When I was at community college we had this English teacher, Mr. Sullivan, who made us read this book. Old Sullivan was about a hundred years old and was from Scotland, so he talked with this sort of phony accent. When we finished reading it, he wanted us to write a composition about what themes were in the story. That killed me. English teachers always want you to write about themes. How can anyone know any of that stuff for sure? You can't. I mean, I liked the story and all - it was sort of corny but not TOO corny. I sort of got a bang out of it, if you want to know the truth.
I've just finished reading the book. I have realised through watching these videos that I am quite bad at reading critically. This book definitely deserves a second reading in order for me to pick up on the points made in the video!
+Samantha Blake (LowerThanL0W) Completely agree. Now I understand why my teacher and parents suggested I read the book more than once, at different stages in my life.
Thank you so much for having written that. I feel the same way, but I can never make myself say it, or even admit it. But realising where you are right now makes you see paths into growth. Just feels nice to have someone with the same struggle deal with it in such a light and honest way. (Sorry if this sounds weird. Just didn't feel like sounding phony for once)
One thing I noticed is that Phoebe goes on the "big, brown, beat-up looking old horse" whilst all the other children choose the more appealing ones. It could just me over-analyzing it, but the horse could represent Holden and his deterioration throughout the novel and the children choosing to ignore it representing the rejection he faces from all his associates, and he's stuck like this until Phoebe comes along and he finally feels accepted, his epiphany being that he can actually feel the joy of going around full circle instead of feeling the isolation.
Erulasse Aranel it's really a unique piace in itself...so idk if you would like it.....given the fact that the narrator likes to complain and point out every little mistake there is about anyone which makes him a little annoying but i guess thats for realism of the situation
+Erulasse Aranel Actually, I think you probably should read it then. Sympathy is basically necessary for reading Catcher. Holden can be pretty obnoxious at times if you don't care about him.
finished this book half an hour ago. Powerful stuff. I liked the part where he would slowly lose his mind and find all kinds of escapism in living as a deafmute in a cabin with a deafmute wife, to escape the stuff he's going through. It really killed me.
Holden Caulfield: A character that everyone complains about being whiny despite the fact that that's actually a pretty realistic reaction for someone his age considering the shit that happens to him. So he's basically the Shinji Ikari of the literary world?
william Cooper Shinji Ikari from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. The show was supposed to be a more realistic take on the whole "Teens pilot Giant Robots" thing. So instead of jumping into the robot and saving the world no questions asked Shinji doesn't want to get into the robot and fight the big scary aliens and it takes a lot of coaxing to get him into it. That along with his tendency to be a tad emo even when not worrying about the giant robot has a lot of people complaining about how he's a whiny bitch. Completely disregarding the fact that that was the entire point of the anime: To show that most people in anime (specifically giant mecha anime) would be completely fucked up.
He includes subtle (or not-so-subtle) nods to his own books sometimes. In US history, him-from-the-past says "I believe that state you're LOOKING FOR, is ALASKA."
Wait, so this man wrote paper towns? THIS man wrote Paper Towns? ? I juste realized that now! Anyone could be named John Green! So the guy who explained history and American politics to me all these years is also the one who threw me into a world where friendships are as intense as I wish they were and where leisure parks can be broken into. This. Is. Crazy.
I kind of felt a lot like Holden when I was reading this book, there was a kind of comforting feeling of reading about a guy who wasn't perfect and had fears and desires to just run away
I love CC so much but it sucks that you guys stopped making the literature episodes. Maybe you could do The Picture of Dorian Gray, or War and Peace or The Lord of the Flies... There are so many great classics out there that are hopelessly waiting to star in one of your episodes. And as a massive fan I would love to skip homework just to watch these videos. Thanks.
One really cool symbol I noticed the the book is the Little Shirley Beans record. When Holden breaks it, it symbolizes him breaking, and I find it really sweet that Phoebe takes the broken pieces and keeps them. What other things could the record symbolize? I'm writing an essay on the novel... It's pretty funny because I first read this book in the 6th grade, my mother urging me to read it because "it was a banned book that was burned in libraries". Now 5 years later I'm analyzing it for a college level class, and finally understand what a prostitute is. Boy, that was confusing at 11.
I know it's a terrible thing to say, but I didn't even read the goddamn novel before I saw the video. It's sorta phony, I know, but I just get such a bang out of this. I just mean, the WAY he says it, it just kills me. I mean, he doesn't shoot the bull like most of those lousy literature experts do I mean, my teacher is just so corny, I mean, I just couldn't strike up a conversation with her. It just isn't the sorta thing you do.
Green says everyone's too "self involved" to show Holden any empathy. Not completely true. His parents aren't self involved; they are consumed with grief over Allie's death, and understandably so. This is common in families who have lost a child. While the parents are zoned out on shock and grief, the remaining children get less attention at a critical time when they themselves are dealing with the same grief, on top of their usual growing up problems.
One of the best treatments of Salinger I've run across. It's a book that I found intensely irritating, yet I feel compelled to hear what it says. Listen, I also loved many of the comments below; I really did.
This was the last book we were required to read out jr year of high school and I had never taken my classmates grumbles at how terrible a book was so personally. I loved this book and I related so well to this character.
And then I felt like giving a buzz to ol' John Green, I really did, it almost killed me. But I wasn't really in the mood for it, you need to be in the mood for that kind of stuff.
Yunno that's popular pollution too concu,e such will bake cake of live you ring of roses owe so much,arty path time for school,you know we are King of world,lording rules,spoken wheel so misused,Ho Ho who are yooo,ooo dear me,turn page gets butler snoopy too!!!
Why can't they teach us metaphors and symbols and stuff like this in English class, instead of just asking us to retell the story to prove that we understand it? I'm just barely thirteen, but I'm not stupid. If I can understand what John Green tells me, I can understand the same words in my English teacher's voice.
+Alanna R. well, it gets better in highschool, but the atmosphere isnt much better. Everyone in my english class could barely understand the concept of words meaning more than just words. Its disgusting. So when I publicly told the teacher (refering to catcher in the rye) " So sex a metaphor for growing up? ", and the teacher said yes, everyone in the class looked at me like I was Albert freakin Einstein (when really, that was just one of the very very basics of understanding the book).
+Dat FancyIan when i ask a question/ answer in english they look at me in the opposite way like i'm one of the 3 stooges (even though i'm not they are)
I know it's been a long time since this was uploaded but I need to get this out there. You say that teenagers think he's whiney but I'm a teenager and I never felt like this. I kind of though Holden's story was in a way noble and relatable when moving from middle school to high school a lot changes. Friends go away and you're expected to grow up. Holden is confused, values innocence, and fears how time changes us. I felt like this but Catcher showed me that I was not the only one. I'm glad I read this book.
The thing about Trump is, the guy became the goddam _president,_ for Chrissake. The people elected him, though. I have to admit it. That kills me, when I think about it, because he has a lousy personality. _Anyway..._
"a book is not its' author" I think that's what John was trying to say in Tfios with "An Imperial Affliction" - It was the book that gave Hazel comfort not the author himself, and when she tried to seek the same type of comfort from the author she was only met with disappointment. I guess that means Green was influenced at least a little by "The Catcher in the Rye", so it must be a kind of important book for him? My theory anyway :)
I gotta be honest, John Green is going to be the one getting me through high school at the moment. Not that Im terrible at school but this is just the kind of support I need to help me get through my courses.
I really wish my English teacher could've shown this in class when we read Catcher in the Rye two years ago. More of my classmates were quick to cast of Holden as annoying and whiny when his narration had so much more to it than that. Honestly, his story spoke to me more than any other one that I was required to read.
Hey, who else thinks maybe Hazel Grace would have benefited from hearing that part about a book not being its author before all that with Van Houten went down... Salinger reminds me of him a little bit..
I sent this to my English teacher because we are currently reading Catcher in the Rye for class and we watched both videos and spent an entire class discussing all the points that John made. In short I had a very good day :)
Vote of confidence for Lord of the Flies, anyone? Its richness in theme, symbolism, diction, psychological dynamic, etc. is an analytical goldmine. And to the Crash Course team - Thank you for making learning even more awesome!
Dear people making these videos, thank you so much! You're reminding me that I love literature and you give me hope that studying this subject at university is going to be worth it! :) Lots of love, a twelve grader struggling to (sort of) decide on her future. :D
These videos finally made me read this book. It's been on my list for years but I was never read it. To tell the truth, I wasn't in the mood for it before. But I finally read it and it killed me, it really did.
Did anyone else interpret the encounter with Mr. Antolini differently? I thought there was nothing sexual about the way he touched Holden’s forehead and that he just cared about him, but Holden was so scared and lonely at that point that he mistook it as sexual. It makes the scene significantly more interesting and heart wrenching to me
John you will be proud of this. My grade's honors and core classes (not accelerated which I'm in) are reading TFIOS for English. Keep up the great work all of you associated with Crash Course!
+christopher snedeker in the fault in our stars (which john greene wrote), the cancer couple visits their favorite author's house in amsterdam and he tuns out to be the biggest ahole you've ever seen
He's a reeaaal nowhere man, Sitting in his nowhere land, Making all his nowhere plans for nobody. Doesn't have a point of view, Knows not where he's going to. Isn't he a bit like you and me?
I never did find his life and events relatable to me but the way he reacted and the emotions he was feeling about adulthood struck me immensely. I could see how he could think like that and how I could relate to it.
My creative writing prof banned me from reading anymore Salinger, because he felt it was changing my work. I hadn't been reading it. I am just incredibly angsty.
You are the kind of author I wish I could pretend. I have not yet read any of your books but the way you speak the things you speak about have been an inspiration in the last few months. Thank you John and congratulation to the yeti and Alice.
Holden reminds me of the blues clues guy. He stopped doing the kids show ‘Blues Clues’ because he didn’t want to age on the show. He wanted to preserve his characters innocence and to be able to stop time.
Dear Crash Course/ John Green, Please make one of the about john steinback's of mice and men… its a phenomenal novel but i just can't get the link between it and catcher in the rye.. for a summer assignment i was given for pre-AP english 2… thanks high school.. I'm writing my essay on the subject of discrimination and how it prevents the characters from intreating into society… but i just can't get this essay off the ground.. any thoughts?
I hated Holden in highschool. I loved books. I loved good writing. Took until hearing John explain WHY Holden was such a crappy writer that I feel perhaps I ought to give the book another go. See if I can't see it with new eyes.
I loved this part also. The wish to keep the innocence, that we by growing up are somehow forced to leave behind, is what made the novel my favourite. The book actually changed the view I have on how I should live - enjoy the small things, be curious, nothing can stop me, find what you like to do etc. Lots of motivation :)
Hehe I'm writing a report on this book tomorrow. The prompt is: which piece of literature affected your life the most? After two years since reading this book, your videos have reminded me a lot about why I loved this book. Thanks John!
I suppose I must continue demonstrating my ignorance by asking questions. So here goes. Why does Holden's red hat represent anything? He's cold. He bought a hat and wears it to keep warm. What is it that gives the hat meaning beyond a way to keep warm? Why is his hat any different from his jacket? Why isn't there any deep meaning in his smoking or drinking? Should I look for something hidden in his propensity to check luggage? Is his habit of checking his luggage everywhere he goes some commentary on the childhood that he's leaving behind, but he doesn't really want to part with completely. So he checks in his luggage into some place safe. That way he can go back and pull out his childhood - I mean his luggage - and look at it again later. Is there meaning in the way he treats money? When his parents give him money (I assume that's where he got his spending money since it doesn't appear he has a job), he spends it freely on cabs and booze and hotels and a hooker and whatever whim he has at the moment. But as soon as his sister gives him money, he watches it carefully. He doesn't want to spend it on just anything. Why does one thing have some deep meaning and other things don't?
If meaning is given by the reader and not the author, that means anyone can give any meaning they want to whatever they read and it is correct. At one level, I'm OK with that, but on another, I'm not. We are all going to read things through the lens of our own experiences. And that will color the way we feel about what we read. That's all great. Literature (and any of the arts for that matter) speak to each of us differently. Our feelings are intensely personal and are going to vary from person to person. But as soon as we start putting our own meanings on everything, that means there is no right and no wrong interpretation of anything. Holden's red hat can be an "enchanted object if ever there was one" or it can be a meaningless detail. Luggage can be the baggage we literally carry or the baggage we figuratively carry or a device to get our belongings from one place to another. By eliminating the author we disrespect what the author is trying to tell us through the story. And I think that Salinger - along with virtually every other author - is delivering a message to us. Complex books might be delivering multiple messages, simpler books just one or two. If we fail to look for the author's intentions, we fail to really understand the book.
Peter The Tax Guy and who says there isn't right or wrong. It's hard for most people to picture the way I think about things but never the less I do not believe in facts or definitives, and I know that may be hypocriticaly worded but the intention is that of q different meaning that's hard to understand and therefor harder to understand when not explained in conversation. My point is that you shouldn't really count out options, like the of there nit being a “wrong" or “right" without at least explaining your reasoning for doing so. I respect your respect for the author's intentions of his reason and his meaning behind things but what if he wants you to think of it for yourself? The way the book is written it could easily be assumed he was going against the normal status qua in terms of interpretation, and either way does it matter? I realise most people, including myself, are curious at heart but will it actually be helpful, productive, or important to “know" what somone thinks about their own piece of art? I most likely don't want to start talking outside of our current picture so I will stop with this... Is the last sentence in a paragraph really the most important when you are just adding somthing that either could already have been gathered from the rest of the paragraph or when the last sentence is just there for dramatic effect and claps?
Peter The Tax Guy The color red is emphasized multiple times throughout the novel. For example Phoebe and Allie's hair is red. Because of this emphasis on the color it is fair to assume that the 'red' hat means something to Holden.
Peter The Tax Guy the thing to remember is that there are no right answers. None. this isn't math, nobody gets 100% on their homework because 100% isn't only impossible to get, it should be impossible to get. we are taking guesses, potshots at moving targets that were set up by somebody we'll never meet and who tried, often subconsciously, to put them in places we wouldn't expect. Does the hat matter? I think so, but if you don't I can't pull up a piece of evidence and prove you wrong, I have to debate you on even ground, with only the novel to aid us both. remember this is art, and the point of art is meaning, and meaning is subjective. art is subjective, so weather the red hat means something in your reading has no effect on weather it means something on mine. every theory rests somewhere on the continuum of truth, but the far ends- both of them- are barren.
I think you hit on my problem with studying literature. I've always done much better (academically, anyway) with the sciences. With answers that are either right or wrong. I have a problem with questions that don't have a correct answer (and by implication, an incorrect answer as well). So when looking at symbols in literature, everyone is going to see something different. And it's virtually impossible to say that any particular symbolism is right or wrong. That whole concept goes against my nature. Even though I can grasp it intellectually, it is foreign to me to deal with questions that don't have a correct answer.
I just discovered your videos, and I am in love! You're engaging, informative and helpful! I wish I had found your channel before my last year of collee. But, as a word nerd, I will continue to watch you, please don't stop making videos!
I was always someone who didn't understand why we had to look so closely into novels. I never thought that every item was a symbol. Hearing the passion you use when you speak of these books makes me want to go back and try again. Maybe I was too naive or self absorbed to see them, but it has been 5 years, I am sure my perspective has changed.
its a beautiful story and really great and one of my favorites but it is not literature but merely commercial and I don't think it would fit well in a Literature series...again I don't mean to hate
"Kris Jenner thinking she can become one of her daughters... Donald Trump investing his fortune in the least believable wig ever..." 2013... how innocent we all were...
Vonnegut was at the Battle of the Bulge and survived the the worst air raid in history (the bombing of Dresden) while he was a POW. You are still amazing though and these videos are one of my new favorite things keep them coming please. Thank You.
Would you be interested in discussing contemporary science fiction authors like Patrick Rothfuss/Terry Prachett/Neil Gaiman? In order to appease my science fiction lust? Thank You
what's great to be the only one in my sophomore class who "got" this book the first time I read it is just two years later I can explain to my classmates what it ment and I feel like I've helped them learn something cool
damn 7 minutes go so fast, you don't even realize it. I read it in english class in 11th grade and I thought it was pure garbage. A brat is a brat. Perhaps, I couldn't relate because I grew up too fast (i'm a dude by the way, so don't worry, I'm not trying to wear my mother's make-up)
Then you've realised that the stuff Holden was going through happens to everyone in some extent ( sometimes with and sometimes without the dead brother and multiple sexual assaults), and still think this book is garbage, even though millions of people thought it great and it still being relevant to current society and it standing the test of time as of now?
I'm not millions of people am I? I'm one person. And not everyone has to like this. You can't use statistics with emotional growth. And it's hard to say that it is relevent to current society when there are multiple forms of upbringings these days. Not just a few. And where did you get that number from? Seriously? A million. That sounds like a stretch...ol' stretch
I admit, people's opinions vary very much, so you're well in your right to not like it. I got the 'millions' thing from the fact that it's 63 years old and still considered and known by a lot of people in all kinds of languages. There are multiple forms of upbringing, but that's not what the book's about, imo. It's more about personal growth, growing up and how people can 'snap' when in a mental crisis. I was trying to use statistics for personal growth, but I believe that when a lot of people ( I think more than a million) still find it relevant to personal growth, it could contain a universal factor about growing up. The book made me cry by the time I got to the final chapters, but that's just my biased opinion. I'm sure it's just garbage.
thats funny because you sound like the main character in saying so. "i didn't get meaning out of it so therefor it has none". what makes the kid (and yourself evidently) a brat is that he arrogantly and immaturely believes that his personal opinion about something is what determines its general value. he likes books so movies are crappy, the book didn't teach you anything, therefore it has no meaning. i think you'd be doing your "adult" self a massive favor if you re read it.
natesdevices read it 3 times there brother. And as far as I'm concerned I viewed it as a child not willing to realize that sometimes responsibilities are indefinite. He barely took responsibility for the loss of his team, he constantly bad mouths other people, when he doesn't have a backbone to stand with. Seriously, he calls his roommate stupid and vehemently spites for him for allowing himself to saying yes to doing the boy's essay. then is going to not do it for him at all? How irresponsible is that? He claims to be a well rounded thinking individual, yet can't understand why his brother jumped from books to movies? Unfortunately it ends where Holden is in a hospital, but I felt the take home story was, accept responsibility as the road to maturity, because Holden sure as hell didn't. At least as far as we read. But that's my view on it.
I'm studying 'The Catcher in the Rye' in my Literature class at school and I really hope my teacher finds this video (and part 1) and shows it to the class. I really think it would be beneficent for them all to see it
thank you for teaching literature omg. it's like a more sophisticated version of that video you did years ago! (I adored that one too.) Love this book. Holden is such a complex character and the book is so damn bittersweet. I hate people who pass it off as "angst" because there's a deeper melancholic message behind it.
