Hi, it´s nice that you have a look at my website. I would appreciate comments to my articles. I promise to reply as soon as possible.

Civilization turns into savagery

The first strange thing that attracts attention in chapter 4 is the beginning of it because it is completely different compared to the other chapters. It starts with a long description of the day. Apparently the day, the morning, midday and evening, is a metaphor for the life of a person. This shows that chapter 4 is a very special one in the book; it is sort of a turning point because the behaviour of some boys changes completely.

At first Roger is knocking down sand castles made by littl'uns and he is not even sorry for it. Only Maurice feels the unease of their wrong-doing. Roger is even throwing stones at a younger boy, although intentionally missing him.

left: Jack in Peter Brook´s film(1963) Later on in the chapter Jack calls Roger away, asking him to watch him paint his face. This is the start of their evil and dangerous friendship. Jack painting his face is one very important sign for the loss of civilization. Jack´s mask of face paint represents a cover he can hide behind, which liberates and frees him, allowing him to do anything when wearing it, without worrying about any important matters. As Jack himself says painting his face is "...For hunting. Like in the war. You know dazzle-paint...". Comparing his painted face to war shows his real thoughts: Being on a desert island is a war for him. He is the one who loses his sense for civilization first.

Another sign for the decline of standards is that the boys do not care about the fire anymore, they just forget about it and do not realize that the fire is out. For them hunting and having meat is more important. Oblivious about the fire, Jack and his hunters come proudly marching and carrying their first kill, trying to convey their excitement to Ralph. Further still, Jack really shows his blood lust for the first time as he recounts the details of the hunt. Ralph, completely shocked and being one of the few that are still civilized, yells at the hunters, but Jack tries to convince him of the utmost importance of hunting. Their first kill is the most obvious and scaring sign for the loss of civilization because it shows that they brought themselves to do an evil thing. The primal dance the hunters are performing after eating the pig highlights their transition into savagery.

The American Dream is a phantasmagoria of society

Society needs something that is similar to God, something unreachable

In my opinion "The American Dream" describes an attitude of hope and faith that looks forward to the fulfilment of human wishes and desires. For some Americans these (wishes and) desires mean money and wealth, for some others these wishes (and desires) mean freedom, health, friends, family and happiness. I guess you need both parts of the "American Dream" to be completely satisfied.
Probably the strong search for happiness and freedom goes back to the time, when the first British settlers came to America. I believe, that Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence expressed the wishes the Americans had for such a long time for the very first time. Jefferson is not talking about money, but about equality of men and liberty. Back in 1776 these aspects were maybe very important for the people, but today they are totally neglected. Thomas Jefferson was also the first to mention the democratic system, which is another basic point of the original "American Dream". The democratic system may result from this general attitude of confidence and hope.

Despite the declaration of democratic principles, there are still poverty, discrimination, exploitation and greed in the United States. People are not equal at all, if you look at the Blacks, the Hispanics and the poor people. Most of them are expelled by society, some of them even have a delimited place to live, for example a lot of Blacks live in such delimited ghettos. Only wealthy or famous people have the chance to study at a good University, because you have to pay a lot of fees in the United States. And therefore only those people have the chance to get a well paid job and be successful. Obviously, this is NOT equality.
Besides the United States has a great deal of crime. Even teenagers start shooting other pupils at school because they are bored and want to see how people die. In most states of America there is no such thing as education, I think. Neither the parents educate their children, nor the teachers at school. The American youth is disregarded by society.
As you can see my opinion about the "American Dream" is not very positive. I think it is only a phantasmagoria of society, which needs something people can cling to and believe in. Maybe society just needs something that is similar to God, something unreachable. The "American Dream" is called "Dream" on purpose because subconsciously everybody knows that it is something one can hardly realise.

Where is the working multicultural society ?

There is no country that could exemplify the melting pot approach to Germany

Everybody who has been to the USA was probably astonished to see so many ways of life and so many different coloured people living next to each other. One could easily think that the United States is a very good example of a multicultural society . But is this really true?

One argument for the multicultural society is that you get to know new cultures and ways of life. To me it is very interesting to get to know Chinese people, for example. Their spirit and views about certain topics are just completely different to ours. It seems almost incredible that we live nearly on the same continent because even their eating habits are so dissimilar to the habits we have. But is this not the interesting thing about foreigners? left: Xmas decorations in Chinatown, New York

There is so much you can learn from immigrants. They may know things and practices you have never heard of before. And maybe they can even teach you something that is very useful. Take the example of Turkish immigrants in Germany. They brought us their home food, "Döner Kebab", and there are so many people that are grateful because it tastes great. A public-opinion poll of the German ministry of health even says that there are more people in Germany who eat "Döner Kebab" than people who eat at Burger King or McDonalds. This may sound laughable to some people, but "Döner Kebab" is a nice addition of a snack that we have because of the Turkish immigrants.

But on the other hand you have to face reality. I am sure, many German people eat Turkish food, but also a lot of Germans do not accept Turkish people in Germany. We have a high degree of racism and if you look at statistics of the German police you can see that most acts of violence happen to foreigners. Of course, there are three (main) groups of foreigners: refugees, people who want to work and have a better life than in their home country and people that just come here, marry or stay here long enough to get the German citizenship and with its social benefits. The last group will never be accepted by most of the Germans (even if they are not right wing extremists) and surely right wing extremists will never leave foreigners in peace. First the government needs to eradicate right wing radicalism and then the Germans can try to implement the idea of a melting pot again. Unfortunately, there is no country that could exemplify the melting pot approach to Germany.

Not even the United States has a working melting pot. There you would never find Chinese people working for a Mexican company. To me this is a fact, but who can explain this convincingly ?

Execution TV –  fantasy or reality ?

Is there nobody to draw the line ?

More than five years have passed since Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City federal building killing 168 people including 19 children. It was the single deadliest peacetime attack on US shores and shocked America to its core. McVeigh has waived his right to additional appeals and was scheduled to be executed May 16, 2001. This date was put off, because some misplaced files resurfaced.
While the death penalty is legal in the majority of US states this is the first time an execution will be televised on close-curcuit TV. It has provoked a fierce debate, because a lot of people want to see McVeigh´s execution on TV at home or at least on the internet.
To me it sometimes seems that we live in an era where there are no rules about what may be televised, that there are no standards, no one willing to say, "here we draw the line." Most of us have seen death on TV before; after all, real death, from Oklahoma City and wars around the world to crime scenes around the corner. But the news or movies are not comparable to seeing somebody getting executed. An execution is planned and volitional (at least from the government). For a baby or a child it will not make any difference to see somebody getting killed in a movie or on "Execution TV". But adults and teenagers can differentiate and, of course, they can decide if they want to see someone getting executed on TV or not. But a televised execution
would still force us to ask, will we watch anything? Are there no rules for protecting the audience either? What would it say about a nation whose citizens tuned in great numbers to a staged killing? What would we think of ourselves afterwards?
Some people would maybe watch the execution, because they are curious about death, but others, mentally retarded people, crazy people and people with strange fantasies would maybe watch it because they are looking for some queer satisfaction. Perhaps mentally ill people would take "Execution TV" as a stimulation to kill somebody, as well. But such people cannot justify their murder by saying " I just obeyed the law". Such people do not understand what they are doing and they would not realise that killing somebody is wrong.
Whatever a mentally sane person`s substantiation for watching "Execution TV" is, will it satisfy him/her? How can death satisfy or make someone feel better ?
I think it does not make any sense to show executions on TV! It will not deter anybody to commit a crime and it will not solve one`s problems!  Unfortunately, there will always be TV directors who want to make huge profit
by introducing "Execution TV". Hopefully they will never reach this target!

Holden Caulfield – a strange and difficult character

"The Catcher in the Rye" was written by J.D. Salinger and was first published in 1951. The main character of this novel is Holden Caulfield, who is by far the most complex character in this novel , as well. He seems to be emotionless and careless sometimes, because he does not reveal a lot about his feelings, but if you look at some scenes carefully, you can find out pretty much about Holden and his feelings.
When Holden visits his sick teacher in chapter 2, you can see that he is quite a bit concerned about him. Not because the teacher is sick, but because he failed him. Since Holden did very bad on his essay, the teacher had to fail him. The interesting thing is, that Holden left the teacher a message at the bottom of the last page of his essay, where he says that the teacher`s lectures were very interesting and that it is alright if he "flunked" him. Actually Holden should be concerned about himself failing the class, but all he seems to be concerned about is the teacher that has to "flunk" him. This shows that Holden cares about others, at least in this case.
Holden also shows that he is nice and kind. In chapter 5 he is taking Ackley, a boy that does not seem to have any friends and does not care about personal hygiene too much, to Agerstown. Actually, only Holden and Mal, a "friend" of Holden, decided to go Agerstown to watch a movie and have some hamburgers, but since Ackley "never does anything on Saturday night, except stay in his room and squeeze his pimples or something", Holden asked Mal if he minded if Ackley came with them. At this point, Holden shows us that he even cares
about people he does not really like.
In the following chapters Holden also reveals that he wants to protect other people. In chapter 4, Stradlater, Holden`s roommate, tells Holden that he has a date with Jane Gallagher, who is an old friend of Holden. While they are having their date, Holden is thinking about them pretty often. He tells us that Stradlater is a "sexy bastard" and not only pretending to have sex with girls, like a lot of other boys at his age do, Stradlater really does it. Holden tells him that Jane had a lousy childhood. Obviously, Holden tells him because he hopes that Stradlater is not going to "hit on her" knowing about her childhood, but he actually knows that Stradlaters does not care about such things too much.
In the beginning of chapter 6 he says: " I was so damn worried...". Here Holden shows us, that he really cares for Jane and that he does not want Stradlater to get too close with Jane, not on any account. To Holden Jane is a vulnerable and sweet "creature", who needs to be protected in any case.
If you look at Holden in a superficial way, he does not seem to reveal many feelings, but if you look at his complex character carefully, you will find out that he actually does reveal a lot about his feelings and relationships to others.