The Kids Are (More Than) Alright

While we were talking in class about Holden's feelings towards kids, I felt myself identifying more and more with him. As was mentioned, Holden is in this awkward stage between being an adult and being a child. He is trying to spend time with people who are much older than him and they don't take him seriously. Everyone can tell that he is young -- not quite a kid but definitely not an adult -- and they don't respect him, much to Holden's dismay as he sees himself as mature, responsible, an adult. I totally understood how Holden was feeling because I often feel lonely in my Brazilian family. All of my cousins are much older than me (they range from 14 to 26 years my senior) and are starting to have kids, who range from 7 to 16 years younger than me. It is hard to know where I belong because I am technically in the same generation as my older cousins but they think of me as being the same generation as their kids because I am closer in age to them. This wasn't an issue for me when I was a kid, but now that I've grown up a bit and taken on a lot of responsibility, I definitely don't see myself as a kid. Holden thinks all of the adults in his world are phonies and get angry at them for not respecting him as the adult that he sees himself as, so he seeks companionship in kids. In the past few years, I've also turned to the company of the children in my family, so I really identify with Holden here.

Holden and I both like kids a lot, but I sometimes wonder why that is. I guess one reason is that they could just as easily exclude us as the adults do, but they don't. Kids are fun and funny to talk to and watch, as shown by Holden's desire to "chew the fat" with Phoebe and his amusement when he notices that the skater in Central Park is wearing twenty lumpy sweaters. I think another thing that is nice about kids is that they are spontaneous and carefree. Holden has this mentality that we are on a conveyor belt and our lives are out of our control. I've definitely thought about that before, but I have trouble not continuing on the path that is set out for me. I'm planning on taking a gap year next year before I got to college, which isn't even that original, and I've been met with resistance from people who don't understand why I am not just going straight to college. I think one of the reasons I am drawn to kids is because they don't have any expectations of you. Maybe the reason Holden and I love kids is because we can live vicariously through them. My childhood was pretty great, and it seems like Holden's was, too, so kids are a great way to get back to that time. 

Holden is Hurting

Today in class, Alyson mentioned that Holden seems to put on a facade that he doesn't really care about anything or anyone. I agree with her that he acts like a "tough guy" to avoid showing pain because I think that Holden actually does care a lot about the people in his life. For example, when he goes to Spencer's house, there is definitely something compelling him to go talk to his teacher and I think that it is his desire for his teacher's approval. When Spencer starts reading his test out loud and talking about how disappointing his behavior has been, Holden starts making comments about other things to the reader. He is uncomfortable talking about his detriments, so he tries to direct the conversation and thoughts away from his shortcomings. Holden tries to play off the fact that it bothered him when he was "ostracized" after losing the fencing equipment. However, later when he is talking to Spencer, the conversation veers in that direction and Holden tries to distract the reader and himself by complaining about how uncomfortable Spencer's bed is,

"'Only, I just got back from New York with the fencing team,' I said. Boy, his bed was like a rock."

He also goes back to the discomfort of the bed after he admits to Spencer that he is failing four out of five of his classes that semester. Another example of Holden diverting out attention from his shortcomings is when Spencer brings up his parents. Holden chooses to focus on Spencer's usage of the word "grand" rather than on his parents because he doesn't seem to have a particularly good relationship with them. I think that Holden just wants the approval and respect of the important people in his life. He isn't getting it from his parents because he is failing out of school and he doesn't want to dwell on that because Spencer might start to agree with them. Holden also says that he "wished to hell he'd stop calling [him] 'boy' all the time" because it is a way to establish his inferiority to the teacher.

It makes me kind of sad thinking about Holden's situation because he is obviously in a lot of pain from his self-confidence issues and the adults in his life aren't helping him work through them. As I read more and more of this novel, I'm starting to realize that Holden isn't this "tough guy" type but that he had trouble accepting that. He mentioned that he is a great liar, which I initially took to mean he is great at lying to other people, but now I'm thinking that he is also great at lying to himself. I feel sorry for Holden, I guess, because I just want him to be happy and I don't think he is right now, so I hope he eventually gets to a good place.

Turning point

So, just a warning, I think that this post will probably be a bit confusing as I just kind of spilled my thoughts. I also want to apologize in advance if I offend anyone's religious beliefs because that isn't my intention and I'm going to try not to talk about the actual beliefs here...
Anyway, I want to talk about the section that we read last night where Stephen hears the sermon about hell during his school's retreat. I was pretty surprised by how blunt and scary and terrible the description of hell was. This may not have been a new image to some people who were raised in a more religious way than I was, but, even back when I went to church every Sunday, I never encountered such a depressing depiction of hell. To be honest, while I was reading the sermon, my mouth slowly opened more and more and I just felt awful. Joyce, unfortunately, did a great job of really making the reader feel as though they were in the scene being described. However, it was easy for me to kind of move on after reading that passage as my beliefs don't really fit with that idea, but I felt awful for Stephen and the other boys, especially when Stephen threw up due to his fear and discomfort. Honestly, I wasn't very happy with the priest while I was reading that section, but I can overlook that because I think that, in the end, hearing that sermon had a really good effect on Stephen. It made me really excited to see Stephen feeling so good about himself, life, etc. after he confessed his sins. I've felt like there has been sort of an ominous cloud over Stephen's head throughout the novel that darkens as he gets older, but now that cloud is gone. I've been struggling a lot with my feelings about Stephen because I can relate to his feelings a lot of the time, but I think that he and I make decisions differently, so it has been a bit frustrating to read Portrait. Now that he seems to have cleared up some of his angst (not sure if that's the best word to describe it), I'm feeling a bit more optimistic about him. Obviously I can't know this already, but I feel like this sermon, as difficult as it was for Stephen to hear, will be a turning point for him and that makes me excited for Stephen and excited to read more of the novel.

starting off with some confusion

Welcome to my last first post on a blog in a Uni English class! Although I know it is obnoxious, I can't really contain my joy that I'm almost done with high school...so I apologize for my need to remind everyone of that basically all the time. Anyway, I really enjoyed the discussion about coming of age and what it means that we started in class on Friday. Like I said in class, I've started thinking a lot about coming of age over the past year and a half or so and it is kind of consuming me. The idea of coming of age is weird because it is supposed to be a period of transition, a time during which you change who you are as a person. We usually associate it with the teenage years, although the arbitrary ending point of this transition is becoming older and older. However, it never seems to get younger. No one (or at least I don't) thinks that middle schoolers or kindergarteners are coming of age, but aren't they transitioning, too? I remember in preschool and kindergarten, all I wanted was to watch the Disney princess movies. My parents never showed me "Bambi" or "Little Mermaid" or even "Cinderella." To be honest, I still haven't seen any of those movies. When I was that age, my thoughts were almost completely devoted to playing with my imaginary friend, Window, learning how to walk on the beam in gymnastics class, and mimicking whatever my older brother did. 5 years later, I knew Window wasn't real and had forgotten the fun we used to have together, I was considering quitting gymnastics, and my goal in life was to make sure my parents knew every single thing my brother did to annoy me. Clearly, I went through a big change during that time and came out with different likes and dislikes, new relationships, and a more realistic outlook on life. That is exactly the sort of change that is supposed to happen during the period of coming of age, and yet that transition during my childhood is not considered coming of age, and that kind of confuses me. I think it would be cool if I wrote a post at the end of this course that revisits the question of how coming of age is different than transitional periods of childhood and compared my ideas now to my ideas then. I anticipate that I will change a lot mentally and emotionally after reading and thinking about other people's coming of age stories, so stay tuned...

P.S. Sorry for the lack of capitalization in my title, but I wasn't sure if "with" and "off" were supposed to be capitalized or not, so I just didn't capitalize any of it... :)