luke blog yea (coming of age)

         I’ve read many novels in English classes throughout my years at Uni, but I don’t recall ever reading a graphic novel. I do remember purchasing V for Vendetta for a class, but we never got around to reading it. So, if memory serves correct, Fun Home by Bechdel is the first graphic novel that I’ve read in a Uni High English class. That’s why I wanted to dive a little bit more into why Bechdel chose to use a visual format instead of a purely textual narrative. Generally speaking, I think any form of visual storytelling can open up many new possibilities that traditional novels just simply can’t do. For example, it can set a sort of mood or tone to a story. The first thing I noticed about Fun Home was the odd color choice. There are a lot of muted blues which I honestly didn’t like much at first, but I think it started to sense the more I read the novel. I think it ended up setting a sort of gloomy setting, which fits given that one of the novel’s main th...

The Bell Jar deals with the theme of depression and mental illness in an incredibly honest and straightforward way, providing an insight into the issue of mental health which still resonates with readers decades later. In particular, one way the novel dealt with these themes is by covering the state of mental institutions in the 1950s. Our protagonist, Esther, spends much of her time at mental institutions, receiving various forms of treatments. Some things worked… and other things didn’t. In the process, the novel critiques the treatment of mental illnesses in her time period.               Esther starts out as an aspiring poet. But event after event, her mental health deteriorates. She travels to New York to work as a guest editor at a magazine, but finds the overall experience deadening. She then discovers that her boyfriend, Buddy, had cheated on her. And, she gets rejected from a writing class that she had planned to take. She also feels...

Holden Caulfield is a deeply troubled character who may appear hateful of the world, but deep down inside, he remains a compassionate character. His desire to be the “catcher in the rye”, saving others from the worries of adulthood, is one of the main themes of the novel and shows Holden’s caring but flawed attitude towards others. Throughout the novel, Holden tells the reader about his struggles and his alienation from the rest of the world. He considers others to be phonies and makes fun of them by acting similarly phony. And when he is given good advice, he doesn’t seem to take it to heart. But it’s not necessarily as though he hates these people. It’s simply as though he is distrustful of the world and that (almost) nobody can understand his true feelings. This distrust of the world can be traced back to his childhood. He still struggles to get over his brother’s death, which leads to him shutting himself off from the rest of the world. This makes him unable to connect with oth...