english

practice petal paragraphs

How does Salinger use symbolism to convey Holden’s worldview?

Symbolism is used to convey the main character’s (Holden) worldview of a need to protect childhood innocence from the use of his narration of saving children from falling off the cliff to adulthood. The perspective of being a protector to save children from falling off a cliff could be seen as a symbol of protecting kids from falling into the untraversable act of becoming an adult. The use of the words ‘they don’t look where they going’ encapsulates his outlook of adulthood not being unenviable of everyone will have to be an adult, but rather a choice that he can help guide other children that he may not have had. The tone of this passage can make the reader question whether Holden himself had a protector or authority figure to save him from the harshness of adulthood, and this being his way of making sure that nobody else will have to suffer through what he suffered through. Overall the worldview of being a protecter of childlike innocence is explained through the passage reflecting on todays world of unavoidable escape of childhood.

creative writing

landscape writing

‘Climb this tree you will need to know how to climb trees when you grow up’ they said. ‘Climb this tree’ they said the next year. ‘You will need to know how to climb trees when you grow up’, I don’t know why I had to climb this tree, but I climbed it. ‘Climb the tree, you will need to know how to climb trees when you grow up’, they say today. In front of me loomed the trunk of an enormous oak, why I need to climb this tree I don’t know. I don’t care anymore, the only way to rid the feeling of inadequacy is to reach the top, reach it faster than anybody else. The drive in me is pounding as the countdown begins, ‘you may begin’ they say. my heart in my head as I try to scramble my way to the top, but before it even feels like I’d started someone has finished. Everything in me tells me to keep going, that this isn’t the end, but I’ve already lost. There’s no point.

As I plummet to the ground without knowing I’d let go, the wind whizzing past my hair, the air smells of flowers that had recently been rained on. Closing my eyes, I can imagine all of the little water droplets on the sunflowers that captivate with without fail every time I walk to school. The morning sun shone to expose hundreds of thousands of trees, all perfectly identical in every way. The sea of green is all-consuming and swallows me whole to the abyss inside.

I open my eyes to reveal my teacher standing over me. He thrusts the results at me. At the top was my answer, the answer to the question I’d wanted to know my whole life: ' What is my purpose?’ This test would have answered that.

Gather berries.

For 13 years, I climbed trees because I needed to know how to climb trees when I grew up. I’m older now, and I won’t ever climb a tree again. Gathering berries will be my purpose.