The House on Mango Street

Perceptivity

The author of The House on Mango Street demonstrates that they understand their situation without directly telling the reader. When the reader is describing their situation, they tell the readers that their parents always dream of this big beautiful white house. Both of his parents tell their kids that one day they'll have a beautiful white house while they hold a lottery ticket and while the mom told stories before the children went to bed. Here we can infer that the author realizes his family doesn’t have a lot of money, and can only dream of a nice house. Another example of the author demonstrating his knowledge of the situation is when he ends the vignette with, “The house on Mango Street isn’t it. For the time being, Mama says. Temporary says Papa. But I know how those things go.” This is a perfect example where the author shows the audience he doesn’t expect a new house and he understands why he cannot have a house like that. 

Interesting Information

The author of The House on Mango Street also demonstrates through their writing how they can draw the audience into a situation. Without revealing a lot about his own situation regarding his family and their money, the small details revealed in the vignette offer insight to the author. While reading this story, I asked myself questions about the author’s family issues and I wanted to ask them why they were living in so many places. One example of a question I wanted answered by the author was why did they need to get out of the apartment with the faulty pipes so so quickly? "We had to leave the flat on Loomis quick. We had to leave real fast." This and many other quotes intrigued me because I wondered what made the author say this so strange, and act in a defensive way. One positive to this style of writing is the author reveals to the audience the struggles of living in such a tight living quarters and open's up the audience's minds to a new perspective. 

Holden's Vignette

A meaningful vignette that is very powerful in chapter 15 of Catcher in the Rye is when Holden shares his thoughts of the suitcases. Holden is helping his new acquaintances from the diner, who happen to be two nuns, with their luggage. While he is lifting their luggage, he notices how their luggage isn't very expensive. This bothers Holden and leads him into telling the story of how his old roommate had cheap luggage. 

Holden's previous roommate was named Dick Slagle, and he had very inexpensive suitcases. Holden explains that he originally felt bad because Slagle would always hide his suitcases under his bed, because he assumed he didn't want people to compare his with Holden's. Holden had very nice suitcases from Mark Cross. 

Holden didn't realize what his roommate was trying to do until he hid his suitcases one day. 

"What I did, I finally put my suitcases under my bed, instead of the rack, so that old Slagle wouldn't get a ------ inferiority complex about it." 

The ironic thing was Holden wasn't expecting his roommate to take his suitcases out from under his bed and put them back on the rack. Holden then goes on to describe that Slagle only wanted the other guys to think that Holden's suitcases were his. 

There is a underlying lesson involved in this vignette that Holden discovers. Holden describes that despite the fact you may assume someone doesn't care about what they have or do compared to others, but on the inside they really do. They really do care a lot about comparing themselves to others, and that is surprising to someone like Holden. Holden doesn't understand how that works, and that is why he chooses to just say he hates people with inexpensive luggage. 

Holden Caulfield: The Complex Romanticism character analysis

Holden's character development relates directly to the study of romanticism. Within chapter 10 of Catcher in the Rye, Holden revels many complex views of him as a character. Holden shows characteristics of loneliness, longing, joyfulness, annoyance, and desperation. 

We see Holden longing for someone to talk to when he is contemplating calling his younger sister, Phoebe, on page 75, "You should see her. you never saw a little kid so pretty and smart in your whole life." Holden continues to describe his sister for the next page or two, talking about what an amazing person she is. He tells the stories of her favorite movies and how she's a great listener. readers see here how Holden is sensitive, and misses the comfort he feels when around his sister. 

But later in the chapter we see Holden act cocky and mature in the hotel's night club, the Lavender Room. We can also see Holden's desperation while he dances and has a drink with the three women. "I started giving the three witches at the next table the eye again. That is, the blonde one. The other two were strictly from hunger," (Salinger 78). Holden is annoying when he begins to lie to the girls about seeing a movie star in the bar, just to get them upset. This may confuse the readers emotions towards Holden because he contradicts his actions with his internal monologue. 

All of Holden's emotions displayed throughout chapter 10 support the American traits of romanticism. The romantics emphasized the importance of imagination, feeling, and intuition over reason and intellect. Romantics also emphasize the importance of the individual. The 'American romantic hero' is described as having youthful qualities, loving nature, having intuition, and being innocent. 

Holden fits perfectly into the role of the romantic here because he is such a complex character. Although he is youthful, he chooses not to act his age and wishes to be treated as an adult. (being served drinks in a bar, acting older than his roommates) He also is based mainly on individualism, we know this because Holden doesn't have anyone in his life that knows a lot about him. We have been introduced to characters that know Holden, but not on a deep personal level. We also have read scenes where Holden tells many many lies to people's faces about who he truly is and the even ts going on in his life. 

Yet Holden thinks he is innocent. Innocent of doing anything in his life that would cause his own downfall. Although Holden becomes weak and vulnerable at certain points in the book, he never will admit that he is battling internal conflicts. Holden resents the feeling of pity, and it will be interesting as we read on to discover how Holden makes life decisions and where they will take him. 

Finishing Unexpected/Review

This weekend I finished my book Unexpected! I'm so upset because I was really enjoying my book and hope that the author writes a sequel. i am expecting a sequel very soon because she left quite the cliffhanger at the end. Yet the end did satisfy the readers and I heard she was getting very positive review of the book overall. The author's cliffhanger is making all of us sappy love story readers think and freak out because the ending scene Katrina was throwing up in the bathroom. Everyone was left with her gasping and then crying because of her realization. So everyone is left wondering if it's true, is Katrina pregnant?

This freaky ending summed up the book perfectly. the author did an awesome job filling in the cracks and questions that she didn't answer. Such as when Katrina wouldn't feel well and Nash and her would stay in for the night. Or when Katrina couldn't blame her moodiness on her period because she hadn't gotten it. Anyways, I'm looking forward to a sequel. I would love to find out how Nash would react to this type of news and how he would treat Katrina. Overall i loved the book and would recommend it to anyone who loves sappy teen romance.

Close to finishing Unexpected!

I am so excited to finish my book Unexpected. Especially because some drama is beginning to unfold and the plot is twisting and turning. Katrina and Nash had figured things out and had become more stable in their relationship. The story consisted of more dates and movie nights and a great night at the beach and fair with a group of friends. But after Nash and Katrina got home from the fair, Nash received a phone call from his old girlfriend Vicky. Nash had caught her in the act of cheating earlier when they were dating. Vicky told Nash she still loved him and wanted to see him. Nash was annoyed and told her to leave Katrina and him alone. When Katrina asked who was on the phone she was very annoyed and curious because Nash unexpectedly left the room an then told her it was his father. Katrina is very annoyed at Nash because she knows he is lying but she chose not to investigate further.

I feel as if Katrina and I were friends we would get along just as my best friend and I do right now. Katrina has the personality of my best friend, sweet, kind, funny, loving, and has a great boyfriend. Yet I feel as if Katrina lets Nash walk over her too much. Where as my best friend stands up for what she believes is right. I wish Katrina would just talk to Nash when she has a concern, but I assume the reason why she doesn't is because she is afraid of him. But the author has ways of hinting something big is going to happen right at the ending. I hope there isn't a major cliffhanger because I will definatly have to read the ending! Here is a quote from when Katrina finds Nash slumped on a chair in the backyard after hanging up with Vicky,

"Yeah...yeah I'm fine, that was my dad, he just says hello."
"Oh," was all I had said. I stepped down onto the patio ground and expressed a weak smile towards him. "I hope he's doing well."

Blog Assignment #1

 

I believe my best blog post is Unexpected Change in Unexpected. This was published on April 7^th. I put my best effort in this blog when trying to incorporate my own voice. I use my voice when I describe the main character’s feelings while hiding from her boyfriend in the bathtub, “A situation like this truly scares me and I wonder while reading the book how I would handle something like this should I be in Katrina's place.” This specific example of voice shows how I care deeply for my main character and how she is going to handle this situation. As a writer I hope I can describe the events in Unexpected and make my readers understand what I feel as Katrina goes through her experiences.

            Also while writing my blogs; I try to give the audience as much information as I can without giving away the story. I describe in two or three paragraphs each time the newest twists and turns in the plot and what I hope will happen in the next chapters to come. I keep my word choice like how I normally talk so the blog almost comes off as a comfortable conversation with my readers. This quote from my blog post shows how my voice is present and my diction and syntax is present while explaining the events from my book, “As I continue reading in Unexpected, I was tip-toeing through the last two chapters fearing some sort of drama would start in between Nash and Katrina. Turns out my assumption was right, and Nash did surprise Katrina and I by freaking out one night when he came home from being with his friends.” I also believe that this enhances my voice and makes my blogs worth reading. Using informal diction and medium sentence length strengthens my writing voice as I tell the story of the characters in Unexpected throughout my blogs.

 

Character Development

While reading Unexpected Katrina has become the most devolved character. The story is told from both Nash's and Katrina's point of views, but Nash's views are short chapters. Nash has not shown much emotion other than saying how much he adores Katrina. Katrina shows much more emotion than Nash when she tells about her past life and her confused emotions about Nash and his friends. Katrina is still not being 100% herself around  Nash  because of when he attacked him on the bathroom. But I haven't read that much since my last blog due to time commitments. 

Katrina does aggregate me when she continues to hold Nash's outlast against him. He keeps buying her flowers and trying to apologize saying he won't do it again. If I was in her place I would either leave Nash or forgive him and do my best to move on. 

Katrina seems to be a dynamic character because she is coming out of her Schell and expressing herself more. She has made more friends and is starting to paint to relieve stress. I hope she become comftorable in her environment and most importantly in her own skin. Because she is described to be a beautiful girl who deserves to have confidence. Below is what I picture her to loo like: