Primordial Beauty In JD Salinger's book Franny and Zooey, franny is suffering through an identity crisis that causes her to reevaluate her perspective of the world. Her brother Zooey, helps her out of this crisis by not only channeling the teachings they received from their two older brothers seymour and buddy but also through wise advice zooey had acquired in his own years. This is shown in the cell phone conversation that zooey has with Franny near the end of the book. At the end of the two's conversation over the phone, Zooey hung up on Franny, she sat there and listened to “A dial tone, of course, followed the formal break in connection. She appeared to find it extraordinarily beautiful to listen to, rather as if it were the best possible …show more content…
Teachings that focused on “Being with god before he said let there be light(65).” Firstly for them both to be able to at least obtain a “state of being where the mind knows all source of light(65).” Ultimately teaching franny and zooey how to be; how to spiritually be through teachings of wisdom and enlightenment. This upbringing is what gets franny involved with the Jesus Prayer. A prayer that if a person says enough they will achieve a sort of enlightenment. Franny tries to achieve this enlightenment by continuously saying the prayer. The problem is that franny doesn’t have the inner peace to fully grasp the prayer so she can’t achieve that point of …show more content…
“...took off her slippers, and got into the bed. For some minutes, before she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, she just lay quiet, smiling at the ceiling(201).” Thanks to the words of wisdom that Zooey gave Franny by channeling Seymour’s “fat lady” metaphor that he taught the both of them, being primarily about striving for your ideal best, be idealistic. Overall, others opinions and values should not factor into your own self image. After Zooey said all this to Franny she no longer needed to question the way she views reality because she wasn’t lost on it
She brings light to an issue that divided her family from her father, his “obsession” with fixing up the house. She states, "I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture" (14). She believes her father was detached, living his life through restoring old furniture and fixing up the family home, leaving little attention for the family that lived there. She was suspicious of her father’s décor saying, “they were lies” (14). This left much to be desired, often leading her to question whether her father even liked having a family. This feeling is expressed when she says, "Sometimes, when things were going well, I think my father actually enjoyed having a family. Or at least, the air of authenticity we lent to his exhibit. A sort of still life with children" (13). He occupied his life with fixing up his home almost as if he was trying to cover up the problems going on inside himself. Bechdel suggests that the antique mirrors decorating the home were meant to distract visitors from his personal shame. She says, "His shame inhabited our house as pervasively and invisibly as the aromatic musk of aging mahogany" (20). She states that this shame stemmed from her father’s closeted sexual preferences. This would later connect them in a very powerful
The author Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado and went to Stanford University. He volunteered to be used for an experiment in the hospital because he would get paid. In the book “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, Kesey brings up the past memories to show how Bromden is trying to be more confident by using those thoughts to make him be himself. He uses Bromden’s hallucinations, Nurse Ratched’s authority, and symbolism to reveal how he’s weak, but he builds up more courage after each memory.
After many years of ideas coming and going, one that seems to stay the same is the thoughts of tennagers. In the book The Catcher In The Rye written by J.D Salinger many can still relate to Holden’s story even after a 76 year difference. While exploring the city around him Holden takes the time to try to find himself on a deeper level and try to grasp how growing up really makes him feel. Given the fact that everyone is unique in among themselves the need for self satisfaction is always current meaning many run from the true responsibilities that come with age.
Theodore Roosevelt was right. "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit”, said Roosevelt, “belongs to the man who is actually in the arena." This man has the values of courage, tenacity, and…vulnerability. This man even through occasional defeat, succeeds because he confronts his fears, because he isn’t afraid of being vulnerable. Unfortunately, many of us – men and women - haven't yet entered the arena. Why? Because, we make ourselves wait until we believe we are "perfect", fully ready. Too often, this time lost squanders potential experiences and relationships. University of Houston's Dr. Brené Brown defines vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. In her NYTIMES bestseller, "Daring Greatly", Dr. Brown contends, "We equate vulnerability with weakness and poison. Whereas vulnerability is actually the birthplace of joy, love, and empathy".
Throughout the movie Their Eyes Were Watching God, Oprah Winfrey alternates Zora Neale Hurston’s story of a woman’s journey to the point where nobody even recognizes it. The change in the theme, the characters, and their relationships form a series of major differences between the book and the movie. Instead of teaching people the important lessons one needs to know to succeed in this precious thing called life, Oprah tells a meaningless love story for the gratification of her viewers. Her inaccurate interpretation of the story caused a dramatic affect in the atmosphere and a whole new attitude for the audience. During the movie, Oprah makes a shift in Janie’s character by strengthening her mental and physical state.
In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden is in a rest home, where he speaks about his past and discusses his thoughts and feelings of his memories. Holden tells about his life including his past experiences at many different private schools, most recently Pensey Prep, his friends, and his late brother Allie which led to Holden’s own mental destruction.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger is a coming-of-age novel set in New York during the 1940’s. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the story, is a detached seventeen-year old boy harboring feelings of isolation and disillusionment. He emphasizes a general dislike for society, referring to people as “phonies.” His lack of will to socialize prompts him to find nearly everything depressing. He’s alone most of the time and it’s apparent that he is very reclusive. This often leads him to pondering about his own death and other personal issues that plague him without immediate resolution. Holden possesses a strong deficit of affection – platonic and sexual – that hinders and cripples his views toward people, his attitude, and his ability to progressively solve his problems without inflicting pain on himself. The absence of significant figures in his life revert him to a childlike dependency and initiate his morbid fascination with sexuality. In this novel, Salinger uses Sunny, Sally Hayes, and Carl Luce to incorporate the hardships of discovering sexual identity and how these events affect adolescents as they try to understand their own sexuality.
In many novels written by J.D. Salinger, there is a recurring theme of love that
The year was 1960 when Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird was published. It was an immediate success even winning the Pulitzer Prize. The novel was the first published piece for Lee who was not widely known. The story itself was set in the American South during the Great Depression, which Lee was from and lived during that time. The story examined the angst of childhood, morals of society, racism, and the concept of perception.
The world today is very deceptive and phony. J.D. Salinger’s well known novels, The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey attack this fake and superficial society which is evident through the lives, ideas, actions, and words expressed by the characters in these literary pieces. The transition from childhood, through adolescence and into adulthood is inevitable. The protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield goes through this stage and finds himself in a crisis. He alienates himself from everyone who is around him and tries his best not to grow up. Holden often dwells upon his childhood and the life he had with his family. Franny in Franny and Zooey has already passed this stage but finds it difficult to live in a world where everyone she is surrounded by is only concerned with outward appearances. In these worlds, both characters, Holden and Franny, reveal their struggle of growing up and trying to live as an adult in a world full of deception and shallow-minded people who only care about appearances.
Lord of the Flies is a novel written by William Golding in 1954 about a group of young British boys who have been stranded alone together on an island with no adults. During the novel the diverse group of boys struggle to create structure within a society that they constructed by themselves. Golding uses many unique literary devices including characterization, imagery, symbolism and many more. The three main characters, Ralph, Piggy, and Jack are each representative of the three main literary devices, ethos, logos, and pathos. Beyond the characterization the novel stands out because of Golding’s dramatic use of objective symbolism, throughout the novel he uses symbols like the conch, fire, and Piggy’s glasses to represent how power has evolved and to show how civilized or uncivilized the boys are acting. It is almost inarguable that the entire novel is one big allegory in itself, the way that Golding portrays the development of savagery among the boys is a clear representation of how society was changing during the time the novel was published. Golding is writing during
Silence: the absence of any sound or noise. The act of being silent or quiet is something that happens everyday, and as a result, often possesses no significance. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston addresses that silence can have a purpose through the main character Janie. Janie, a woman struggling to find and express herself, is often silenced along her journey towards self-revelation. Silence is often an obstacle of hers, yet at the same time it allows time to take in the situation and analyze. Noise can be a distraction or a wall covering a bigger problem. Being quiet allows the true issue to show in its rawest form. Silence, although physically insignificant, can take deeper meaning. Zora Neale Hurston silences Janie to varying degrees to expose male dominance, emphasize conscious thought, and express the lack of a listener.
I am making a comparison of the first book of the series of Unfortunate Events with the episodes. The first event is that in the book Mr.Poe takes care of the children for a couple of days before he finds a living relative of the children. In the episode they go strait to the evil villian Count Olaf. The second big event was when their parents died, in the book they went to the lake because they wanted to. In the episode their parents had sent them their for no reason. The third event was the money their parents had left for them, in the book Count Olaf revealed his plan to steal their money with no hesitance. In the episode he never wanted to reveal his plan, the children found out his plan.
Her womanhood cloaks any ambitions, as Cecily is written off as an overdramatic young girl, who makes up fantasies. Her diary, which holds the “wonderful secrets” of her life, is not a collection of delusions, but an accurate description of her daily doings. When Miss Prism suggests that Cecily just rely on her memory, Cecily counters that “it [memory] usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn’t possibly have happened” (57-58). Cecily recognizes the minds power to play tricks on the subconscious. Only someone with astute awareness and critical intelligence can utilize such metacognition. More so, Cecily believes that “Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us,” meaning she does not see their worth (58). When Miss Prism challenges Cecily on her opinion by saying that she wrote a three-volume novel herself, she says “Did you really Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are!” defaulting into the societal perception of her as a guileless girl (58). Cecily’s view of her diary becomes important when analyzing the relationship between her and
In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield feels a compulsion to protect women over anything else. The reason for this is that Holden views women as the last innocent people left in society. J.D. Salinger makes it a point to display the powerful influences that women have had on Holden throughout his life by retelling Holden's experiences with his own mother as a younger man. These trends continue throughout the story, as the events that unfold involving Phoebe and Jane Gallagher become focal points during Holden's time in New York City. Holden's desire to protect women seems to go so far that he begins to feel immediate hostility -- hostility that may or may not be justified -- towards several male characters.