Right now I am wearing this hunting hat he gave me. Maybe if I wear it for enough time, I’ll be able to understand him a bit better. I’ll try to draw you a copy of it.
Diary I have to go, my eyes are hurting.
Love,
Phoebe
Dear diary,
Now I can explain to you everything. Holden got kicked out! Again. I knew something was wrong. First he didn’t want to admit it, but I knew it since he woke me up yesterday. Mother had told me he would be home by Wednesday and it was Monday. Daddy is going to kill him! Holden told me he won’t because he’ll go away. He is such a coward, he tries to convince me he is not scared, but diary, I know he is. When he starts swearing a lot, I know he is scared. And it scares me too. I do not want him to go away. If he decides to leave, I’ll go away with him. It would kill me not to know about him, not knowing how he is. But I don’t know what his problem is. I mean, I love him and all, but sometimes he acts like all the phonies he always talks about. I don’t really understand him and what is worse I think he thinks I do. I have to go, mother is calling me. I don’t want her to find out.
I am writing you inside of my closet now, for mother not to find out. Holden hid in here yesterday. It makes me kind of sad to think about yesterday. I told him he doesn’t like anything and that that is his problem. I told him to name one thing he likes a lot and he first answered he liked Allie. Then I told him how Allie was dead so it didn’t really count. He got all mad at me and made me feel really depressed. It is difficult to keep thinking of someone you loved so much like Allie because every time I think of him I get sad and all. But what I mean is that I feel bad because sometimes I feel kind of guilty when I don’t think of him, I feel like I am making him feel sad, wherever he is in heaven. I would like him to know that it is not that I do not care or I have forgotten about him, but it hurts thinking about him all the time, and even more thinking I could loose Holden too. I hope Holden realizes how much I care about him, although yesterday I was really mad at him because he got kicked out and all. But he told me he liked to sit with me just chewing the fat and horsing, that’s what he said. I liked that he said that.
Yesterday he also mentioned something about wanting to be the catcher in the rye. He is nuts, that isn’t even a real job and he got the song all messed up. I had heard it before but I do not know what it actually means. I like it when he talks nonsense things like that and when he does silly stuff like dancing with me. I wonder how it would be if Allie was still alive. Maybe he just misses him and that is what has him so upset.
Gotta go,
Hugs and kisses,
Phoebe W. Caulfield
RATIONALE:
The objectives I had before doing this written task were:
- Provide a further, more detailed insight of Phoebe, a very important character in the novel “The Catcher in the Rye”.
- I aimed to present a better understanding of the relationship between Holden and Phoebe.
- Present what is Phoebe’s perception about his brother and his situation, as in the book we are told everything by Holden, being the book written in first person.
- Make a convincing and credible piece of writing.
In order to achieve these objectives I had to re-read the novel carefully, paying a lot of attention to the parts when Holden refers to and interacts with Phoebe. To be able to sound authentic I tried to put myself in the shoes of a ten year old girl, while using colloquial expressions to convey the idea of intimacy, which is an important characteristic of a diary. Also, I referred to the content of the book in order to be convincing, showing the same events that occur in the book but under the perspective of Holden’s sister.
For instance, I made Phoebe sign in a lot of entries like “Phoebe Weatherfield Caulfield” as we are told in the book that she constantly changes her middle name. I also used a lot of the elements referred in the book like the movie of “The 39 steps” and situated these diary entries in an actual part of the book, which is when Holden goes home after being kicked out from school and talks with Phoebe about it.
In this diary I presented Phoebe as mature and reflective as well as innocent like the majority of the children of her age: “Right now I am wearing this hunting hat he gave me. Maybe if I wear it for enough time, I’ll be able to understand him a bit better”. I wanted the audience to sympathize with her in order to understand her relationship with Holden, and why he feels such a great affection towards her: she represents childhood. However, I wanted to emphasize the idea that Phoebe might be already growing up as she is worried about him and trying to understand the source of his conflictive behavior, looking as she is older than Holden: “He is such a coward, he tries to convince me he is not scared, but diary, I know he is. When he starts swearing a lot, I know he is scared”.
I think I was very successful achieving my objectives although I did encounter some problems. There are not much direct dialogues of Phoebe in the book, as although she is a central character she appears almost at the end, making it difficult for me to have a clear idea of her rhythm and style of speech. Also being a second language speaker it was difficult to me to adopt a very colloquial way of communicating. Before reading this book I did not know about words and expressions like “swell”, “phonies” and “chewing the fat”, which I had to use in this written task.
What I understand about the character of Phoebe is that although she is very innocent and a child, she is very mature and bright, being to an extent protective towards her brother and at times seeming older than him. She represents the process of growing up, which Holden refuses to accept. She also has dealt in a better way the death of Allie than Holden, although she is also still hurt about it. I decided to write a diary as I considered interesting to show how the same things can be perceived differently by different people. The diary is written in first person, providing the same sense of intimacy as the actual book. It also emphasizes themes of the book like childhood, growing up, relationships, intimacy and loneliness.
35/45 (for 2 courseworks) IB level 6
