Examples Of Dialectical Journal For The Catcher In The Rye

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One can be old at sixteen Holden is very pessimistic and hateful of the world and people around him. Phony this, phony that. Crumby this crumby that. Lousy this lousy that. He doesn’t care much about anything either, failing out of every prep school he’s been sent to. He is very nonchalant about death, and can’t seem to let go of his past. And I forgot to mention an important fact: He’s sixteen. How the hell does somebody get so pessimistic, weary and resentful of a world that he hasn’t even seen all of at such an age? The answer is simple: Fear. The three days that Holden tells us of symbolizes all of the anxiety, nervousness and fear that all of us have accumulated over the course of our lives. Starting in middle school, cliques start to form. A sort of social caste system is created. Nobody talks about it, but we…show more content…
Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, 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.” Fear though, makes you more than just cynical and pessimistic. It shatters your confidence and psyche. And what does that do? It causes you to miss a lot of opportunities to rebuild your confidence and get get yourself back on your feet. If you’re always waiting to be sure it’s safe to do something, you’ll never get much of anything done. “The trouble with me is, I stop. Most guys don't. I can't help it. You never really know whether they want you to stop or whether they're just scared as hell, or whether they're just telling you to stop so that if you do go through with it, the blame'll be on you, not them. Anyway, I keep stopping. The trouble is, I get to feeling sorry for them.” But that’s how fear manifests itself- It locks you down until you’re too afraid to stand up for yourself, and then you feel like giving up, which turns puts you on the road of cynicism and nonchalance, just like
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