A Very Lit Blog

     Throughout the book, Salinger gives us multiple hints that Caulfield is not a character to look up to. The way he interacts with authority figures he feels do not deserve his respect is ignorant at best. Likewise, Holden displays varying self-destructive tendencies both before and after he leaves the prep school: purposefully goading his hot-tempered roommate into laying him out, attempting to solicitate alcohol from multiple sources, getting himself beat up again, etcetera. From reading between the lines and properly acknowledging that these actions are supposed to reflect badly on both Holden and his mental state, we (this English class, at least) can properly understand that Catcher in the Rye is a study of a deeply flawed man who has serious issues that need to be worked out by a professional.     This character is not particularly unique nowadays, but when some of them bleed into popular culture they can have quite an effect on people. Before I say wha...

My coming of age essay was about the 2011 animated movie Rango. Rango starts the movie with zero identity; he literally lives in a cage making up stories where he is the valiant hero to satisfy his crushing loneliness and crisis of self. When he is thrown unceremoniously into the Mojave desert, he has to face the fact that not only is he not as brave as he thought he was, but that the real world is unforgiving, and there are very few people in the desert willing to help anyone but themselves. When he arrives at the main setting, a town called Dirt, people ask who he is and where he's from. It is then that he realizes that as he has no identity, he can spout whatever lies he wants to impress these people, and he does that exact thing.  However, when he is appointed sheriff, he has to deal with the reality of having people rely on you, as it is now his responsibility to save the entire town from dying of thirst by retrieving their water. When he fails on his mission and has to come b...