Literature Analysis #3 Fiction Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

1. Catcher in the Rye is about a 16 year old boy named Holden Caulfield who is
just getting expelled out of Pencey Prep School in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. Which is now the fourth school he has failed out of. He begins to get himself ready to leave for Manhattan, but before he leaves, he first visits his old history teacher, Mr. Spencer to say goodbye. Mr. Spencer tries to talk to Holden about his poor grades which began to annoy him. Holden goes back to his dorm room where he is further irritated by his dirty neighbor, Ackley and his roommate, Stadlater. Stradlater goes out on a date with a girl named Jane Gallagher who Holden use to talk to and still cared about. Holden stresses over the subject until Stradlater comes back to Holden questioning him constantly about the date, insisting Stradlater tried sleeping with Jane. Stradlater began to tease Holden until he got mad and tried fighting Stradlater but fails and leaves Pencey with a blooding nose. He heads for Manhattan although he's not suppose to leave until Wednesday which is 3 days away. He leaves early and stays in a hotel without his parents knowing. On the train to New York, Holden meets the mom to one of his classmates at Pencey. Yet he doesn't liken this student, he goes on with made up stories about how shy the woman's son is and how respected he is. He goesbto a phone booth, when he arrives at Penn Station and decides on multiple people to call but then doesn't call anyone after all. He gets in a cab and asks the driver where the ducks in central park go in the winter, but he gets annoyed response. He checks in at the Edmont Hotel. In his room he notices a lot of weird things people were doing in there rooms as he stares out his window. After smoking a fee cigarettes, Holden calls Faith Cavendish, someone he has never met, but got their number from a guy at Princeton. He thinks he remembers hearing she was a stripper and tries to get her to come over and sleep with him. She tries to arrange a meet the next day but Holden couldn't wait that long so before they could set a time he ended the call. He goes down to the Lavender room where he comes across waiter who refuses to serve him alcohol and flirts with three woman who seem like they're from out of town who are mainly interested in spotting a celebrity. He ends up dancing with one of the ladies and later pays their tab. As he leaves the lobby he begins to remanus on how he met Jane Gallagher. Holden leaves the Edmont and heads to Ernie's Jazz Club where he runs into Lillian Simmons, one of his brother's ex-girlfriends which invites him to sit with her and her date. Holden makes an excuse to leave and walks back to Edmont. He comes across Maurice an elevator operator who sends a prostitute to Holden's room for five dollars. A young woman who goes by the name Sunny arrives, she gets undressed but Holden gets uneven about the situation and stirs up a conversation instead. He comes up with an excuse that he can't fully have sexual activity do to a spinal operation but still pays her the five dollars. After trying to persuade him, he sends her off with five dollars only to have her come back with Maurice demanding for another five dollars. Holden refuses and gets punched, while Sunny takes the extra 5 dollars out his wallet And then leaves Holden to eventually go to bed. Holden gets up and calls Sally Hayes, a girl he dated in the past to arrange a meet at a Broadway show. He has breakfast at a sandwich shop where he has a conversation about Romeo and Juliet with two Nuns and gives them ten dollars. He takes a cab to central park, hoping to run into his little sister Phoebe, but runs into her classmate instead. He helps tighten their skate then they tell Holden Phoebe might be at the Museum of Natural History. He ends up heading to the Biltmore Hotel to meet Sally instead. They head to the play then go to Radio city to ice skate. They sit down at a table where Holden expresses to Sally why he is unhappy at school and tries to get her to run away with him to Massachusetts or Vermont and live in a log cabin. She refuses which he calls her a "pain in the ass" and laughs at her anger. Holden tried to apologize but Sally left without listening. Holden cals his old student advisor from the Whooton School, Carl Luce, who now attends Columbia University to meet for a drink after dinner. Holden goes to movie at Radio City to kill time, then meets Luce at the Wick Bar in the Seton Hotel. Holden tries to bring up an old conversation he heard Luce talk about and tried bringing it up but Luce just got annoyed with Holden and excuses himself leaving Holden who continues to drink his Scotch while listening to the music from the pianist and singer in the bar. Holden makes a drunk call to Sally Hayes where they talk about their Christmas Eve plans. He tries to find the lagoon in the Central Park where he use to watch the ducks when he was little but didn't find it, until it got too cold. He decides to sneak into his house to wake up his sister Phoebe, where she forces him to admit that he was kicked out of school, which she gets mad about. He tries to explain why he hates school, but she just says he doesn't like anything. He goes on about this fantasy of being "the catcher in the rye," a person who catches children as they fall from a cliff. Phoebe explains how he misunderstood the poem when it says "If a body meet a body, coming through the rye," not "catch a body." Holden calls then heads to his former English teacher, Mr. Antolini, where he asks Holden about his expulsion and tries to give him advice about his future. Holden ends up asleep on Mr. Antilini's couch and leaves quick the next morning and winds up asleep for a few hours on a bench at Grand Central Station. Holden heads to Phoebe's school with a note saying they should meet at the museum at lunch. When Phoebe comes, she has a suit case filled with clothes and asks him to take her too. He refuses then walks her to the zoo and takes her to ride the carousel. It begins to rain but Holden is too happy watching his sister ride the carousel it almost brought him to tears. Holden ends the story telling the reader that he is not going to tell how he got sick. He plans to attend a new school in autumn and is very optimistic about his future.

2. The theme is just the hardships of life for a young teenage boy having to deal with the constant irritation of reality.

3. In the story Holden says "the best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move... Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you." I can see his tone, because in this excerpt he displays a very optimistic view on how everything stays the same in the museum except the people who come to it. Another, is when Holden says "... I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all." In this passage it shows he chooses to deal with the reality of his own mind rather than the world.

Characterization:

1. There's a lot of forms of indirect characterization in the book, like when Holden lies to his classmates mom about their reputation at school or how he responds after the prostitute undresses. There is also many forms of direct characterization when Holden goes on about his fantasy as the catcher in the rye or how he always asks the can drivers about the ducks.

2. The author's syntax or diction doesn't really change because  the main character is narrating the whole story.

3. The protagonist is a static and flat character, because he just think the same and feels the same through out the book and doesn't offer much change or difference in the story.

4. One example that makes me feel like I met a person is when Holden has a conversation with Spencer in chapter 2, "Life is a game, boy the rules." "Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it." Game my ass, all right I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game." From this example I can see Holden is a deep thinker and focuses on the reality of life challenges and how they can't always be fare. Shows to me he has a better understanding of life then most.

Literature Analysis #2 Nonfiction: The Lean Start Up by Eric Ries

Topic/Events:

1. My book is called "The Lean Startup," by Eric Ries. This book is honestly an entrepreneurship guide for creating successful businesses. Although I have not completed the book, I can definitely say so far in the book I've discovered that it's all based on this one business idea and all the stories in the book are represented as examples of success stories. The book is more than just a guide. In my opinion, if you want entrepreneurship broken down in a more simpler form for you to understand, this book is the best way to go.

2. I believe the author wrote about this business idea known as the Lean Startup to get out to the public. His idea is based off of a new idea of business using customer feedback as a bases behind their work. And I think his message is to spread the word on such a smart business solution.

3. What got me from the get go into reading this book, was the bright royal blue cover, it stood out to me on the floor of my cousin's room. She let me borrow it after reading the back of the book cover and discovering it's a book about entrepreneurship. This book stirred my curiosity so much that I'm hooked on this new idea of business.

4. I found the book to be very realistic do to the fact that the author behind the book is from Silicon Valley and is one of the creators behind the 3D interactive media site, IMVU. Which is funny, because I remember seeing the commercials of the IMVU site when Myspace.com was still the cool social media site.

People:

1. The author didn't create any characters, it seems his interpretation is all on their observations and experience. He writes basically on what happens and doesn't hold back. This book is for pure information and guidance.

2. For one, Eric Ries the author is one character in this book, because he narrates the whole book and uses his past experience with the Lean Startup as his primary example. Another is Taiichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingi which are credited with the development of the lean manufacturing revolution at Toyota.

3. What makes these people interesting is their business stories. Like all great entrepreneurs, they each had hits and misses through out their careers. But they always focused on the learning aspect of business. Discovering that to produce a great product people want, you have to run tests with the people to figure out what ideas fit or not while  learning to build a better product. Learning is the key to the whole Lean Startup process.

Style:

1. The author used a journalistic style, because through out the book he talks about the Lean Startup through examples of past success stories. He just writes what he has learned about it and how to go about it.

2. The author focuses more on the subject of the Lean Startup and how it works. The author breaks down the idea into multiple sections; part 1 Vision, part 2 Steer, and part 3 Accelerate, with smaller sections in between each part to break it down in more detail. The overall effect is to get the reader to understand the concept of the lean startup and how it works.

3. He doesn't really use much to demonstrate tone or create a mood, the book just goes back to the lean startup and it's examples. But you can definitely read the author's enthusiasm, because every time he explains a story, he breaks it down to show how the lean startup works for every story and how it can always be applied to any subject.

4. The author's attitude toward the subject of the book, I would describe as informative with real life experience to back it up and make it more interesting. You can tell the author is excited to express the lean startup, because it's a great success plan for any business or entrepreneur trying to expand their thinking.

5. The author offers tons of lean startup success stories ranging from big companies like Toyota to smaller internet based companies like Turbo Tax and IMVU. These success stories set the standard that the lean startup is much more than just a business idea, it's real life thing bring used and put to work everyday. In a way you can say pretty much these success stories were needed to prove a point and they did just that.

Enduring Memory:

     The things I expect to remember from this book is the concept of entrepreneurship and the idea of the lean startup. The lean startup makes so much sense to me, as an artist it gives me ideas on how to go about my art in a more business matter. I've figured our I can use my art as a product to revenue money, because not everyone can draw but everyone loves art. If I give the people my art skills and just charge them a fee for my work then it's all working our with me.

Literature Analysis #1 Nonfiction: Banksy Wall and Peace

Topic/Events:

1. My book is about a very unknown yet very famous Graffiti artist who call himself "Banksy" from London in the United Kingdom. Banksy is one of the most influential and most well spoken artists in the Graffiti world. His style consists of stencil work mainly, but he is indeed an artist. He writes his many messages related to religion, politics, and much much more. He tries to emphasize the reality of our society and at times mocks it just to prove a point of what's going on around us. The whole book is basically pictures and side notes to the subjects and reasons behind or related to the pictures. The pictures are all of Banksy's art, and each piece has it's own message. In a way coming from a Graffiti artist, I read a page each time I see a picture of Banksy's work. You have to read and decipher the piece to understand the message.

2. I'm not sure if why Banksy's wrote this book exactly, but from what I can see, it's just a book displaying his art work in the streets and speaking on behalf of his views of each subject and piece inside the book. It's all coded messages meant to bring reality to humanity.

3. I chose this book basically because I think Banksy is one of the best Graffiti artists of all time and to know he has a book, got me hooked. what appealed to me the first time I saw the book was the back cover when it says, "There's no way you're going to get a quote from us to use on your book cover." -Metropolitan Police spokesperson. This quote made me laugh, because it displays a sense of humor that Banksy has. What really made me want to keep reading the book was the fact that it's a book written by Banksy so I have to read it. I also read it to understand and observe his style of Graffiti art.

4. Yes, I found the book very realistic, do to the fact that everything is based off a real Graffiti artist's work and these pieces were done in the streets of real cities and places. I made a lot of connections in this book. Honestly this book just gave me and even bigger reason to carry on with my art and continue spreading the message of Graffiti, because we both share the same views on the subject of Graffiti. When you read the last paragraph of the first passage in the book Banksy says, "Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place." I feel completely the same.

People:

1. There wasn't any characters necessarily, more of just articles on events and things that were related to the pieces in the pictures. I think Banksy wrote this book to express his work like he does on the streets, he just wanted to speak his opinion and display his art. Banksy's tone through out the book was very sarcastic yet informative. His choice of words grab your attention, like what he says in the back of the book on his advice for painting with stencils he writes, "mindless vandalism can take a bit of thought."

2. There wasn't any characters, but Banksy did explain why he used different animals and figures in his art like the rats. On page 95 he explains saying, "they exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilizations to their knees. If you are dirty, insignificant, and unloved then rats are the ultimate role model."

4. When I finished the book I felt like I was in the mindset of a true genius. Everything Banksy displayed and wrote influenced me and got me thinking in so many ddifferent ways. It was like a Graffiti enlightenment and I was just handed a bible from the Graffiti Gods!

Style:

1. They used a lot of symbolism, not just in his writing, but in his art. A lot of pictures or I should say all of them displayed symbolism to represent a reason behind the piece. But the author did take a journalistic approach by expressing his views and article backing up his opinion, like when he talked about the segregation wall in Palestine on page 136.

2. The author doesn't describe too much only when the piece has a good enough back story, like the story behind his piece work of the revolutionary icon Che Guevara on the bridge over Portobello road in West London. He pretty much focuses on events and places rather than people. It makes the book a little more informative and more interesting in my opinion.

3. His main tools he uses to demonstrate the tone or mood is his sarcasm and ironic Graffiti pieces. It's pretty much all about his art, most of the art is sarcastic and ironic in many ways. He does use personification like in his piece where it shows a monkey and inside the monkey it says, "laugh now but one day we'll be in charge."

4. I think the author's attitude towards the subject in his art pieces are to either inform or make fun of. Most of the art is based on humor.

5. The author talks about many subjects in time and history that happened like the segregation of Palestine or the corrupt president Ceausescu of Romania.

Enduring Memory:

     Something I'll remember from this book is the idea and vision Banksy left me with when I read him say, "Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw where ever they liked. Where every street was awash with with a million colors and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall-it's wet." This passage speaks to me in so many ways. It speaks of my vision, my idea of a perfect community. A city that enjoys art so much it paints itself over night every night. Beauty in disguise, the true essence of Graffiti.

Beginnings

My masterpiece is doing a lot if things for me. It's helping me build a resume and art portfolio I can use in the future. I'm learning more about the technical side of the art industry. But most of all I'm getting the chance to better my art skills and be able to show what I can offer. Ever since I was a little kid I never knew what I wanted to do in the future or be, but I always knee what I wanted to do at the moment. I always loved creating things, building, drawing, you name it. My mind was filled with curiosity, still is. But I was always curious about what I would do in the future. One thing I knew for sure is it wasn't going to be ordinary. Looking back at those moments I realize art is that out of ordinary thing that I can do. My masterpiece has given me a new light to things I didn't think were possible, but they can happen, if you put in the time and effort. So right now it's crunch time. I just finished 24 complete art pieces I had to submit for my  ap studio art portfolio. On top of that I submitted 5 pieces of art to be critiqued by top art schools and art critics. Not to mention getting asked to paint pieces of art for people and getting paid for it, is kind of nice.

Excerpt from "Banksy, Wall and Piece"

"Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw wherever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall - it's wet."

This little excerpt right here explains exactly my reason behind my art! I express my art to beautify the community and to promote that graffiti is beautiful and it should be expressed as a form of making our community better not just for the rich but for the actual community. We all love art, why not express it and turn these blank boring walls into works of art for everyone to enjoy?! I don't know about you... But, if I saw graffiti all over a city it make me want to live there. Then again I am a Graffiti artist.

Connections

I can't really say I experienced a lot of things that reminded me much of my masterpiece or inspiration for my art. One thing I can think of is collaborating on ideas with Xavier Navarro on clothing brand designs and meanings. It almost seemed as if we understood exactly what we were both going for. He wants to start up a dope clothing brand that represents the upcoming of success of the growth to becoming an "Undrground King". Someone who came from the streets and rose up to the top. And what art medium is most suited to represent underground style than Graffiti?! So that's where I come in drawing up designs for his vision while we both establish and live the message we are trying to send. Which is said in this quote written by Xavier Navarro. "An Undrground King is someone who's on their way to the top. They Work their Ass Off just to get Noticed. Anyone can be Great, but to be the Best you must First become an Undrground King." Which basically means you have to establish yourself first with your audience, go to the streets, speak to the people and communicate and collaborate. Our message is to bring the reality of creativity and the strive for success back to life. One day we'll be "Undrground Kings" and people will understand the message that we bring.