Laura's Blog

In 1955, 560.000 people were treated in Hospitals in the US for severe mental illness, 67 years later in 2022 11.4 Million adults in the United States alone struggled with serious suicidal thoughts. But how can this number increase by so much? Surely things like social media play a role in this, but one of the main things is society. In the 1960s and 1970s mental health issues were not talked about and people did not believe in psychiatrists and mental health issues. Thankfully now, society is more open-minded and people are more aware of mental health issues and experience more and better treatment.   Sylvia Plath was one of those people who got treated for her mental health issues in the 1960s and 1970s and in her book “The Bell Jar" she talks about her experience of struggling with mental health issues in those years.  While she was still in New York for her summer program we started seeing the first signs of her mental illness, but it wasn’t until she came back home a...

Holden is the perfect example of a Jerk.  At the beginning of the book, I did not think that I could like him. He is one of those people that are rude to everybody around them and that are not putting any effort into understanding other people. Throughout the book, Holden talked to us like we could relate to him but in all honesty, I was never able to relate to him. I was annoyed by his complaining, his not taking anything seriously, and his lies. He was behaving like he was mature, telling us as the reader how much he can drink and how wise he is even though he is only 16. For me, he always was an immature boy who was just rebelling. His flunking out of Pencey and then running away and drinking underage always just seemed like teenage behavior. Of course, it is not the classical behavior of most of us teenagers but there are a lot of teenagers out there thinking they know everything and Holden is one of them.  His character development was interesting to me because, until the...