Analyzing Writer's Voice in "House on Mango Street"

 I have just read the first chapter of House on Mango Street. It's about a girl with a big family who can't afford to live in a house and they move to a house on Mango Street. I have found three aspects of writing voice in this writing piece:

   They often employ techniques of narrative
In this piece, I found that there was movement; in the beginning, the author introduces her story and describes the house they just moved to and then at the end of the piece, the author transitions to her argument of wanting a "real" house: "I knew then I had to have a house. A real one." (5). The author also uses imagery to give us an image in our heads of the house on Mango Street: "It's small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you'd think they were holding their breath" (4). The author also uses dialogue to move the plot along. In the example used in the text, someone confronts the main character about her house: "Where do you live? she asked. There, I said pointing up to the third floor. You live there?" (5) This moves the plot in the direction of her wanting a new house that people won't look at and judge. She wants a house she "could point to" (5).

   They deliver interesting information
In this writing the author made the audience want to know more. In the beginning of the chapter, the author talks about how she has moved to many different places: "We didn't always live on Mango Street. Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler. before Keeler it was Paulina, and before that I can't remember" (3). This makes the audience interested in what the authors life was like in that she had to move so much to so many different places that she couldn't even remember them.

   They exhibit perceptivity. (Show keen insight or understanding)
The author was always keen on imagery and describing the things around her. She described the house on Mango Street in great detail but what was interesting was she wrote all of those details in contrast to the house that she always dreamed about. "Hallway stairs" instead of "real stairs" (4), "no front yard" instead of  a "great big yard" (4).

Meaningful Vignette Moments in Catcher in the Rye

Holden was talking about his old roommate, Dick Slagle, and how he had cheap suitcases. Holden hates cheap suitcases, probably for the reason he hates a lot of other things; it’s phony. One detail I drew from this moment was when Holden was describing how Slagle described Holden’s things as bourgeois: “Everything I had was bourgeois as ----. Even my fountain pen was bourgeois. [Slagle] borrowed it off me all the time, but it was bourgeois anyway” (108). In this moment what I believe Holden was trying to tell us was people ridicule things that they wish they would have, but know they would never get. In this case Slagle wanted to have Holden’s things like the pen or the expensive suitcases or anything that was “bourgeois” of Holden’s, but instead he has the inexpensive suitcases and no fountain pen and nothing that could be considered “bourgeois”.

Catcher in the Rye 9-10

Catcher in the Rye 9-10

Morgan Watkins

In Chapter 10, Holden showed complex characteristics as a character that were exposed in this part of the book. One of the first instances in which he shows his complex character is when he was ordering a drink at the bar in the club that was located at the hotel he was staying at. He ordered a drink and when the bartender refused to give it to him without ID, Holden gave a “very cold stare, like he’d insulted the ---- out of me” (69). This shows annoyance and anger out of Holden which is not complex in and of itself but when paired with Holden’s next reaction, is complex. After the bartender kept refusing, Holden then “asked him very nicely and all” (69) and he finally accepted the bartender’s choice and realized how the bartender would be affected if he had given Holden alcohol. He acknowledged the punishment when he says, “They lose their jobs if they get caught selling to a minor. I’m a ----- minor” (70). This shows how complex of a character Holden is and how he can be all tough in one moment and totally sympathetic and sorry and accepting in the next. These complex characteristics can apply to the Romantic ideals that apply to Holden as a character. One way Holden’s characterization supports the Romantic ideal of the emphasis on feeling and intuition is Holden goes with whatever he is sentiment about in that moment: wanting alcohol and then not wanting for the bartender to get in trouble. He doesn’t think through it, but he goes with his gut. In this instance, Holden goes with his gut and tries to lie to get alcohol from the bartender, but as soon as he realizes the bartender won’t give it to him, he changes his mind and goes with a Coke. Trying to lie and then changing his mind all do with going with your gut and not thinking about it which is what Romanticism is about: feeling and intuition over reason and intellect. As you could see, Holden does not try to reason through what his gut tells him to.