post #7

My final book by J.D. Salinger is the classic, The Catcher and the Rye. This novel is definitely sets a precedent for a reason. This novel is fun to read, and is undeniably Salinger-esque.

The story follows the young Holden Caulfield, just kicked out of another high class East Coast boarding school. Again, the theme of struggling youth is the focus in this book. Holden is not a genius, but he views himself differently from the "phonies" around him. Holden complains of being misunderstood, and often grapples with his emotions, constantly feeling in a contradictory state leading to self-loathing. He comes across many awkward situations, as do many young people, but struggles immensely with dealing with his emotions. He often contemplates suicide.
"What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would have done it, too, if I'd been sure my body'd cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn't want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory." (p.104)

Besides the obvious theme of struggling youth, I always find Salinger's writing style extremely unique for it's time. Salinger uses creative devices such as lists, letters, and diary entries, to keep his stories interesting and more realistic. In The Catcher and the Rye, Salinger often uses a technique in which he writes what the character literally would say, spelling thrown aside. For example, Holden often has a "helluva time" when no "sonuvabitch" is around. This gives the reader a much better picture of the point Salinger is trying to make. This technique is great in creating vivid imagery, and a sense of realism.

I've thought a lot about my thesis, and I don't have one sentence that sums up it's entirety, but I know what I'd like to include in it. I need to mesh together the importance of Salinger's writing style and technique, the theme of struggling youth, and parallels between Salinger's life and his characters. Perhaps I could focus on one, and bring up the others later in my paper to make things less complicated for myself. Some possible (but of course shaky) thesis statements could be as follows:

J.D. Salinger's novels consistently show the struggle of youth in society, and in doing so he tells the importance of innocence and identity.

J.D. Salinger's reclusive lifestyle parallels the lives of many of his own characters, and in telling his own story through fictional beings, he shows the reader the necessity of human interaction.

These are rough, but I'm sure I've got more up my sleeve that are much better.

post #6

I have been an awful procrastinator about keeping up with my blogs. It's an extremely terrible and unforgivable habit at times, and I know it's no longer acceptable! I've been extremely thorough in my thoughts and ideas about my paper, and I have kept up with my reading, but being that I am behind on my blogs and I'm sorry to say this will mess up the process a bit. I have finished all three of my books at this point, but I wrote extensive blogs on the first, but my next two books will only have one post each. I realize this is inconsistent, but in no way was my thought process as messy and out of order as my blog.

Anyways, After finishing Franny and Zooey, I read Nine Stories, which was very interesting and thought provoking in many ways. While reading Salinger's second book of short stories, I found that Salinger is consistent in his use of certain reoccurring characters and themes.

Salinger is fond of using the same characters repeatedly. "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" chronicles the story of Seymour's suicide, Seymour was a character mentioned several times in Franny and Zooey, his suicide impacted the protagonists greatly, but he was only mentioned.

Also, in "Down at the Dinghy", in Nine Stories, BooBoo, another member of the glass family, becomes the main character instead of a footnote. Salinger seems to be very fond of certain characters, or even different characters with very similar personalities and ideas. He often makes children very witty, men very unsure of themselves and intellectual, and women very careless and vain. This is a theme that follows all three of his novels, and it makes me wonder about Salinger himself. I think there may be several parallels to Salinger's own life and the lives of his characters.

Also, from reading Nine Stories, I've noticed the reoccurring theme of struggling intellectual youth. The story "Teddy", simply follows the life of a boy genius and the incompetent adults around him. Take the following conversation between the child star and an adult: "'But I could get out of the finite dimensions fairly often when I was four." Teddy said, as an afterthought. Nicholson nodded. 'You did?' he said. 'You could?'" (p.189)

Children are ever present in Salinger's novels. In many of his stories they are seen as superior to the adults, and often are looked to for inspiration. For example in "For Esme with Love and Squalor", a witty young girl inspires a melancholy soldier to write. Youth is an important reoccurring theme in Salinger's novels, and I believe it would be a good topic of discussion in my thesis. I also want to explore a bit more about Salinger's life to find parallels between him and his characters, as I feel this would also be a good point of contribution to my thesis.

WA 8

Cassie Stumer
4/14/08
Block E
Writing Assignment 8

For my thesis paper on J.D. Salinger, I want to try to explore the different reoccurring themes in the three novels I read. I also want to delve into some information regarding Salinger himself. I feel there will be many interesting parallels between Salinger himself, and the actions of his characters. Lastly, I would like to address Salinger’s unique and almost esoteric writing style, which I feel is critical in understanding his works.
There are many different reoccurring themes Salinger explores throughout his novels. One idea Salinger grapples with, is the concept of the struggling youth. In almost all of his works, Salinger’s protagonists are young people coping with the flaws of society. In Franny and Zooey, The two main characters are constantly struck down and bewildered by less than understanding or competent adults as they try to understand topics like religion, ego, and society. Salinger seems to touch upon the idea that the youth are usually in the right more than once. He often shows the parental figures as shady, uncaring, superficial, and thoughtless. This is a theme I will have to explore further to go in depth about, but I feel it is an important theme in Salinger’s works.
Salinger himself is also a topic of interest to me, and I plan to go in depth about much of his life in my thesis paper. J.D Salinger is famously reclusive and little is known about his life. I plan to learn more about Salinger’s fascinating life by reading Paul Alexander’s Salinger, a biography that Salinger himself is said to be uneasy about. I’m also interested in reading Joyce Maynard’s biography, which spills many details about Salinger’s very private life. Joyce Maynard’s biography on Salinger was “arguably revengeful”, and many people saw the biography as an attempt for Maynard to boost her own fame as a writer after a failed relationship with Salinger himself. I feel that learning more about Salinger will allow me to understand his characters more, and there are sure to be parallels between Salinger’s life and the actions of many of his similarly reclusive characters. I’m positive the parallel between Holden Caulfield and Salinger will be undeniable.
Lastly, I want to mention Salinger’s unique writing style in my thesis paper. Salinger uses letters, diary entries, and other interesting techniques that set his writing apart from other classic works. I also found it interesting that Salinger would often re-use the same characters in different stories and novels. For example, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, from Nine Stories, is a beautiful short story that goes into detail about Seymour, Franny and Zooey’s late brother. It is mentioned in Franny and Zooey that Seymour killed himself in a hotel room. “Bananafish” is the story of that incident. Even though the two stories can be read separately and understood, the mixture of characters throughout is very personalized, and a unique characteristic in Salinger’s writing.
Moreover, I have much work to do on my thesis paper, but I feel I have the main ideas of my paper outlined well enough to begin.

Post #5

Franny and Zooey
pages 107-174

In this heated section of Franny and Zooey, we finally see the two main characters interact. Zooey confronts Franny about her breakdown, and he goes on to explain that she has only done this to herself, creating conflicting thoughts while trying to lose this sense of "ego" she hates so much. He explains that he went through the same thing, and that the unpleasant pessimism is brought about by being a "wise child" from the Glass family. He also tries to tell her that her religious studies arn't helpful, and she will ultimately have to change herself instead of using the ultimately useless, constant prayer.

Salinger continues to use the force of action and narration over dialogue, even when important dialogue between characters occurs. The reader learns quickly, after growing accustomed to his style, to read between just what the characters say, and look deeper into their narrated thoughts and actions. The dialogue in Franny and Zooey gives the reader a great deal less information than the narration, and throughout the book this has been a constant stylistic theme.

Salinger also goes into great detail, often to describe a characters unspoken thoughts or narrated actions. This is definitely an element of Salinger's writing that makes him unique and interesting to read. The characters thoughts are almost overly-analytical, but at the same time do not disclose too much blatant information about the character. By only describing their thoughts or actions at the time, Salinger allows the reader to compile information about a character by viewing their actions over time, which is a technique that I feel is rarely used in modern day literature. Often, a characters goals and personality traits are laid out for the reader right away, creating a faster paced story, but a less interesting character development. This is one of Salinger's literary quirks, and indeed makes his writing unique.

Post #4

Franny and Zooey
pages 76-106

The next section of Franny and Zooey was a long stretch of dialogue between Zooey and his mother. Ms. Glass tells Zooey about his constant pessimism, and expresses her concern for Franny, who appears to be going through an emotional breakdown.

I don't believe Salinger is big on symbols, but he uses many stylistic devices repeatedly. For example, Salinger's repeated use of letters between characters helps with plot development. Actions made by the characters also often speak louder than the dialogue between the characters. For example, this passage describes how zooey feels for his mother with only a description of his actions:

"Zooey turned full around to look at his mother. He turned around and looked at her, In this instance, in precisely the same way that, at one time or another, all his brothers and sisters had turned around and looked at her. Not just with objective wonder at the rising of a truth, fragmentary or not, up through what often seemed to be an impenetrable mass of prejudices, cliches, and brombides. But with admiration, affection, and, not least, gratitude."

Post #1

Cassie Stumer
2.20.08
Block E


American Author Proposal


I was immediately drawn to the works of J.D. Salinger, as I believe Salinger is a perfect candidate for the American Author project. Salinger is widely known for the classic, The Catcher and the Rye, which brought him to fame after it was published in 1951. Salinger meets all the requirements for the American Author project. Born in New York, Salinger is an American author with a substantial body of work. Although he is known for The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger had many other critically acclaimed short stories, novels, and novellas. Works such as, Raise High the Roof Beam, Franny and Zooey, and A Perfect Day for Bananafish.

Without a doubt, Salinger’s works were important to the development of American Literature. His style of writing was very unique when it was published, and because he wrote predominantly about youth, he appealed to adolescent readers and adults alike. Salinger’s writing technique was different, and allowed the reader, particularly younger readers, to relate to the piece of work. One of J.D. Salinger’s critics, Alfred Kazin, described Salinger‘s understanding of youth like this; “a consciousness [among youths] that he speaks for them and virtually to them, in a language that is peculiarly honest and their own, with a vision of things that capture their most secret judgments of the world.”

I chose J.D. Salinger for this project not only because he meets the criteria for this project, but because his style of writing is unique and well-formatted. I love the quick-witted, sharp dialogue often seen in his works. I also am curious about this authors infamous “reclusive” nature. Salinger has not been interviewed since 1980, and it would be interesting to find possible parallels between Salingers life and the lives of some of his characters.

I feel Salingers works would enable me to write a literary, thesis-based argument over the course of an essay. Much of Salingers works appear simple, many of his novels being short, and the dialogue snappy. I never finished The Catcher in the Rye, but as I read it I knew the story was teeming with underlying and reoccurring themes. Each of Salingers works could have a common reoccurring theme, upon which I could base my argument.

I started to read The Catcher in the Rye years ago, but some odd circumstance left it unfinished. I remember thinking that this book was one of the first of it’s kind. Salinger was one of the first authors to put young adults center stage an a realistic way, and he set a precedent for books targeted at this age group for years to come. I’ve only seen a glimpse of Salingers work, and this is why I am interested in doing in depth reading and research on his life and literary works for the American Author Project.

I plan to first read Salingers novel, Franny and Zooey, which was published in 1961. I will then to read his collection of short stories, Nine Stories. Which includes well-known classics such as A Perfect Day for Bananafish, and For Esme, with Love and Squalor. Last, but certainly not least, I will finally finish the must-read classic The Catcher and the Rye.

J.D. Salinger is not only intriguing, he also meets every requirement for the American Author Project. He is, of course, American, has a substantial body of work, and I’m sure by reading this selection of his work I will be able to create a literary, thesis-based argument. I would be content to spend a significant amount of time and energy studying the works of J.D. Salinger.

Post #3

Franny and Zooey
pages 35-76

In this next section of Franny and Zooey, The chapter entitled "Franny," ends abruptly. Franny was describing her religious book to Lane, and when she gets up to leave for a moment, she faints. The chapter ends with Franny, alone, looking up at the ceiling, and repeating her prayer to herself. Salinger describes the scene;

"Alone, Franny lay quite still, looking at the ceiling. Her lips began to move forming soundless words, and they continued to move."

The next section of the book, "Zooey," follows the next main character's actions. Zooey is Franny's older brother, and in the beginning of the section Franny and Zooey's family life and childhood is throughly explained through letters and Zooey's thoughts. We are told that Franny and Zooey were both children of the esteemed Glass family, along with five other extremely gifted children. The children were famous for their intelligence, and their quirky knowledge was often showcased on a popular radio show called "It's a wise child."

Zooey is introduced as an actor, and the other Glass children are introduced via footnote. Salinger continues to use letters to further the development of characters and plot. In this section, there is little dialogue between characters, but there is still progression in the story, which is another prevalent trait in Salinger's writing.

Post #2

Franny and Zooey
pages 1-34

In the first section of Franny and Zooey, entitled "Franny," Salinger introduces one of the central characters in the novel. Salinger, rather than describing Franny, gives intricate details unveiling her personality and thoughts through letters she writes and dialogue between her and other characters. In regards to plot, in this section, Franny writes letters to her boyfriend, Lane, from her dorm room at school. She also goes to visit him, and they discuss a variety of things. It is apparent through their conversation that Lane sees Franny as acting odd, and she even states, "All I know is I'm losing my mind." (p.29). Franny also mentions that she has been reading a religious book, which she describes as "terribly fanatical," and tells of a new method of prayer Franny seems to be particularly interested in.

I chose this passage on page 25 as a representative example of Salinger's writing style.

"Oh I remember..Listen don't hate me because I can't remember some person immediately. Especially when they look like everybody else, and talk and dress and act like everybody else." Franny made her voice stop. it sounded to her cavilling and bitchy, and she felt a wave of self-hatred that, quite literally, made her forehead begin to perspire again.

I chose this passage because it is a good display of Salinger's style, including the characters inner-thoughts without laying out every detail of their personality. Through this passage, we can assume that Franny has some insecurities and anxieties about her own personality faults, but Salinger never describes her in this way, because he shows it through her actions.