Pride and Prejudice Blog 1

In the beginning of the book the Bennet family discovers that a wealthy man named Mr. Bingley is moving in at Netherfield Park. Mrs. Bennet seems especially excited by this news because she wants one of her daughters to marry him. Already I realize that Mrs. Bennet is very superficial and controlling. She hasn't even met Mr. Bingley and she wants one of her daughters to marry him! He could be a total creep for all she knows! It's obvious that she only cares about social rank and money. Later the Bennet girls and their mother go to a party along with Mr. Bingley and his friend Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy is a very rude and arrogant man: "He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again." (pg. 12). It's strange that Darcy and Bingley are even friends since Darcy is cruel and cocky and Bingley is kind and friendly. When the Bennets return from the party Mrs. Bennet tells Mr. Bennet about the ball and how happy she was that Bingley danced with Jane twice. Mr. Bennet does not seem to care at all. In fact, he seems to get angry at his wife for going on and on about the ball: "If he had had any compassion for me he would not have danced half so much! For God's sake, say no more of his partners." (pg. 14). It's ironic that Mrs. Bennet calls Darcy a "high" and "conceited" man for not taking a liking to Elizabeth when she herself is being shallow and conceited for thinking that her daughters only deserve the richest and the best.
Later on, the unthinkable happens: Mr. Darcy becomes interested in Elizabeth. Mr. Darcy seems to be one of those people that has everything they could possibly want and the one thing they know they can't have they desperately try to get it. Darcy is only fascinated by Elizabeth and has no desire to be with her, not yet anyway. Caroline Bingley invites Jane over for dinner and Mrs. Bennet makes Jane go by horseback in order to stay overnight. Jane gets caught in a rainstorm and becomes sick. She has to stay at the manor until she recovers. She asks Lizzy to visit her, which stirs up a whole bunch of drama. Miss Bingley seems to be fighting Elizabeth for Darcy's attention and talks bad about her: "Eliza Bennet is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art." (pg. 45). Miss Bingley seems really foolish in my opinion. She tries so hard to get Darcy's attention by making herself seem perfect and Elizabeth so poor and unworthy of him. She actually makes herself look bad because she is so critical. It's funny how Darcy is falling for Elizabeth who has no interest in him whatsoever.
So far I actually sort of like this book. Even though it was written in the 1800s it's pretty easy to follow and I can relate to it. A lot of drama is going on in the book, just like in high school. The characters a pretty realistic and there is always something going on. I think that even though Elizabeth has absolutely no interest in Mr. Darcy she will eventually fall in love with him. I also think Jane and Bingley will end up together, but I guess I'll have to keep reading to discover what really happens.

The Catcher in the Rye Blog 4

In the last section of the book Holden goes on his date with Sally. It's so obvious that he doesn't even like her and claims he loves her when he sees her, probably just because she looked good: "I didn't even like her much, and yet all of a sudden I felt like I was in love with her and wanted to marry her." I feel bad for Sally because Holden just goes out with her because she's good looking and makes her believe he genuinely likes her. He even says he thinks her voice is annoying. Holden claims how he hates things that are corny and over-the-top but Sally is exactly that. It's obvious that he's very immature and doesn't know what he wants. Although it seems that Holden is, or tries to be, down to earth, which I like about him. During the movie Sally sees a guy she knows and they talk for a long time and she completely forgets about Holden, so she must not be too crazy about him either. After the movie they went skating and Holden talks to Sally about running away together. It's obvious that she thinks he's crazy and wants to leave, and I don't blame her. Once Holden gets an idea in his head, no matter how ridiculous, he tries to go through with it and doesn't realize how silly it is.

After the horrible date with Sally, Holden tries to call Jane again. I really wish he would just get together with Jane because it's obvious that he actually cares about her unlike Sally. He calls this guy named Carl Luce and wants to meet up with him for a drink. I think Holden makes up any excuse just to get a drink. Holden starts talking about Carl Luce and how he could tell if people were gay or lesbian. Holden even has his doubts about Carl and thinks he might be a little 'flitty'. It's weird that Holden calls up these people he isn't even close to and really doesn't even like them and tries to go out with them like they have been friends forever. I realize he probably does this because he's lonely and doesn't have that many friends. In a way I feel bad for him because he's alone and can't go home to his family but then again it's his own fault he's on his own in the first place.

After Holden has a drink with Carl he gets drunk and starts walking all over the city feeling lonely and sorry for himself. He decides to go to his house and visit Phoebe, which probably isn't the best idea since he's drunk. He sneaks in the house and tries not to wake anyone up. He watches Phoebe sleep for a while and then wakes her up. She is excited to see him, but then finds out he got kicked out of school. Then Holden calls up Mr. Antolini and asks to stay with him for a little bit since he has no place to go. Mr. Antolini agrees and then Holden's parents come home. He hides and then Phoebe lends him all of her money. I think that Phoebe is a really good sister and loves her brother a lot because she gets upset when he flunks out of school and lets him borrow all of her Christmas money and I think Holden knows it. He wants to visit her all the time because he knows she loves him and will always love him no matter how many schools he gets kicked out of.

Holden goes to stay at the Antolini's and after he wakes up to find Mr. Antolini petting Holden's head Holden freaks out and leaves immediately. Holden gets another crazy idea to go live in the woods and decides to write a goodbye letter to Phoebe. He meets her in front of a museum and she wants to go with him. He says she can't and she cries and says she won't go to school anymore if he leaves. I think this is the point he realizes he has been foolish failing every school he does to and not caring and setting a bad example for his little sister. He realizes he wants Phoebe to have a good future and not end up like him so he decides to do the mature thing and go back home.

I thought the ending to the story was abrupt, but I thought it fit with the whole story. Holden turns out to be sort of sensitive and says that he misses everyone he's had the chance to meet, even Stradlater and Ackley. I think he learns that life is full of surprises and you never know what's going to happen until it happens.

The Catcher in the Rye Blog 3

In the next part of the story Holden goes back to the hotel. As he gets in the elevator a man named Maurice asks him if he wants a good time. The man asks Holden how old he is and Holden lies and says 22. Holden ends up buying a prostitute for a short amount of time. It's crazy to me that this hotel would have prostitutes available, especially for people that are not being honest about their age, like Holden. I realize that this is probably a low end hotel by the way Holden describes it: "The whole lobby was empty. It smelled like fifty million dead cigars. It really did." The prostitute comes and is ready to get down to business but Holden stalls for a little bit then decides he is scared and not ready for this. He makes up an excuse that he had a recent operation but he will pay her anyway. One thing I did find interesting is that Holden actually felt sorry and sad for the girl: "I took her dress over to the closet and hung it up for her. It was funny. It made me feel sort of sad when I hung it up. I thought of her going in a store and buying it, and nobody in the store knowing she was a prostitute and all. The salesman probably just thought she was a regular girl when she bought it. It made me feel sad as hell--I don't know why exactly." This shows that Holden actually has sympathy for people despite his tough exterior. The fact that he didn't do what he was expected to do with the prostitute showed that he knows right from wrong and he knew it isn't right for this girl to be treated the way she is.

Later on Holden calls up a girl named Sally and asks her out to a movie. It's obvious that he doesn't like her much: "She gave me a pain in the ass, but she was very good-looking." He probably just wants to spend some time with someone he knows, just to feel less lonely. He tries to call Jane, but when her mother answers, he hangs up right away. I think he's afraid that Jane might be home and if he tried to ask her out he might get rejected. That makes it obvious that he really has feelings for Jane and that Holden really has a soft side.

Holden decides to go to Grand Central Station and have some breakfast. There he meets two nuns who are also teachers. One is an English teacher and Holden tells her that English is his best subject. Holden offers to give them ten dollars as a contribution. I think this is ironic because earlier Holden claimed to be an atheist: "I can't always pray when I feel like it. In the first place, I'm sort of an atheist. I like Jesus and all, but I don't care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible."

I think it's funny that Holden continues to think he's tough and mature, even though he does nice things like donate money and buy a record for his little sister. However, he even admits that he isn't as tough as he would like to be: "I'd have the damn gloves right in my hand and all, but I'd feel I ought to sock the guy in the jaw or something--break his goddam jaw. Only, I wouldn't have the guts to do it. I'd just stand there trying to look tough." I don't know why Holden continues to carry on with this tough guy act when it's obvious it makes him look young and immature. Maybe as the book progresses Holden will realize he is acting very childish when he tries to be an adult and will decide to change his ways.

The Catcher in the Rye Blog 2

In the story Holden and Stradlater get into a big fight when Stradlater comes back from his date with Jane. Holden gets mad because he thinks Stradlater had sex with her and punches him in the face, which shows he has some feelings for Jane. Stradlater tackles Holden and makes him bleed all over the place. After the fight Holden goes into Ackley's room: "I had a feeling old Ackley'd probably heard all the racket and was awake. So I went through the shower curtains into his room, just to see what the hell he was doing." Holden claims that he went in to check on Ackley, but I really think that Holden wanted a friend there for him and wanted someone to comfort him, which his funny considering how much Holden says he can't stand Ackley. I think Ackely is a pretty funny character, especially when it comes to his religion: "I don't care what you say about me or anything, but if you start making cracks about my goddam religion for Chrissake--" Ackley claims that he is very religious but says things like "goddam" and "Chrissake". It's pretty ironic to me. I also think that Ackley is pretty similar to Holden, especially in the way he talks and curses all the time.

After fighting with Stradlater and getting no comfort from Ackley, Holden decides to leave Pencey for good. Holden takes a bus into New York, where he meets the mother of one of his classmates, Ernest Morrow. He finds the woman very attractive, but then again Holden finds a lot of women attractive, so he's a very hormonal young man. After talking to her for a while, Holden asks her out for a few drinks, which seems crazy because 1) he is too young to buy drinks 2) he just met this woman and 3) she is way too old for Holden. Even though she turned him down I think his attempt was still funny, especially because he kept making up stories to impress her.

After Holden gets off the bus he goes to a trashy hotel. There he goes to a phone booth and calls up this slutty girl one of his friends knows. Again he asks her out for a few drinks but she declines. I think Holden thinks if he buys a woman a few drinks he's going to get lucky, which is probably true considering the women he's asked out already. It's funny that Holden says he doesn't understand sex at all but it's all he thinks about and even though he makes rules for himself, he ends up ignoring them: "Sex is something I really don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away."

As the story goes on Holden describes his little sister Phoebe. Again I notice he describes her in a positive and proud way, like he described his brother Allie: "You should see her. You never saw a little kid so pretty and smart in your whole life. She's really smart." I notice that he only talks about Allie, Phoebe and Jane in a good way and everyone else he doesn't really care for. He especially talks about Jane in a good way: "You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really were." I think that Holden really cares about Jane and I think he will try to get in contact with her later in the book.

The Catcher in the Rye Blog 1

In the first part of The Catcher in the Rye the main character, Holden Caulfield, narrates the story and starts out talking about how he got kicked out of Pencey Prep. He explains how he has kicked out of many different schools because he doesn't care about his education. He makes it sound like it's the school that is awful and not his lack of trying: "They don't do any damn more molding at Pencey than they do at any other school. And I didn't know anybody there that was splendid and clear thinking and all." Holden seems very negative about everything and he doesn't care about anything, either. Holden talks about visiting his history teacher Mr. Spencer and how he had to listen to Mr. Spencer talk about why he was failing Holden: "I flunked you in history because you knew absolutely nothing." And while Mr. Spencer keeps repeating why Holden failed, Holden is perfectly polite and agrees with everything he says, while in his head he is getting pissed off and wants to leave already. I thought this part was pretty funny because Holden decided to be nice and visit his sick teacher for the last time and his teacher makes him miserable by criticizing him the whole time.

Holden also talks about a kid named Ackley who always bothers Holden and supposedly hates everyone: "He hated Stradlater's guts and he never came in the room if Stradlater was around. He hated everybody's guts, damn near." It's pretty funny that Holden basically tells Ackley to go away, but he never gets the hint. Holden can't seem to get away even when he make a big effort to. Then Holden's roommate Stradlater comes in and asks Holden if he can borrow his coat and asks if Holden can write a paper for him. It's pretty ironic that Stradlater asks the kid that is failing almost all of his classes to write a paper for him. It's even more ironic that Holden agrees to do it. So Holden decides to write the descriptive paper about his brother Allie's baseball glove, which had poems written all over it. His brother died of leukemia and this seems to me like the only thing so far that Holden talks about without resentment and talks about his brother with compassion: "He was terrifically intelligent. His teachers were always writing letters to my mother, telling her what a pleasure it was having a boy like Allie in their class." It seems like Holden really cared about his brother and was devastated when he died because he broke all the windows with his hand: "I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it."

After reading so far I think this is a pretty funny book and I'm not even sure that was the author's intention. Just the irony and the swearing is just funny. I know this was a pretty controversial book back in the day and I can see why: there is a swear word on almost every page. Compared to books today, however, this is nothing. I also notice that when Holden is talking about something, he rambles on about something else entirely different or explains why something happened and has to constantly return back to what he was originally talking about. I can't wait to see what happens next in Holden's interesting life.

1984 Blog 3

In the next part of 1984 the Party announces that after all this time hating Eurasia, it turns out that Eastasia was actually the enemy: "At just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally." (Page 196). Within minutes of the speaker announcing this news, the crowd goes crazy and begins to hate Eastasia. Winston knows that the fact that they had hated Eurasia will be erased from history: "Although no directive was ever issued, it was known that the chiefs of the Department intended that within one week no reference to the war with Eurasia, or the alliance with Eastasia, should remain in existence anywhere." (Page 199). Winston knows he will have a lot of work to do with this change in alliance. I think it's strange that all of a sudden the people can just lose their hate for Eurasia and gain so much hate for Eastasia in a matter of minutes just because the Party tells them to.

Winston goes to the room he shares with Julia and starts to read a book by Emmanuel Goldstein called "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism". It is about the social classes in Oceania and that there is no life without war. Goldstein says in his book that no matter what there will always be wars between the three nations: "In one combination or another, these three superstates are permanently at war, and have been so for twenty-five years." (Page 202). It's depressing that there will always be a war going on and there is absolutely no solution so the only answer is hate for the enemy country and every once in a while the alliances switch up and they become allies with the country they once despised. This cycle would get old after a while and the people are obviously so brainwashed that they can't break free from it all.

When Winston and Julia wake up they are startled by a bunch of men that have broken into their room. It turns out that they had been spied on the whole time! The men attack Winston and Julia and take Julia away. Mr. Charrington enters the room and it's revealed that he is in fact a member of the Thought Police. I always thought it was kind of strange that Mr. Charrington let Winston stay in the room that was supposedly safe and free from any telescreens without anything in return.

Winston finds himself in a cell where he is constantly being monitored. He hasn't eaten anything for a long time and wonders if they will even bother to feed him: "But he was also hungry, with a gnawing, unwholesome kind of hunger. It might be twenty-four hours since he had eaten, it might be thirty-six. He still did not know, probably never would know, whether it had been morning or evening when they arrested him. Since he was arrested he had not been fed." (Page 247). Winston couldn't even put his hand in his pocket: ""Smith!" yelled a voice from the telescreen. "6079 Smith W! Hands out of pockets in the cells!"" By the description of the cell it seems like the Party wants to torture their prisoners and make them sorry that they ever broke the law and try to go against them. They want to make it clear that they will find the rebels and make sure they are punished for their actions.

1984 Blog 2

Next in 1984 Winston goes into a bar in the prole district and starts to talk to a man about the past. He asks the man if times were different in the past: "Do you feel that you have more freedom now than you had in those days? Are you treated more like a human being?" (Page 100). The man doesn't give him a straight answer and Winston gets frustrated. Winston leaves and finds himself in front of the store in which he bought the diary. He goes inside and encounters the shopkeeper. Winston looks around a bit and decides to buy an old paperweight, which could have been suspicious: "Anything old, and for that matter anything beautiful, was always vaguely suspect." (Page 106). The shopkeeper takes Winston to a secret room, a room Winston notices doesn't have a telescreen. The shopkeeper says: "I never had one of those things. Too expensive. And I never seemed to feel the need of it, anyhow." (Page 107). The man, named Mr. Charrington, makes it seem like having a telescreen isn't required and he doesn't seem to care about not having one. Mr. Charrington recites a rhyme about churches: "Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement's, you owe me three farthings, say the bells of St. Martin's!" (Page 110). The rhyme makes Winston think of the past and what it could have been like and how different it probably was. Winston leaves the shop and notices the dark haired girl and thinks she is spying on him. He considers killing the girl: "He could keep her on track till they were in some quiet place, and then smash her skull in with a cobblestone." (Page 112). In my opinion Winston seems very paranoid. He was scared that the Party would catch him writing bad things in his diary and now he thinks that this girl is spying on him. I understand standing up to the Party and Big Brother is very risky, but if Winston wants to be rebellious he needs to man up and do it!

In Part 2 Winston goes to work and sees the girl with dark hair with an arm sling. The girl falls down and Winston helps her up. In the process the girl slips him a note. He takes the note and after a long while of debating he decides to read it. It turns out that the girl loves him, or so it says. Winston is surprised by this: "For several seconds he was too stunned even to throw the incriminating thing into the memory hole." (Page 118). I was very surprised at this turn of events. I definitely thought she was spying on him since she happened to be wherever he was and it doesn't really make sense to me that she would be in love with him, especially since they have never talked to each other before. A few days after receiving the note Winston sits at the girl's lunch table. They briefly spoke and decided to meet up in private. They met in Victory Square and agreed to meet again at a later date. I honestly think this whole situation is weird. Winston just wants the girl sexually and it's pretty gross since he's way older than her. I think Winston is a pervert and is constantly thinking about sex.

Winston and the girl finally meet up alone and basically have sex. Turns out that Julia has done it plenty of times and Winston loves her for it: "Listen. The more men you've had, the more I love you. Do you understand that?" (Page 137). This seems more like a political agenda and part of Winston's rebellion scheme to me. The two continue their affair and take up residence in the room above Mr. Charrington's shop. I'm pretty confused about what has happened so far. It doesn't make sense that Winston and Julia are an "item" now and Winston is in love with Julia because she is a whore and slept with so many members of the Party. It just shows that it's part of his hate for the Party and doesn't really have anything to do with his "love" for Julia.