Holden on to an Open Mind by Maria Christabella

Holden on to an Open Mind by Maria Christabella - May 2017 Scholarship Essay

For most of my life, I lacked interest in English. To me, English only translated into endless essay writing, vocabulary memorization, and reading classic novels such as To Kill a Mockingbird. Although English helped me hone my reading and writing skills, I never viewed it as a subject that had much practicality in my life. That is why I had low expectations for the Novel course that I signed up for during course selection of my junior year. But, my expectations turned out to be inaccurate. Novel ended up exceeding my expectations, and it turned out that the first book that we read that year ended up transforming my life forever. That book was The Catcher in the Rye.

The Catcher in the Rye is a classic novel that a majority of high school students read. That was the extent of my knowledge regarding the book, other than the fact that I had heard and seen the title previously. Despite of my lack of background knowledge on the book, however, I already felt appalled by the thought of reading it. When we read, we were expected to write a minimum of 3 annotations on Post-it's per chapter, write a reflection paragraph after every reading period that we received during class, and have a Socratic seminar every Thursday, where we discuss the chapters that we read in individual groups in front of the class. Although there was a large amount of work that I needed to complete, I decided to view the situation on a more positive note and tried to enjoy reading the novel.

When I started to read the book, however, I found it difficult to enjoy the novel because of the main character of the story, Holden Caulfield. I felt frustrated by the tone of voice that he narrated with, and his attitude only convinced me that he was a detestable, cynical teen. He seemed to despise almost everything in the book, but he himself had despisable qualities, such as his tendency to participate in unhealthy activities such as drinking and smoking. But the quality of Holden’s that frustrated me the most was his hypocrisy. All throughout the book, Holden criticized society’s numerous flaws despite having similar flaws himself and failing to try to improve himself. I would have continued to believe this prejudiced perspective of Holden if my teacher did not encourage the class to look deeper into the story by analyzing it.

With hesitance, I decided to analyze the story as my teacher said. To accomplish this, I dissected the diction employed by the author, researched the other texts that the narrator referenced in the book, and even investigated the color and object symbolism repeated throughout the story. In the end, with the assistance of my analysis, I discovered Holden’s true personality and his motives for his actions. First of all, I learned that the primary reason for Holden’s rotten behavior was his loneliness. Because he lacked nurturing figures in the form of parents and decent friends, Holden did not receive the guidance that could have steered him in a better direction. Second of all, his goal of preserving children’s innocence, as seen by his fixation with the color red, a color symbolizing innocence in the book, blocked him from finding people who could have cured his loneliness and could have consequently shaped him into a better person. Because Holden focused his attention more on desperately trying to protect his younger sister, Phoebe, from the corruption of the world and from adulthood, he failed to meet his own needs for love and affection and ended up sacrificing himself for the sake of a goal that is almost impossible to achieve.

These epiphanies that I discovered regarding Holden were not the only takeaways from my decision to analyze The Catcher in the Rye; I also acquired a polished ability to be open-minded. When I followed my teacher and took advantage of the opportunity to dissect the story and Holden, I honed my open-mindedness by empathizing with Holden’s situation and motives. I placed myself in Holden’s situation and attempted to understand his thought process. As a result of this, I became more capable of comprehending opinions that conflict with mine. With this characteristic, I consumed news articles that offered a perspective that was different from mine and participated in debates without growing furious and defensive over disagreements that my opponents may have with me. These provided even more opportunities for me to become open-minded. The most important impact that the refinement of my open-mindedness had on me, however, was encouraging me to broaden my academic interests and appreciate all educational subjects. In school, I signed up for classes in both the humanities and sciences, such as Novel and AP Computer Science. I even signed up for online courses in business and marketing for the sake of adding more to my knowledge.

In the end, by dissecting The Catcher in the Rye and thus gaining the ability to think openly, I transformed into an adaptable person who is now open to diverse ideas and the universe around me.