The Catcher in the Rye {blog four}

To our unfortunate disproval, Holden still is complaining about how things make him mad and upset him because they aren’t the way he likes them to be. His next adventure is to a movie theater after making plans to meet up with an old friend named Carl Luce. While at the movie theater he remembers the time when he and Allie would go to see the same shows, and it still sounds like he cannot let go of his brother, as if maybe if he keeps bringing him up he will magically come back. Holden’s mind then travels to the army and he says that he cannot ever be a part of the army for what his brother D.B told him. I think that again Holden is scared of change in this situation, because ultimately he would have to change his entire life, no more fancy school, no more lounging around and talking about others, and no more support from his parents (financially speaking).

Holden meets up with his friend Carl Luce and talks to him about everything that involves sex. To this Carl guy he seems immature to be asking all these inappropriate questions and quickly gets annoyed so he leaves. Even though this book is a coming of age story, it comes later in the novel than sooner and this just proves my point.

He finally decides to go home to get more money after trying to drink himself to death. Holden sneaks into his house to meet Phoebe because his parents are still unaware of the fact that their son had just been kicked out of Pencey Prep a week earlier. Phoebe is sleeping when Holden arrives home and this is a very important part of the book because of what Holden says about it, “It’s funny. You take adults, they look lousy while they sleep and they have their mouths way open, but kids don’t. Kids look alright. They can even have spit all over their pillow and they still look alright.” (p.159) This just shows that Holden is scared of that transition to adulthood and that children are so innocent and have nothing in the world to worry about. I think that the main reason that Holden is always so upset and mad is that children are supposed to be worry free and with Allie, that wasn’t the case. He is mad that Allie’s life was cut short before he could become an adult and face the reality of actual life.

Once Holden wakes up his sister, they make small talk but something is really bothering him and Phoebe can sense it. They talk about school and Holden begins to rant about all the things that he hates, and that just pisses off his sister because she doesn’t understand what he can like if he is constantly talking about all these things that he dislikes. His mind wanders and these are his next words, “You know whtat I’d like to be? I mean if I had my goddam choice?... I thought it was ‘if a body catch a body’, anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye an all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around-nobody big, I mean- except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. …I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d be the catcher in the rye and all.”

With that quote in mind we can finish up the meaning behind this whole story. Like I said Holden is scared of things that could happen that he doesn’t like and that is why he wants to be “the catcher in the rye”, because he can prevent death, evil and simply bad things from happening. That way he can disallow other people from feeling the same pain that he felt when Allie died. That is what I think of the whole thing.

The Catcher in the Rye {blog 3}

The next part of The Catcher in the Rye that I have read just bothers me. Holden seems to have to tell us his opinion about everything, weather he hates something, loves something, or just can’t stand something. Honestly, I find this to be rather annoying as it seems like the end of every paragraph ends with his hating or loving something. Another flaw that I find in his character is the fact that he is always talking about doing something then never follows through with it. For example, when he hires the prostitute named Sunny, he tells us that he is a virgin and would be more than happy to have sex but hasn’t had the perfect opportunity to yet. But soon enough he is making up excuse after excuse why he cannot have sex with this lady and again loses another opportunity to do so. “I don’t feel much like myself tonight. I’ve had a rough night. Honest to God. I’ll pay you and all, but do you mind if we don’t do it? Do you mind very much? ... The thing is, I had an operation very recently.” (Page 96) This guy is just always making up excuse after excuse for not wanting to have sex, not wanting to eat breakfast, not wanting to call his parents… just so many stupid things, and I think that is why I hate this book!

Continuing on with Holden’s story… he decides to finally call a girl to hang out with, her name is Sally Hayes. What is really sad about this is that he doesn’t really even like this Sally girl, but only likes her for her good looks supposedly. I think he confuses what he feels as love for just having the hots for someone. “Finally, old Sally started coming up the stairs, and I started down to meet her. She looked terrific. She really did. She had on this black coat and sort of a black beret. She hardly ever wore a hat, but that beret looked nice. The funny part is, I felt like marrying her the minute I saw her. I’m crazy. I didn’t even like her much, and yet all of a sudden I felt like I was in love with her and wanted to marry her.” (Page 124) Ironically enough, his whole date backfires when some guy Sally knows comes to talk to her and pretty much steals her away the rest of the night. I thought that was pretty darn funny. Eventually he just ends up ruining the whole date when he starts talking about what he would love to do. So then he calls Jane, his childhood sweetheart. IN my honest opinion, Holden is just a player that doesn’t care much about what girls feel about him; rather that he has an endless supply of them. But isn’t that like most boys today? What bothers me most about Holden is that the people that probably care about him the most (i.e. his family) are the people that he cares the least about, he just throws them to the curb and can handle living away from them for so long only feeding them nothing but lies.

 

The Catcher in the Rye {blog 2}

The next section of the book that I read tells us a lot more about the main character Holden. His kid brother Allie, died of leukemia a couple years before the story took place. He writes a composition about Allie’s baseball glove. I think that the death of Holden’s brother was very substantial in meaning to the way that Holden portrays himself today. He tells us that Allie was the most intelligent person among his family. Allie is described as being extremely sweet and innocent, with the brightest red hair imaginable. Holden is obviously still feeling pain about the fact that he could not help his brother. I think that unconsciously Holden believes that he let his brother die. In other words he wasn’t able to save him. With all that in mind, I believe that Holden gives no effort in school or his personal life because he thinks that were all dying anyway so why try. Unfortunately that is a terrible way to think, especially because Holden has so much potential to be great, he just does not apply his skills.
Moving on to a happier subject… Holden’s friends aren’t much to be admired. Ackley sounds like a disgusting fellow with an ego as big as he is (that is pretty darn big!). Almost all the boys there talk about how they supposedly hook up with all these girls, and Holden is just in awe of how many of these people probably have never even spoken to a lady let alone had sex with one. It’s actually quite funny how this story resembles real life even today, this just shows that men have not changed that much. However, Holden is not completely incapable of loving another girl. Jane Gallagher is one of his closest girlfriends and remembers the time when he was always happy with her and was always there to comfort her. I think that her presence is what kept Holden from isolating himself completely after his brother died. Continuing on, Holden returns to his hotel room after going to a club late in the night. The elevator operator offers him a prostitute for five dollars. He takes the offer and returns to his room.
 I believe that Holden wants to live two separate lives. One where he can live freely and do whatever he pleases, such as hiring a prostitute, but that thought scares him and that is ultimately why he backs out of the deal. And another life where he is sheltered and raised by his parents, where he doesn’t have to worry about bad things happening to him. On the other hand, the second life scares him even more than the first because of what happened to his brother Allie. The fact that not everything can be controlled and not every ending can be happy.