Two paragraphs from "The Catcher in the Rye"

This spring I am reading "The Catcher in the Rye", a novel by J. D. Salinger. The book was first published in 1951, and has been very popular since."The Catcher in the Rye" is a story about a 17-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield. Holden has a lot on his mind, among other things he has failed four schools, his brother died of leukemia and he has trouble with girls. The story is really about how Holden thinks that most adults are "phony". The Catcher in the Rye is really a boy who is trying to save children from entering the adult and phony world.  In this blog entry I will include two paragraphs from the book that I think represents one of the most important themes of the book.

So, as I mentioned before, I think the main theme of this book is how Holden thinks that almost all the people around him are phonies. I think this upcoming paragraph from early in the story gives us a pretty good idea about how Holden is as a person, and what he thinks of phonies. The paragraph is from when Holden visits his old history teacher, who tries to teach him a lesson about life:

 ““Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.” “Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it.” Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, all right—I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game."

It is obvious that Holden gets very annoyed when the teacher tells him this, because Holden feels that the teacher is phony. I think that Holden feels that the teacher does not know what he is talking about, because the teacher probably hasn't experienced the hard side of life, where there aren't any hot-shots.

Another paragraph from the book that I think represents the theme is when Holden is listening to a speech from a man called Ossenburger, who used to go to the same school as Holden when he was young.

"He started telling us how he was never ashamed, when he was in some kind of trouble or something, to get right down on his knees and pray to God. He told us we should always pray to God - talk to Him and all - whenever we were. He told us we ought to think of Jesus as our buddy and all. He said he talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving in his car. That killed me. I can just see the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs".

In both of these paragraphs we clearly see how Holden is annoyed when grown-ups say phony things. If adults are bragging, exaggerating or simply not telling the entire truth, Holden sees them as phony.

Moliehi Sekese

Today, Moliehi Sekese visited our school. She is a teacher from Lesotho, a little country in southern Africa. She is the Educator's Choice award winner 2009 for the Microsoft Innovative Education Forum. She won this award for her school project about indigenous plants. The impressing part is that her school in Lesotho, Mamoeketsi Government Primary School, had no electricity while they did this project.

She began the school project by having her students borrow cell phones from family. The students were supposed to go home and ask their parents about indigenous plants, and then they would write their findings in a text message and send them to Moliehi. She told us that the students were very excited about using cell phones for the first time, and that she received text messages until midnight. Since their school had no internet access, they went to an internet cafe in town to blog about what they had found out. Moliehi told us that her school has only two computers, and with no electricity at school she had to charge them at home every day. They continued their project by going to the biggest botanical garden in Lesotho. They filmed how to grow plants and then they made their own botanical garden near their school.

Moliehi's school has over 700 students, and only two laptops to share. Despite the fact that they have only two laptops and no internet access, Moliehi does the best she can. Her country is one of the poorest countries in the world, and she believes that education will make a difference. Most of the children in her school are very poor; they come to school with no shoes, torn clothes and even hungry. And even when the classrooms are very cold in the wintertime, the students show up. They show up because they know that education is almost necessary. Education is how Lesotho can develop.

The last thing Moliehi said when she was talking to our class was that we should feel lucky. We are lucky because we have so much technology available, and we have no excuse not to get educated. We have no other worries than getting up in the morning and go to school. The children in Lesotho, on the other hand, have a lot of worries every day. Moliehi's strength and guts are very admirable and I think she is doing a wonderful job. The inspiring teacher is trying to make the best out of their situation, by using the little technology they have access to for all it's worth.