To all who have read, and remember Catcher in the rye
 

I need your help.
I've read the book several times, and love it. But I have a project that I am having a bit of difficulty figuring out, and I only have about 2-2 and a half hours tonight to do it.
Basically I have to make a 2-5 minute presentation (that isn't a summary) to prove I read the book. Its a very free form project.
BUt since I'm the only one in my class who read the catcher in the rye, I'm wary of going up there and making no sense.
Can you help me think of a way to complete this project with either ideas for how/what to present? concepts to cover?
The more detailed the better.
Thank you so much in advance.

Even vauge ideas/suggestions would help.. Im dying over here.

Something about him being in a crazy hospital?

He was in a crazy hospital, right? A lot of people don't know that.

Talk about the places he goes? I don't really understand the project, if it isn't just summary. How else do you prove you read it?

Go up and criticize everyone for being phony?

Talk about your own anxiety about changing and losing your own childhood innocence?

lol

Exactly.
I'm confused as hell.... : /
Haha I never thought I'd say I wish I could just write a paper.

I'm kind of serious about my second suggestion. Talk what you think of the central theme of the novel. In relation to you, in relation to the people you know, etc.

It's written in the first person. Think about why the author chose this point of view and talk about that. Most obvious reason--Caulfield is talking to his psychiatrist; use that as your starting point. Explain first why this is the case--I can't remember the clues, but I know they're there. Then talk about the advantages of using this POV for seeing the world as Caulfield does, and so on. Go wild. At this point, since you've got a good start in basis of something very true about the book, you can go out on limbs and test ideas even if you can't fully support them. You'll impress your teacher.

sorry to answer this so late

holden caulfield is an annoying twat, a rich snob, a fucking pussy.

still, ok book.

igby goes down is largely a ripoff of that book.

I liked it hugely when I was a teenager. I like it a lot less now. I think it speaks to alienation and angst at a certain age.

yeah i know, but he's such a twat-- he looks down on everyone-- then everyone fucking "betrays" him-- maybe it's his fault, you know? he needs his ass kicked.

Yes, well, that's how I felt for a while when I was much younger. The world WAS full of betrayors, and I DID look down on everyone. Don't you remember feeling like everyone else was full of shit?

Wait a minute... I still feel that way!

mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the shitties of them all?

yeah i felt that but i always had either a) accomplices, or b) someone to turn to when things turned shitty. guess i was lucky. but that fucking snob pisses me off-- i mean-- he shits on the secretaries and the cab driver and he's just superior to everyone. he can't overlook some minor flaw here in there, he wants some kind of non-human creatures-- fuck him.

i would love to discuss more but the opportunity has presented itself for me to take the rest of my morning off, so-- i shall flee now.

I was a loner for too long, is what I think my problem was. When things got shitty, I often didn't have anyone my age to turn to, or wanted to turn to. Thereby even my peers seemed like traitors. Thank God that didn't last, though.

Well, it always seemed to me that was one of the points you were meant to feel or ponder at least. How honest is Caulfield, or how justified is he? And so on, blah blah blah.

talk about how the whole fucking book is about a self-absorbed, stupid, egotistic, pointless fucking waste of a human being, and that anyone who associates with him DOES NOT GET IT

Bring in a broken jazz album that you got for your sister but dropped and broke.

Or accuse your favorite teacher of trying to molest you.

Oh wait, you're probably in school now.

Last time I read it was like 3 yrs ago. After I rented CHAPTER 27 (again, as a rule of thumb, if a movie's got Lindsay Lohan in it, I'm watching it) it made me want to read it again to compare it to the [recounted] events of Chapman's weekend.

hahahaha

Well he wasn't a jerk to everyone. . . he told the one prick's mom that he was a really nice classmate.

I read it in high school and I could really relate to how he felt about a lot of things. I could probably read it now and see him as being winy and needing to take some action, but I could still relate to him in certain ways I'm sure.