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Is Holden Running From Reality?

After reading The Catcher in the Rye, one thing that I keep thinking about is how Holden’s tone throughout the story comes off as melodramatic at times, but also blunt and honest. A recurring example throughout the book is how he calls everyone a phony at some point when describing them. But as I got through the book, I think he uses it more and more out of disgust for others changing, but also with a fear that he might also change into someone different personality wise. He acted unaffected when leaving Pencey, but his constant thoughts about people like Jane and Allie shows that leaving might have left Holden with some emotional baggage. Something as unsuspecting as his red hunting hat starts to develop into a shield for Holden, as it makes him feel different from everyone else. I found it interesting how an object like his hat can be utilized as a symbol of his identity, like how people use objects on social media to showcase a curated version of themselves to the world. I also foun...
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What is Libra Trying to tell us?

  After finishing Libra , I found that the book (ironically) doesn’t really care that much about actually solving the mystery that is the Kennedy assassination. Rather, it delved much deeper into what the assassination means, how it became more than just an interesting story, but a phenomenon in the conspiracy theory world, and a craze that is still ripe today. The assassination is not just described as a turning point in history, but rather as the intersection between reality and fiction. Nicholas Branch, the CIA historian who is trying to reconstruct the event, at the end of the novel starts to realize that all the facts don’t lead to a clear path, but rather even more confusion. With every piece of evidence, a new narrative seems to be pushed, rather than staying on track. But maybe that is the whole point? Lee Harvey Oswald in the book isn’t portrayed as the clear villain in the story. Delilio takes a different approach, in a way humanizing Oswald to the reader, as a man who is...
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How Kindred Makes Slavery Feel Different

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  One of the biggest themes I took away from Kindred is how it tells a story that brings the past and ties it to the present. It led to the idea of how personal the experience must be for Dana. Every time she explained the context of her situation, the tone changed slightly, making me think about her perspective and how living in the past is changing her perspective, and in turn my perspective. She draws our attention to the tiny details, things that a history textbook wouldn’t be able to cover. While the textbook would make us look in disgust at slavery, Dana giving her take makes me as a reader understand the painful reality, and just how unfair society was at the time. Fiction is, to my surprise, able to convey a feeling about history that can't be taught by just the facts. Slavery is something the American school curriculum discusses heavily. I have probably been learning about the system since 3rd or 4th grade. But every single time we are taught, I feel like I have been told ...
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Jes Grew On The Big Screen in 2025

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At the tailend of Mumbo Jumbo, Papa LaBas says that Jes Grew “has no end and no beginning,” (Reed, 204). In this monologue, Reeds seems to be pushing a theory on how Black creativity will stand the test of time because of its ability to reinvent itself over generations. Today, that seems to reflect in many parts of society, but what I want to focus on is cinema. The space for independent films, spearheaded by directors like Spike Lee, Ramon Menendez, and Jordan Peele resembles the idea of Jes Grew. In films like Do The Right Thing and Stand and Deliver, these filmmakers embrace Reed’s idea of an unsatiated cultural force, while in a sense, taking control of who gets to tell stories that are celebrated in America. I find the best parallel to Jes Grew is Spike Lee. He has made films like Do The Right Thing, Malcolm X, and BlacKkKlansman, uses color, music, political beliefs/ideologies, and chaos to create a plotline that consistently pushes against the Atonist constraints and rules. Lee’...
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Does Ragtime Make History Seem Like An Illusion

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Ragtime is a novel that takes an unconventional path of storytelling. Whenever I read the novel, I find myself always not completely sound in the story, mainly because of how well Doctorow blurs the line between history and fiction, sometimes causing me to lose track of the parts that are real, and what are just Doctorow's imagination. In the story, he uses historical figures of the time, but modifies their character, mannerisms, and behavior to fit his story, when he is able, mainly since he didn't know how they would respond in certain scenes. In a way, the book is a "meta-history". At first, I thought I would learn some history while reading the book, but now I am not sure if I really learned about history, or how to use history to tell a story. Doctorow might have even referenced this in Chapter 15, where the little boy looks at his reflection in the mirror, thinking"neither of which could claim to be the real one" (Doctorow 148). This could be a metapho...
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