Poetry

I thought the parallels between what Mr. Antolini was trying to tell Holden and Holden's whole catcher in the rye thing were pretty interesting. The whole scene is well placed so that the reader still has the image of Holden catching children about to fall relatively fresh in their minds so they could see the connections between the children falling and what Mr. Antolini describes as a terrible, terrible fall. When Holden speaks of wanting to catch the children from falling, he's metaphorically speaking of preventing them from growing up and reaching adulthood. When Mr. Antolini is talking about Holden's "fall", he means his refusal to ever grow up. Mr. Antolini is essentially trying to act as the catcher for the catcher in the rye. The fact that this pushback is from a source that Holden trusts makes the scene more impactful. If it was from just anyone then Holden would probably be more willing to simply blow them off and keep on as before. But Holden spends muc...

            We spent a bit of time in class today talking about how Stephen feels like he can’t be an artist if he’s stuck in Dublin and why he feels he has to leave. I thought I’d look into that a bit further. Whenever I read of the book where Stephen explores Dublin have a sense of wonder that makes me feel like it’s not the place itself that Stephen has a problem with. Stephen has pretty strong negative feelings towards his parents and I feel his choosing to leave has more to do with his resentment for his upbringing rather than anything specific to Ireland.             When he was little, Stephen idolized his hyper-patriotic father. Towards the end of the novel, Simon Dedalus is seen by Stephen as more of jerk than anything. I think Stephen resents his father for causing their declining quality of life over the course of the novel. It wou...