Annotation Examples

As requested, here are a few examples of how you might annotate for theme/thematic concept (an idea that seems to keep re-surfacing as a part of the author's overall message). I do want everyone to remember though that you do not have to annotate for theme or point of view; however, it never hurts to start keeping an eye out for them and marking them in your text so that going back and writing your dialectical journal entries may be easier. You are only required to have two dialectical journal entries for each of those. Below, I will provide an example of how to do a dialectical journal entry on each technique as well.

On page 106 of my book I might underline or bracket the part where Holden says, "Grand. If there's one word I hate, it's grand. It's so phony." Then I might circle the word phony and put an arrow out to the margin where I would write a note like, "Everyone being something they're not."

On page 81 of my book I might underline or bracket where Holden says, " What made it kind of worse, it was so quiet and lonesome out, even though it was Saturday night."I might circle lonesome and make a note in the margin about Holden always feeling alone or isolated because isolation is an idea (or thematic concept) that seems to come up repeatedly in the book.

A dialectical journal entry on one of the above quotes would run something like this:

Quote: "Grand. If there's one word I hate, it's grand. It's so phony" (106).

Commentary: One of Holden's chief complaints about the world around him seems to be the "phoniness," or fakeness, of it all. Just like most teenagers, he was raised to view the world in a certain way, and when he finds out that people do not necessarily live out the ideas they preach, he becomes jaded and doubts everyone's true intentions. Salinger raises this thematic concept of hypocrisy over and over again, most ironically in Holden's own life and behavior. For instance, in this case, he is criticizing Sally for being phony on the phone when he is calling a girl to hang out about whose ignorance and idiocy he just ranted for ten pages. He is undoubtedly the fake one! The message Salinger might be trying to relay to us through Holden's frustration with others' phoniness is that if we can only view hypocrisy in others and refuse to see our own shortcomings, we are doomed to isolate ourselves from the imperfection surrounding us--and thereby humanity as a whole.

A student also requested an example for point of view. If I were annotating for point of view in the book, I might mark a passage like the one on page 134 when Holden narrates, "I stuck around for a while, apologizing and trying to get her to excuse me, but she wouldn't. She kept telling me to go away and leave her alone. So finally I did it. I went inside and got my shoes and stuff, and left without her. I shouldn't've, but I was pretty goddam fed up by that time." Then in the margin I would comment, "1st person -->we see only Holden's pitiless idea of Sally."

For a dialectical journal entry on the same quote, it would look more like this:

Quote: "I stuck around for a while, apologizing and trying to get her to excuse me, but she wouldn't. She kept telling me to go away and leave her alone. So finally I did it. I went inside and got my shoes and stuff, and left without her. I shouldn't've, but I was pretty goddam fed up by that time" (134).

Commentary: This portion of the book, and actually the vast majority of the book, is written using first person narration, meaning that the reader is only receiving Holden's perceptions, not other people's actual feelings or motivations, just the way Holden sees them. In this case, Holden is not talking in quotes; he is actually the one telling the story to us. Just like when we tell stories and interpret other people as best we can, Holden does the same thing to Sally. Because he is the one relating the events to us and because he is the only character we have access to understand, we symptahize with Holden's frustration with Sally. In fact, it makes us ready to move on from their whole interaction anyway, just like he does physically. We even remember back to his comment in the beginning that she was stupid and use this event as reinforcement for that accusation.

Hope these examples help. Feel free to post comments when you need help. :) You all are about midway through summer, so if you know people who haven't even looked at the blog yet or started their summer reading, remind them! You definitely don't want them to start begging you for your hard work once school starts!