...Like It’s Our Last Day Patty Jo Djennelbaroud English 121 Instructor Asatryan March 25, 2013 Like It’s Our Last Day All too often we live our lives like we will be here forever. We take advantage of the time we are given to spend with our loved ones, and neglect opportunities to show how much we treasure them. Even when someone is old or sick, it’s too easy for us to fool ourselves into thinking that they ‘know’ just how important they are to us and how they impact our lives. I was lucky enough to be taught the value of living each day like it was my last day, and to never take our loved ones for granted, thanks to my niece Hillarie. When I was 14, my sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Hillarie Dawn. She had milky-smooth copper skin, was completely bald, and the longest baby I had ever seen. Even her toes and fingers seem to stretch for miles, and she could keep herself entertained for ages just by watching her tiny fragile fingers furling out and in, again and again, like the tail of a peacock opening and closing. She wasn’t the first baby in this generation of my family; she was number five thus far. You could say we were quite well versed in newborn-ology, but she surprised us all with her quiet and easy nature. She rarely cried or fussed, was always happy, and even let us catch sleep for hours at a time. Before the age of 2 she was diagnosed with a heart disorder, a rare form of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy with RCM. It held a bleak outcome for her future;...
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...faith . After the doctrine of tawhid and revelation ,al-Akhirah is the most repeated theme with all vigour in Al-Quran. Al-Akhirah, literally translates into English as ‘the last’ or ‘the end’ .The term ‘escathology’ in Greek which means ‘the science of teachings concerning the last things’ also related to the concept of the end. Al-Akhirah in Islamic belief system , specifically refers to the ‘Hereafter’. There are over 40 names scattered in the Al-Quran that refers to the end or al-Akhirah . Among them are ‘As-sa’ah ,Al-waqiah and Al-Qariah.The name vary according to different spectacles of al-Akhirah and the purposes serves .Al-Akhirah is the day where this world comes to an end .The world will be in such devastating situation where no one will survive. Then, people from the dead will be revived and judged for what they have done during their time in the ‘dunya’. Humans move from one ‘alam’ to another and they will live eternally in the hereafter. If they die with iman in their hearts , they’ll surely get into heaven. Those who are being syirik to Allah S.W.T, they will be forever in hell. Surah Al-A’la verse 17, stated ’in akhirat is the better and everlasting’. On that very day of the end,humans will be in such condition where they will do the unthinkable. In surah Al Haj verse 1-2,it is said that On the Day when you witness it, the suckling woman shall utterly neglect the infant she suckles,2 and every pregnant woman shall cast her burden, and you will see people as though they...
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...How does one become a grown-up? Is it something you are told to do, or must you learn for yourself how to mature? ‘’It’s time to be a grown up. Too late, you’re out of time. Be a grown-up’’ The first part last is a book written by Angela Johnson. The novel explores the life of Bobby, a young teenager who must take on the responsibility of becoming a father along side of his girlfriend Nia. There are three examples of symbolism in the book. The first example is a red balloon representing the childhood that Bobby is leaving behind. The second sign is the painting Bobby makes showing that he does not know who he is as a person yet, and the final example is the basketball he owns representing that he is still immature. All of these symbols in some way will show if Bobby has come of age by the end of the book....
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...n this book, the fundamental character, Holden Caulfield, tells us a tale about what happened amid his Christmas excursion. Holden is a sixteen-year-old kid who has failed out of a private private academy. Since he is worried about the possibility that that his guardians would discover this, he goes to an inn in New York City as opposed to going home after he leaves school for Christmas get-away. In New York, numerous things transpire inside of a couple of days. For instance, he goes to the inn bar and meets three ladies after he first arrives there. The ladies leave not long after he neglects to chat with them, furthermore, Holden feels forlorn and discouraged. He goes to another bar to discover somebody to invest some...
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...Holden Caulfield, the main character in J.D Salinger's Bildungsroman story “the Catcher in the Rye”, fears and hates the idea of becoming an adult. Holden shows this during chapter 25 when he repeatedly asks his dead brother Allie to save his innocence. “Allie, don't let me disappear. Please Allie.”(257). Due to the fact the Holden considers “disappearing” losing your childhood innocence, and the fact that he’s talking to his dead younger brother, I believe that it is clear that Holden is deeply afraid of becoming an adult. Another instance where Holden shows his worry that he might become an adult was (again) during chapter 25. Holden was walking around in his little sister Phoebe's school, when he notices “Fuck you” written on the wall....
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...Tyler Ryan Professor Wheeler English 101 April 22, 2015 Catcher in the Rye Jerome David (J.D.) Salinger was born on New Year’s Day in the year 1919, in New York City, “the second and last child of Sol and Marie (Miriam) Jillich Salinger” (Alexander 1). As a young boy, Salinger was interested in theatre and dramatics. Growing up, he attended a public school on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. He was always a very quiet and polite young man. His parents, Sol and Marie, thought he would fit in perfectly in a private school – seeing how well-mannered that young Salinger was – they “enrolled him in McBurney School in Manhattan in 1932” (Alexander 2), but, just as one of his most famous characters, Holden Caufield, he did not fit in very well in the private school, struggling to keep his grades satisfactory. Concerned, Salinger’s parents sent him to Valley Forge Military Academy when he was just 15 years old. “There he was active in drama and singing clubs. He sometimes wrote fiction by flashlight under his blankets at night and contributed to the school’s magazine” (Alexander 3). Salinger graduated in June of 1936 from Valley Forge, and then went on to pursue a brief, but significant college career. He began his education at New York University, but quickly dropped out “to try performing as an entertainer on a Caribbean cruise ship” (Alexander 4). When he was 20 years old, he worked toward his college career once again. He enrolled in a class at Columbia University to learn...
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...The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. Originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage angst and alienation. It has been translated into almost all of the world's major languages. Around 250,000 copies are sold each year with total sales of more than 65 million books. The novel's protagonist Holden Caulfield has become an icon for teenage rebellion. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2003, it was listed at number 15 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. The novel also deals with complex issues of identity, belonging, connection, and alienation. Plot summary Holden begins his story at Pencey Prep, an exclusive private school in Agerstown, Pennsylvania, on the Saturday afternoon of the traditional football game with rival school Saxon Hall. Holden misses the game. As manager of the fencing team, he loses their equipment on a New York City subway train that morning, resulting in the cancellation of a match. He goes to the home of his History teacher named Mr. Spencer. Holden has been expelled and is not to return after Christmas break, which begins the following Wednesday. Spencer is a well-meaning but long-winded middle-aged man. To Holden's annoyance, Spencer reads aloud Holden's History paper, in which Holden...
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...Aha Moment- After having a strenuous few days, Holden has come to a realization about what he wants to do with the rest of his life. While talking with Phoebe about failing out of Pencey, she brings up the point about what he will do if he does not continue school. Holden stops and really thinks about this and all of a sudden has an idea, “That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye. I know its’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be”(Salinger 225). Although this idea sounds crazy, it must mean something because The Catcher in the Rye, ended up being the title of the book. It is also ironic that Holden wants to do something that helps others because he needs the help of other people to help him through his problems. This is a significant realization for Holden because now he can have something to aim for in life instead of being depressed all the time. Aha Moment- There are two occasion in the book where Holden has came up with a plan to move to a secluded place and to never be bothered by anyone. The first time this plan came up was when Holden was on a date with Sally Hayes. Out of nowhere Holden wanted Sally to run away with him to a...
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...adulthood. In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger communicates the conflicting emotions present during Holden Caulfield's journey into adulthood, reflected by his cynical attitude towards the adult world and his idealistic perspective of the innocence of youth. One of the prevalent themes of Holden's journey to adulthood is his cynical attitude toward the adult world. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden says, "You ought to go to a boy's school sometime. Try it sometime. It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddamn Cadillac someday, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddamn cliques" (Salinger 170). Holden feels as though the only point of going to school is to become smart enough to buy a nice car and be able to have a family of his own. He also is convinced that the majority of adolescent boys are phonies, who will continue to be phonies once they enter into the corrupt adult world. In Stanford Pinsker's book The Catcher in the Rye: Innocence Under Pressure, he furthers the idea of Holden's cynical attitude. Pinsker writes that Holden is trying to, "cling to a vision of a prelapsarian world, one without 'falls' and without the complexities of sin," (Pinsker 87). Holden wants to stay in a world that is innocent, without complications, and he wants...
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...because sooner or later they are going to grow up and leave that innocence time period. However in the end Holden failed of three main reasons which ultimately lead to his failure to join the human race. One of the reasons Holden had failed was because everything that involved becoming an adult bothered Holden, he couldn’t handle those things that came with growing up. For instance, Holden states, “ You ought to go to a boys’ school sometime. Try it sometime”, I said. “It’s full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddamn Cadillac someday, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls, liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddamn cliques”(Pg. 145-146). This explains/ demonstrates how Holden can easily be bothered by what high school boys are now interested in. Nor did he like the fact that people would hang out with each other that have the same interests because it was like being exposed to girls, sex, drugs and liquor. Holden says “ Do you mind cutting it out?” I said. “I’m not in the mood, I just had an operation…” “What the heck did you tell that crazy Maurice you wanted a girl for, then? If you just had a goddamn operation on your goddamn, wuddayacallit. Huh?” “ I thought you’d be feeling a lot better that i do…”(108-109); However it wasn’t necessarily the operation, Holden had on why he couldn’t have...
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...adolescence and the phoniness of adulthood. This battle causes him to lead a life believing in falsehood to the point where he becomes a psychiatric patient. Holden’s appreciation for consistency, desire to run away and low opinion of adults exemplify his desire to avoid change and growing up as well as illustrate his resulting poor mental state, and this concept is best understood through the psychoanalytic lens. As a result of this attitude, Holden is an isolated individual. He doesn’t enjoy or tend to go to events others find important because he prefers not to be surrounded by fake people. In the novel, he recalls to himself, “Anyway, the Saturday of the football game with Saxon Hall was supposed to be a big deal around Pency. It was the last game of the year, and you were supposed to commit suicide or something if old Pency didn’t win” (Slinger 3). Though the Saxon Hall game is significant for Pency, Holden questions why so much importance is given to the game and leaves the game early. He believes that the people he sees at the game are fake and do not give enough attention to their children, so he prefers to stay away from such individuals who only look to fulfill their own desires. Secondly, Holden believes that he is an outsider in society whom others can not understand. In the novel, Holden’s former English teacher tells him, “Life is like a game, everyone has to follow the rules…if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about? Nothing...
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...left without her. I shouldn’t of... I was too drunk to give a damn”.This quote shows Holden has no control over his emotions and drinks to calm them or get rid of the pain. He understands that he is a coward and is unable to cope with problems. This shows that Holden has no common sense within his actions, as he jumps to far feched measures to reduce his pains. His methods are no good sense they lead him into more depression. However, Holden prefers to drink himself dumb to stay away because he is unable to face his fears or desertion. As Holden shows his cowardness self, it reduces his sense of himself ,and the pain he experiences causes his depression. This supports the idea that Holden is depressed and hides his issues by getting drunk. Last, Holden see’s his horrible behaviour because he is at a crossroad with himself. Behaviours that he finds wrong in other people seem normal if partakes in him. For example,inside the school, he erases the words “Fuck You” on the wall and wishes to kill the person who wrote it. What’s weird about this is Holden casually uses foul language himself. Holden expects society to be perfect without any flaws yet he does the same thing that others do and judges them for it. This is shown through Holden’s comment, “Somebody’d written “Fuck you” on the wall, It drove me dam near crazy…I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it”. Holden’s depression is also shown through his feelings and mental states. To begin with, Holden’s depression...
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...Holden is a struggling 16 year-old boy, trying to find his place in this world, clinging onto his innocence in urgent desperation. Over the span of three days, the novel follows Holden where he eventually accepts his loss of innocence, but not without going through many struggles along the way first. Through Salinger’s use of symbols, the reader is able to clearly identify Holden’s reluctance toward becoming an adult and surrendering his innocence. Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, the author uses the Museum of Natural History, the erasing of profanity and the carousel to reveal that a person cannot avoid his or her loss of innocence. Holden visits his childhood spot, Museum of Natural History, symbolizing a world in which nothing has to change. While reflecting on his memories from the museum he realizes that the reason he loved it so much was because he could count on everything staying the same, “the best thing though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move…the only thing that would be different is you” (Salinger 121). Just like the thought of preserving innocence, Holden revels in the thought of everything staying exactly the same, forever. However, Holden knows he has become different, as he acknowledges in this quote. He realizes that he possesses less innocence than he did the last time he visited the museum. The concept of stability that this quote provides makes it evident that Holden is afraid of evolving into an adult with...
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...J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Life Doesn't Always go as Planned J.D Salinger’s 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, takes place in the late 1940s and is mainly about a pessimistic lethargic teenager that abhors almost everything revolving around him. The novel is a first person narrative, Holden Caulfield, is the indecisive teen that tells his story about a horrible weekend he once had and calls it “this madman stuff” (Salinger 1). His story begins at his high school Pency Prep in Agerstown, Pennsylvania which he just got kicked-out of for failing all his classes except English. Holden is supposed to arrive home days later, but he gets in an argument with his roommate Stradlater, and leaves to New York to stay at the Edmont hotel. He begins...
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...Lovrović Modern English Practice 1 15 January 2013 J. D. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye The Catcher in the Rye is a novel written by the American author Jerome David Salinger. From its first publishing the novel has arose a lot of controversy. Salinger wrote his novel in the first person, addressing the readers in its very beginning, so the readers have a feeling that he speaks directly to them. Furthermore, sequences follow the exact thought processes of the main character, which brings him, as well as the complete novel, even more close to the readers. The story takes place mostly in New York in December 1949, just before the Christmas holidays. The plot follows a seventeen-year-old boy protagonist Holden Caulfield who retells several days in his life, giving his personal opinion of the society that surrounds him after being expelled from the third school in a row. The novel is presented as his own monologue written in a subjective style, which reflects the teenage colloquial speech of that period of time. A drop-out Holden has attracted a wide audience of adolescent readers, yet gained many negative critiques due to his rebellious way of thinking and acting, and his common use of street language; he expresses himself in slang, in a very witty manner, also using curses and swearwords quite often. However, the Catcher in the Rye has experienced a great success, and has been translated into many languages. It was and still is very influential book that created a new generation...
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