Catcher In The Rye Essays (1448 words) - Literature, Fiction

Catcher In The Rye In the novel, Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden, has very definite views on sexuality, aggression, and death. He is ambivalent towards sex, loathsome of aggression, and fearsome of death. It's this triangle of sin that demonstrates the conflict occurring within Holden's inner monologue. In the novel, Generation X, the main character, Andy, is grappling with many of the same problems that Holden faced forty years earlier. Even though the more modern society is different than forty years ago, the same general issues still haunt Andy today, with many parallels to Holden's coming-of-age issues. With such a dead-end vision of the trap of adulthood and marriage, it isn't very surprising that Holden is scared of being initiated into the most involving form of relationship--sex. In a society where human relationships are affected by marketplace values, like status and appearance, which commodify people, rather than accepting them. Holden is seeking a deeper, more real relationship with someone, probably anyone, who understands him, and will accept him. Holden doesn't like to see people hurting. He explains when he says that he would like to be "a catcher in the rye", someone who protects children from the pitfalls of hypocrisy and lies, that Holden seems to think infect the adult world. As a result, Holden is very careful not to use other characters as a means for his own ends. In many ways he is unable to deflect the unexpressed pressures that every teen male feels, to have sex. He is offered the "teenage dream" of sex in a non-responsible situation when Maurice, the elevator operator in his hotel offers to set him up with a hooker. Holden jumps at the chance, but when confronted with the reality of the situation feels horrible, and ends up not touching the hooker. Pure sex, like many other societal myths, is a romantic place that Holden wants to believe exists, but understands through his cynicism, that is never has, or ever will exist. But his mistrust goes deeper. For Holden, it seemed like sex would somehow integrate him into the world at large, which he despises. Holden does not want to accept any change in his life. He sees sex as a way that society is using to lure him into being like the people that he hates. At Pencey, his boarding school, he equates sex with perversion. He refers to his studly roommate, Stradlater as a "very sexy bastard" because of his interest in all things related to sex. And then when Holden is obsessing over the idea of Stradlater, and his friend Jane having sex, he tries to think of her as innocent and naive, when he says "when we played checkers, she always kept her kings in the back row." Since he cares about Jane, he can't understand why she would want to involve herself with a guy like Stradlater in the first place. Thoughts about sex, seem to lead Holden into thoughts about death. After the fight with Stradlater over Jane, Ackley, the novel's most hated character, asks why they fought and Holden tells the readers that "I didn't answer him...I almost wished I was dead." And later on, when he is alone in his hotel room , after the hooker leaver he begins to think about his younger brother's death. To Holden he also sees sex as the same as aggression. As in his reaction to his fight with Stradlater, he treats aggression in the same way as he does sex. After losing the fight he says, "I'd only been in about two fights in my life, and I lost both of them. I'm not too tough. I'm a pacifist, if you want to know the truth." Although his swing at Stradlater, seem to go against his non-aggressive personality, it is the name of Jane, someone who Holden considers as the model of perfection and innocence. This all comes back to the comment about Jane keeping her kings in the back row. This is interesting because it shows her unwillingness to be aggressive or sexual, which are two of Holden's values, despite the fact she is now involved with Stradlater, who represents (at least to Holden) sex and aggression. The connection between sex, death, and aggression all come together near the end of the novel when Holden visits his younger sister phoebe, at her elementary school. Holden sees a sign that someone has put up that says, "Fuck You." This phrase is so important to the novel because it represents, a very aggressive

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater Essay Example

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater Essay Example Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater Paper Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater Paper Fallingwater, arguably Frank Lloyd Wright’s most famous design, was begun in 1936 as a retreat for the Edgar J. Kaufmann family. The design placed the home above a waterfall located on the site, rather than facing it as Kaufmann had suggested to Wright (Fay-west. com 2005). The materials Wright selected and Kaufmann approved were concrete for the foundation and native sandstone, quarried on the site for walls and used to separate the trays of reinforced concrete making up the living and bedroom areas. The home is cantilevered over the stream, which forms the waterfall. It is a dramatic design and recognized as â€Å"†¦a house that summed up the 20th century and then thrust it forward still further (Goldberger 1986). Fallingwater was used as a weekend retreat by the Kaufmann family from 1937 until 1963 when Edgar Kaufmann, jr. donated the home and its contents to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. Built by local craftsmen, it is the only Wright work to survive as originally designed and with its contents and art intact. The building was built as a weekend retreat for the family of Pittsburgh department store mogul, Edgar J. Kaufmann. It was used for that purpose up until it was deeded over to the conservancy and has been open to the public in its original state since 1964. Wright masterfully planned each structural element of this house to be in complete harmony with nature and its surroundings. Three-foot wide cantilevers thrust out over the stream from their anchors, both in the bedrock and from sandstone masonry set in place for that purpose. They form the primary support for the main level terrace. A fundemental part of the structure is the soffit slab, which integrates with the girders and acts as a load carrying T beam. : It is unfortunate but engineers have determined that the structure is not sound, which does not detract from the aesthetics but after fifty years the structure needed major work to keep it from falling into the river. The sixteen one-inch rebars were not sufficient reinforcement for the design’s load. Both terraces began to sag downward toward the river beneath the building (Structural Group 2005). Reinforcement work began in 2001 after major studies were undertaken to determine the best methods to shore it up. While Frank Lloyd Wright pioneered the Prairie School, his Fallingwater home, while linear in the Prairie tradition, is ultra modern and stands alone as a tribute to the genius of Wright as an innovator. The use of cantilevers to extend the home out into space and span the river below was innovative and rarely if every seen in a private home. Wright’s use of the linear coupled with the ultra modern design was then married to a Prairie School style, utilizing nature and natural materials whenever possible. I am drawn to this home because of the distinctiveness of the design. Where Wright could have designed a log cabin or hunting lodge for the Pittsburgh millionaire, he chose to put forth what must have been a radical design for its time. Today it still amazes the thousands of visitors who trek through the nature preserve where the home sits. The building fits into its surroundings as if it grew there. The cantilevers over the stream make it seem as if a cliff has extend out over the edge of a waterfall. The trees were left in place whenever possible and the use of the native materials, principally sandstone quarried onsite, are harmonious with the entire unit. This structure functioned as a weekend retreat and country home for the Kaufmann family for decades, just as it was designed to do. Today it stands as a memorial to that family’s vision in allowing a genius to erect his dream as well as a shrine to the genius as well. It serves the visitors who flock to see what can be done if man dares imagine. Fay-West. com 2005 Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater Retrieved 09/09-2007 From: fay-west. com/fayette/fallingwater/ Goldberger, P 1986 as quoted by Fay-West. com Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling- water Retrieved 09/09/2007 from: fay-west. com/fayette/fallingwater/ Structural Group 2005 Project Background: Frank Lloyd Wright’s renowned Architectural jewel undergoes external post-tensioning by VSL Retrieved 09/09/2007 from: structural. net/Fallingwater/ fallingwater_bkgd. html

Impact of social media on the growth of the fashion industry in Dissertation

Impact of social media on the growth of the fashion industry in Nigeria - Dissertation Example This group of consumers prefers to use Facebook only (55%), and only 27% have Twitter account, while 18% of respondents use both social media tools. The results demonstrated that the local fashion brands have not as strong and effective marketing strategies in terms of social media usage. Also, the research has shown that 41% of respondents do always review social media pages of fashion brands for discounts, while 23% of respondents prefer to read reviews before shopping for clothes online or even before going to the fashion store. However, according to the study carried out by the researcher where he has been analyzing the level of activity of Nigerian and UK-based Nigerian fashion brands at social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, it has been found out that the majority of 45 Nigerian fashion brands did not use full potential of the social media opportunities. The research has also shown that some of the Nigerian fashion brands in addition to Facebook and Twitter d o use other social media platforms to interact with their customers, followers, fans and subscribers. These sources included fashion brands blogs, Tumblr, Youtube, Pininterest, Instagram, Ijaw girl, and even LinkdIn. Based on the result of the findings, it was recommended that the Nigerian fashion brands and retailers ought to adopt experience of international fashion brands and focus their digital marketing strategy on the following key social media areas: personalized shopping experience, user-generated content, strategic use of discounts, focus on niche communities, and interaction through mobile applications. Key words: Social media, fashion industry, consumer behaviour, Nigeria Introduction â€Å"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months† – this ironic and brave definition of fashion belongs to famous Oscar Wild. If seriously, Feldenkreis et al (2005) describe the basics of the fashion business as a set of activities, i ncluding: design and creation of a line; sampling process with drawing the design, picking materials, designing graphics, embroidery and other components if needed; preparation of the blueprint of the garment from size to all measurements; and demonstration of it to the fashion industry. Usually, this process takes one year after which new fashion models would be available for retail (Feldenkreis et al. 2005). However, with the increasing use of social media globally this process goes through the various changes and provides both fashion producers/distributors and fashion consumers with new opportunities. Various social networks, blogging, video blogging, podcasting - all are the social media tools used to empower and enable conversations digitally (Brogan, 2010). More detailed description of what the social media was described by Poynter (2010, p. 182), who listed such examples of it: blogging, micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter), social networking (e.g. Facebook, Mixi, Cyworld), Wikis ( e.g. Wickipedia, the collaborative encyclopedia), social bookmarking (e.g. Delicious and Digg), photosharing (e.g. Flickr), voice networking (e.g. Skype), video sharing (e.g. YouTube), music