1. Holden and Depression: Research depression in teenagers, including information about its symptoms and treatment.  After doing so, look at Holden.  Which symptoms does he exhibit? Use evidence from the story to create a “diagnosis” of Holden.

2. Salinger weaves a variety of symbols into The Catcher in the Rye, including (but not limited to) the red hunting hat, the ducks in Central Park, and Allie’s mitt.  Select and analyze one symbol that Salinger uses in the book.  Explain how Salinger develops this object as a symbol throughout the story.  Discuss the symbol’s meaning and significance and explore its contributions to the overall message of the novel.

3. Critic David D. Galloway said, “Wherever Holden turns, his craving for truth seems to be frustrated by the phoniness of the world.” Analyze Holden’s use of the word “phony”. What does the word mean in the context of the book, and does Holden offer any alternative to phoniness? Is Holden himself guilty of being a phony? How does Salinger want readers to judge ideas about phoniness?

4. Critic Maxwell Geismer writes, “The Catcher in the Rye protests, to be sure, against both the academic and social conformity of its period, but what does it argue for?”  Write an essay to explain what the book argues for. What might Salinger have been trying to communicate to his readers through his novel, and how does he do so?

5. Ordinary People and Holden Caulfield: Rent the 1980 Robert Redford film Ordinary People (winner of four Academy Awards, including best picture, this movie is rated R, so make sure you seek permission from your parents).  It is the story of a family struggling with the accidental death of a teenage son.  Compare the situations in the film with the situations that occur with the Caulfields in The Catcher in the Rye. How much of Holden’s behavior has been affected by the death of Ally?  Compare and contrast Conrad’s grief with that of Holden.

Discuss the theme of love.  Depending on what generation the characters belong to, love is interpreted in different ways.  Examine love and determine whether it is illegitimate and the downfall of Romeo and Juliet or if it is inspirational and illustrates the purity of youth.

Examine Friar Lawrence and the Nurse.  You can compare these characters to the feuding parents of Romeo and Juliet. What is their role in the play? What is Shakespeare’s purpose behind these characters? Is there a message he is trying to send his audience?

Examine the role of women in the play. There is a clear distinction between genders throughout the play.

Romeo and Juliet are referred to as “star-cross’d lovers”. Discuss the concept of destiny and how it relates to the play.

A line of iambic pentameter is five iambic feet in a row:

We can notate this with a ‘˘’ mark representing an unstressed syllable and a ‘/’ mark representing a stressed syllable^[1]. In this notation a line of iambic pentameter would look like this:

The following line from John Keats‘ Ode to Autumn is a straightforward example:^[2]

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

We can notate the scansion of this as follows:

We can mark the divisions between feet with a |, and the caesura (a pause) with a double vertical bar ||.

• Romanticism
• Anaphora
• Narrative Poetry
• Metaphor
• Rhyme
• Rhyme Scheme
• Assonance
• Meter
• Alliteration
• Simile
• Onomatopoeia
• Personification
• Theme
• Hyperbole
• Idioms
• Allusion
• Imagery
• Blank Verse
• Free Verse
• Quatrain
• Couplet
• Understatement
• Overstatement
• Oxymoron
• Paradox
• Metonymy
• Anthropomorphism
• Diction
• Syntax
• Connotation
• Denotation