Catcher in the Rye Persuasive Essay

     The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger has been a very important book in the United States. It has won several awards as well as it has been banned in many different states in that country. It is about a 16-year-old named Holden Caulfield who got kicked out of a prep school and goes to New York to experience a new life. This novel has made a big controversy all around the country and many people think it should or it shouldn't be taught in schools. My personal opinion about this book is that it shouldn't be taught at any school.

     This book is a good book to be read in schools because it shows a life about a teenager who doesn't care about his school nor his responsibilities. The story teaches you that you shouldn't be like Holden and that you should care about school because it is important to your life. Holden sees school as something unnecessary in life and that is why he got kicked out of many of them. This is also another reason why I believe he went to New York before getting kicked out.

     Another reason why this is a good book to be taught is that Holden is a teenager, like any other in any school. Many teens could reflect on his offensive language and smoking/drinking problem and change the way they are. I believe this because many of the teens may recognize with him and see how bad it is to be like him. You can see many people in college or in schools that act like him, are expelled from schools, and although it was written in the 1950's, Holden's behavior is still seen in the modern teenagers.

     Many people think that The Catcher in the Rye is a inappropriate book to be taught at schools for its sexual content, offensive language, and Holden's drinking/smoking habits. Violence also appears in the book, for example when he fights with elevator operator, and it is also used against the book. I think that all of these things said are already being exposed in movies and in T.V series, so I don't see anything wrong with the novel. Swearing and drinking are seen a lot in the teenagers these days, so there is not much to hide from this book.

     In conclusion, I think this is a very good book to be taught in schools. It shows how you should be responsible and how you should manage alcohol. It also shows how school and education is important and how you would look if you don't apply to it. Many people criticize that it has a very offensive language and that it teaches too much about sexuality, but I think all of this is already shown in the T.V and movies. I personally read and enjoyed The Catcher in the Rye.

Brian´s Prized Possession

I remember the day that I saw the mitt. That brown mitt in possession of my brother, Brian. He bought it in an old store in Fifth Avenue. It was very old but and was a little ripped out but he still liked it. It has beautiful poems written in green ink. I can memorize every single word of it. That left- handed glove brought back many memories. Like that time when we played in the backyard. My father, Brian, and I throwing the baseball in triangles. My father and I never wore gloves, but Brian did. It was very special in a way that I can’t explain in words. I still have it, somewhere in my room, and every time that I see it I remember of him. Every time he was in a baseball game he used to read the poems on the mitt. He usually played as a center fielder so he didn’t have as much action as a pitcher.

Boy, how I loved him.  He was the nicest person you could ever meet. All the teachers always sent notes to my parents telling how good he was doing academically. Me, I was the misfortune of my family; I had never been the intelligent guy anyway. God, how I miss him. The day he died it didn’t go that well. I went into my garage and I slept there. I went crazy thinking about him. It killed me, and I started breaking all the windows in my garage. It was horrible, and my hand started to bleed. I was going to break all the windows in the station wagon that summer, but my hand was very hurt and I couldn’t do it. Since that day, my hand hurts once in a while and I can’t really do a real fist anymore, but that isn’t important. It was worth it.

Brian. That charming laugh he had was unmatchable. Sometimes he laughed so hard in the middle of dinner for something that he thought randomly. He was really nice. He was just too honest to have that red hair he had. They say that if you have red hair you get angry very easily but Brian wasn’t like that. He was too perfect to have that bad luck. And leukemia was even worst. If you ever have the misfortune of getting leukemia, you know that once you have that awful thing there is no way out. And he was only eleven years old.  The mitt, the brown mitt.