Joan Didion

I have lost somebody who didn’t love me, but they have lost somebody who loved them.” When I read Joan Didion’s piece, “On Keeping a Notebook”, I knew that I could use my writing as a device that would enable me to see the world more clearly, to “remember what it was to be me: that is always the point.” My journal became a place of self-discovery;…

painted a clear picture of the state I was in for any future readers including myself. Looking back at this old post managed to trigger emotions that I had not felt since the time that I wrote it. The central argument of On Keeping a Notebook by Joan Didion is one about reconnection and reconciliation with her past self. Her strong values of self-awareness and staying connected to her past were reasons for her keeping a notebook. “We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never…

Freedoms such as being able to vote, express them-selves, and gain a sense of respect from others. Not only was fashion a piece of material back in the 1920’s, but also a form of movement. With the turn of the decade and fashion, women were able to speak for them-selves whether their voices were seen or heard as negative or positive. The Flapper image became negative for the elders but the image allowed young women to be able to grow out of that stage into mature women. Wanting to move out due…

Life Gone Downhill For Holden J.D. Salinger is an American who was born in Manhattan, New York. When he was younger he wrote short stories in secondary school, then he started writing for a magazine. His final original was in 1965 and it appeared on the, ‘The New Yorker’. In 1951, his novel, The Catcher In The Rye portrayed many different symbols representing isolation, depression, and comfort. Statistics show that combination of Depression and Isolation can negatively affect a person 's mental…

The Book of the City of Ladies Since the humans were created there have been gender roles applied to both sexes. Men have been portrayed as the more dominated sex. While on the other hand, women were seen as the weaker. Whatever a man could be portrayed to be a woman could not be. These ideas about gender lasted for many centuries. Even in modern times you can still see the separation between genders, even though some of the lines have been blurred. In The Book of the City of Ladies By…

The Connection between Holden and Allie Caulfield While reading D.J. Salinger’s, The Catcher in the Rye, I realized how much of the world along with the people Holden assumes is fake and phony. Basically everything. A clear reason to why he thinks this is not mentioned. The world is fake and phony because it no longer holds that innocence. The deep connection between Holden and Allie is affecting Holden in a negative psychological way as a result of Allie no longer remaining in Holden’s world.…

“ Course he ain’t mean. But he gets in trouble alla time because he’s so Goddamn dumb.” (pg. 41). Lennie Smalls, in Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, is the pathos of this story. This line was said by George Milton describing Lennie, which makes sympathize him because he’s a nice person and a hard worker, but he gets into trouble a lot. Lennie’s too dumb to know what’s right and what’s wrong, he just does what he just told to do. “He ain’t bright. Hell of a good worker, though. Hell of a nice…

In coming of age stories, the protagonists often experience a grave or dramatic moment in which they take a step into adulthood through a mock heroism - in this moment the reader realizes that who someone claims to be in their imagination is different from who they are in reality. In the story, The Intruder, a boy named Kenneth represents the grave moments in coming of age stories when the protagonists realize they live covered by a mask of heroism. The story starts off with Kenneth is in…

The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger, objects the academic and social norms of the time period. Salinger expresses his disapproval through Holden Caulfield, a reckless teenager, who feels a strong sense of hatred for adult society in the book. Holden Caulfield was also supposed to give an insight of what he thought were the right methods of dealing with children being rushed into the corrupted adult world. Holden poses as an excellent example of how children can be disturbed by the unethical…

Go Away from the ‘’Hell’’ Fantasy in Daniel Woodrell Winter’s Bone In the Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell narrates a story of a girl Ree Dolly. She is trying to find her father, Jessup, who produces drugs, and then persuade him to show in the court. However, it is not extremely successful to find him since someone takes charge of Jessup. Ree asks many people about trail of her father but still has no answer. At that time, she gets scared from Uncle Teardrop and beat by other women in…