible." Page 16
From listening to Holden we can learn about how important it is to talk to someone and have someone listen to what you have to say. This brought up multiple times by Holden, but the occurence which stands out the most would be when he asks for a hooker to sent to his room so that he could talk to her on chapter 14.
From the first madman day I learned that Salinger is using Holden's life experiences to show te audience that lieing will never benefit an individual.Lieing will lea to less trust and more confusion . We can be persuaded to d our best and not lie so we do not regret in the future. Salinger is using Holden's experience to show that your decisions and actions can result in consequences you must pay. The quote from page 16 tht says "I'm te most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It awful. It's terrible." This shows how Holden knows and regrets his actions he is mature enough to own up to it.
After reading about Holdens adventures on the first madman day I believe Salinger is using Holden as an example for the very well known moral of do not lie. As you can see due too the constant lies Holden tells throughout the story you can tellthey will eventually come back tohaunt him, although Holden does not reaize that as he tells these lie. I think the reason Holden lies is because he craves attention and respect and he does not think hes good enough to deserve either of those things so that is why he lies, to make himself seem better than he is.
After listening to Holden's first madman day, we learned how to deal with the consequences of our actions. These actions can include lying. Salinger is informing us that people should not be proud of their mistakes and should accept the consequences. Salinger is also informing us to basically grow up and to be mature. For example on page 13, Holden's response to Mr. Spencer's question about flunking out of Elton Hills was immature. "I didn't exactly flunk out or anything. I just quit, sort of."
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