Outside+Elements

Ring Lardner

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"I don't see how D.B. could hate the Army and war and all so much and still like a phony like that. I mean, for instance, I don't see how he could like a phony book like that and still like that one by Ring Lardner, or that other one he's so crazy about, The Great Gatsby. D.B. got sore when I said that, and said I was too young and all to appreciate it, but I don't think so. I told him I liked Ring Lardner and The Great Gatsby and all. I did, too. " (The Catcher In the Rye, pages 75-76)

In my opinion, i think that Salinger wanted to show that Holden thought that D.B. read "phony" books by "phony" authors. It also states that Holden thinks that Ring Lardner is a genuine author and is suprised that D.B. takes interest in reading Lardner's literature.

Ring Lardner is mentioned by Holden as an author that he enjoys to read. I think that Salinger mentioned Ring Lardner in this novel because he has some things in common with Holden. One reason is that Holden and Ring Lardner were both sons of wealthy parents. Lardner was from a military family, like Holden. D.B., Holdens brother, was in the military. In 1902, Lardner attended college to study engineering. He failed all his classes besides literature and was forced to leave. Holden was very good in English and writing, but failed all his other classes and decided to drop out of his school.

[|www.ringlardner.com] []

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On September 7, 1840, Dickinson and her sister Lavinia started together at Amherst Academy, a former boys' school that had opened to female students just two years earlier. At about the same time, her father purchased a house on North Pleasant Street. Emily's brother Austin later described this large new home as the "mansion" over which he and Emily presided as "lord and lady" while their parents were absent.The house overlooked Amherst burial ground, described by one local minister as treeless and "forbidding".Dickinson was troubled from a young age by the "deepening menace" of death, especially the deaths of those who were close to her. When Sophia Holland, her second cousin and a close friend, grew ill from typhus and died in April, 1844, Emily was traumatized.Recalling the incident two years later, Emily wrote that "it seemed to me I should die too if I could not be permitted to watch over her or even look at her face."She became so melancholic that her parents sent her to stay with family in Boston to recover.With her health and spirits restored, she soon returned to Amherst Academy to continue her studies. During this period, she first met people who were to become lifelong friends and correspondents, such as Abiah Root, Abby Wood, Jane Humphrey, and Susan Huntington Gilbert (who later married Emily's brother Austin). []

I think Salinger included Emily Dickinson in his novel to show the comparison of their child hoods. Emily Dickinson experienced death of her cousin at a very young age. Emily was sent off to a boarding for several years where she found English to be a subject of her interest.Emily poetry was known to be very creative but unusual which made it interesting. Emily and Holden have alot in common and Salinger shows how Holden starts to go insane slowly because of all the factors from experiencing death and, isolation , and bad parenting at a young age. Holden was also very different from the rest of the kids but he was also very smart and creative.  [|The school emily attended]

"He made Allie go get his baseball mitt and then he asked him who was the best war poet,Rupert Brooke or Emily Dickinson. Allie said Emily Dickinson. I don't know too much about it myself, because I don't read much poetry, but I do know it'd drive me crazy if I had to be in the Army and be with a bunch of guys like Ackley and Stradlater and old Maurice all the time, marching with them and all."

( The catcher in the rye page 75 )

 //Of Human Bondage// is mentioned by the character Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye The story of human bondage was very popular during the 1930s,in England and the United States of America. It was filmed in 1934 for its popularity.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Human_Bondage. Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham. Through reading, Holden is looking for some sort of connection with people: "What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it." Holden had so much trouble calling people up, and reading was sometimes his only companion when he feels all alone.



[|Gatsby Book] [|Gatsby Movie] [|Gatsby Info]

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, and named after his ancestor Francis Scott Key, the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner. Fitzgerald was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. Though an intelligent child, he did poorly in school and was sent to a New Jersey boarding school in 1911. Despite being a mediocre student there, he managed to enroll at Princeton in 1913. Academic troubles and apathy plagued him throughout his time at college, and he never graduated, instead enlisting in the army in 1917, as World War I neared its end. Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant, and was stationed at Camp Sheridan, in Montgomery, Alabama. There he met and fell in love with a wild seventeen-year-old beauty named Zelda Sayre. Zelda finally agreed to marry him, but her overpowering desire for wealth, fun, and leisure led her to delay their wedding until he could prove a success. With the publication of //This Side of Paradise// in 1920, Fitzgerald became a literary sensation, earning enough money and fame to convince Zelda to marry him.

The Great Gatsby in many ways ties itself with "The Catcher In The Rye" because in many ways Francis is alot like the character Holden. He is a young guy who has many oppertunites to go to great schools, but he's not very school smart so he does poorly and gets sent off to boarding school. Later, he takes a chance and is enrolled at Princeton a very High class college and is excepted. There troubles still seem to find him and he goes into the Army then goes off to battle in WW1. Holden does the same but on a bit of a differnt note, never been good at school so he chooses to drop out and not do much with his life. He always tends to be unhappy at the beginning of the novel. Holden's very uptight and thinks the worlds agianst him and doesnt care what they have to say about him. They both find girls they love very young in life, but in Francis case she is willing to marry him as long as he can prove to her that he is going to make it somewhere in life and can achive some goals. Holden on the other hand loves a girl he feels he can never have, they had problems growing up that didnt seem to work themself out. He finds himself unable to get over her and feels very pertective of her none the less.

I can go on and on about how these two have major similarities but in the end what it comes down to is they are very unique characters, living lives that they need to struggle and straighten out and nobody can do it for them but themselves.

Isak Dinesen's OUT OF AFRICA  "Isak Dinesen's autobiographical novel, //Out of Africa//, recounts the years she spent on a coffee plantation in East Africa. Published in 1937, the book garnered critical and popular acclaim, especially in Britain and America. //Out of Africa// is comprised of a series of Dinesen's observations of the African landscape and character sketches of the East Africans and transplanted Europeans she met there. In her article in //The New York Times Book Review//, Katherine Woods maintains, "Africa lives through all this beautiful and heart-stirring book because of that simple and unsought-for fusion of the spirit, lying behind the skill which can put the sense of Africa's being into clear, right, simple words, through the things and people of the farm." Yet //Out of Africa// is not just an account of what the author found in Africa, it is also the story of how an independent and courageous woman came to understand and define herself. Woods concludes that Dinesen "tells the story with quiet and noble beauty. And one knows that her wish for life as a whole has been fulfilled by Africa: she did not let it go until it blessed her."

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Salinger has Holden reading this book numerous times throughout the story. He may have had him reading this because of all the hardships the main character experiences, Holden has somewhat similar difficulties. Holden goes through a lot in this book and it gives us a better understanding of who he is.