Room at the Top

As hard as I have tried I don’t think I can personally connect to a greaser, my life has been too good. However I can relate to another character, and have a good friend who has shockingly similarities to Johnny. As for myself I can relate to Randy. No I wasn’t a spoiled rich kid who went around jumping greasers when I was young, but I often found it difficult for someone to tell me no. My parents both were too cautious too yell and punish me in fear that I would rebel in some way that might make them feel that I didn’t love them, so things around the house basically consisted of me telling them what I was going to do, where I was going to be on the weekends, and how long I was going to be there. I never had to ask, I just told them and that was that. The situation was all too similar at school. Being apart of the football team was great; the weekly routine basically consisted of me and my buddies sitting in class because we had to, but never were we asked to do anything that we didn’t want to, and as for extra breaks and extended lunch periods to ice any sore muscles, well they were simply worked into the daily routine as any normal class would be, in other words they were expected. At the time it was great, we did whatever we wanted, me and my teammates that is, but looking back on it now I know that this type of lifestyle is absolutely a waste of time, I learned very few lessons from it, besides the very important one in which I know I will never allow my kid grow up in the same way.
As for my friend who can relate to Johnny, well that is a totally different story. Day in and day out he went home to yelling and screaming, and very frequently would spent entire weekends at my house or at a friends house just to get away, any hard floor was better than constant yelling and screaming and the reminder that his own parents didn’t even look his way when he walked through the front door. I have seen what this type of parenting can do to a kid, and understand Ponyboy’s description of Johnny rather well and my friend too always appears to be lost or afraid. Hinton does a real nice job in the fact that she develops so many characters in which we are bound to relate to at least one, and when the reader can relate in at least some way then the book becomes that much more real to the reader.

Literary reading is more than a ramble of words; instead it is when the reader becomes enthralled by the text. In order to become to engulfed in a piece of literature the reader must enjoy the subject at hand; there has to be an evident connection between the substance of the text and its reader. There is a great range of literary preferences, spreading from: magazines, mystery, romance, some form of biography, adventure, and so on and so forth. Literary reading in its true form occurs when the reader’s attention is focused entirely on the text itself and nothing else, they must be “one” with the piece of literature.
The subject that has been discussed already in class regarding the step that all or at least most children take between actually enjoying literature and detesting it is very intriguing when examining the true meaning of literary reading. Why do we stop reading, why does a 300 page book become a prison sentence when we are teenagers? Well I am sure there are numerous reasons, but I would like to briefly explore the reason I find responsible for this rapid decline in the interest in literature: media or for lack of better words technology. Sitting down in front of the television or playing endless hours of video games has gripped the attention of young and old teens and has stripped any enjoyment they receive out of reading. Instead of having to use their imagination, they simply have to push buttons. Reading almost seems like too much work when television requires nothing more than sitting and watching. Video games too require little work and actually bring the fantasy world that once was the magic of reading to visual reality.
The idea of literary reading and its true form is so fascinating to me because I have experienced both sides of the spectrum. Just as all young kids I could not put down a book when I started it, and once I began a series mom or dad knew that they had better have the next book in line ready if I was coming close to finishing one. “Goosebumps” was huge for me when I was little; those are the books I think about when I think about my true literary reading experience. I can distinctly remember a sense of sheer enjoyment when receiving the next book, and without hesitation go to my room, close the door, turn the lights down as far as possible, and read as long as I could. I became entranced in the words, the atmosphere the text described became the atmosphere around me, I was there, experiencing everything the characters were experiencing. However as I grew older, just as most other kids, I began to stray from reading. While I didn’t hate the idea like most kids, it just didn’t appeal to me as much as watching an hour of television after school, reading just seemed like too much work as sad as that sounds. Anything I did read was not true literary reading; I read the words but they were not processed, I wasn’t experiencing the text but instead doing it to get it done, to say I read a book. After a few years I now again enjoy reading and become entranced when I start a good story. There is nothing like becoming lost in a text that allows the reader to forget everything else around them.