6/14/18 : Final Harkness Discussion

Today in class we started out in small groups to talk about some ideas for themes we had in the book.  We connected those themes to incidents from the book and we provided textual support from the end of the book for our claims.  We first discussed some topics like death, isolation, maturity/immaturity, and loss of innocence.  That discussion led us to create the themes that we posted to classroom.

We returned to a classwide discussion where different people shared the ideas that their groups came up with.  A focus of the discussion concerned the images on the cover of the book.  We talked about the symbol of the carousel and the horse and New York City.  One student asked why those images were on the cover, but no one really provided a good answer.  I think it's important that New York City is on the cover because that's where Holden really has a lot of moments of conflict with himself and other people.  The carousel is important because Holden wants to take Phoebe there.  And he seems really focused on Phoebe having a good time as a little kid.

We also talked about whether Holden really hates his parents or not and how that was part of his whole problem with maturity and immaturity.  And whether Holden's parents should have or shouldn't have sent him to the mental asylum.  There was a lot of discussion on this topic with some people thinking that the parents didn't really know what to do with Holden and instead of talking to him and trying to work it out, they just sent him away.  I thought that Holden's parents were afraid.  They had already lost Allie and maybe they were afraid of losing Holden, too.

The relationship between Holden and Phoebe can be related to my life today between my brother and I. In the book, Holden passionately cares about Phoebe and tries to enjoy his time with her as much as he can. He takes her to the carousel and Phoebe asks Holden to tag along which relates to me when my brother wants me to ride with him on small baby rides. Holden and I both want to hold on to our siblings' childhood before they become adults and independent. We both cherish the fact that we have someone to love and care for.  This idea is pretty common, I think.  And older siblings watching out for younger siblings is important.