In Chapter 9-14 Holden Caulfield leaves Penecy Prep and heads to New York City. Where he will stay for a couple days before winter vacation starts and he will head home. Delaying breaking the news to his family he got kicked out of school for as long as possible. These chapters are where Holden’s loneliness becomes abundantly clear. The reader is subjected to many long rants by Holden about the company he wants, though he attempts to settle several times. Betraying the strict rules he appears to had made for himself on not interacting with ‘phonies’. This is the type of person he has made clear he hates and never will become. Chapter 9 starts with Holden arriving at Penn Station. Where he stays in a telephone booth for nearly twenty minutes trying to think of someone to call up. In the end he finds himself not having a single person he could or want to call in the late evening. Leaving the station in defeat he quickly hails a cab to a hotel where he will not run into anyone he knows. This is peculiar, his longing for companionship for the night over shadowed by his embarrassment to be kicked out of school. Running into someone who knows him would require answering too many questions he is just not ready for. …show more content…
Asking each cab driver he has for drinks, even offering to pay for them. This is the first indication of Holden’s willingness buying his friends. At Penecy Prep he does favours for his peers he has no indication of liking. Writing papers for them, letting people borrow his type writer and clothing. His is eager to do whatever it take to be liked by others. In the least to have people just want to be around him. Every cab driver turns him down this doesn’t diminish his determination to spend the night with
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Show MorePage 44. It becomes apparent the struggles Holden has with being more positive about people. After all, he lacks a genuine connection to anyone, which is proven because almost every time Holden speaks badly about someone it is when the person is either talented or the person is having a good time
Holden Caulfield’s story begins on a December Saturday at Pencey Prep School in Pennsylvania, where he 's just been given the ax for failing all his classes except English. As it turns out, getting the ax is a frequent theme in Holden 's past. Before he leaves the school Holden runs to his favorite teacher’s house to say goodbye to him. Back in the dorm, Holden goofs around with Robert Ackley, a pimply and annoying kid. We 're introduced to Holden 's red hunting hat, and we meet his roommate, Stradlater, who is getting ready for a date with Jane Gallagher, an old friend and sort-of romantic interest of Holden 's. Holden is not happy about this impending date, but agrees anyway to write an English composition for Stradlater.
It is as if he has no friends on facebook, showing an empty screen. When looking at empty screens we see nothing but ourselves, which shines the light on Holden’s self-isolation. A literary criticism article written upon the topic of Holden’s isolation agrees with the claim, Holden self-isolates. The article states,“The fleeting nature of his interactions is responsible for much of his loneliness,” continuing to add that it is “self imposed” (blooms literature 1). Holden’s state of mind is complex,
For years, Holden had been placed in numerous expensive boarding schools, which all ended in the same way—getting expelled. Because Holden’s parents don’t recognize Holden’s clear difficulties with boarding schools, Holden essentially gives up trying as he is so consumed with grief that could have been better dealt with if his parents gave him the proper guidance to do so. Holden’s parents repeatedly sent Holden to boarding schools that always ended in him getting kicked out, and Holden’s father, who is described as “quite wealthy,” gives Holden many resources, such as money, that in his perspective, sets him up for success (140). However, at these luxurious boarding schools, Holden’s father sends him to surround him in an environment full of “phonies” and loneliness (MLA). At Pencey, according to Holden, “All I did was, I got up and went over and looked out the window.
This describes Holden to-a-t, because of his alienation problem, his conflict with “phoniness” and his struggle of growing up and leaving his small problems behind him. Throughout the novel,
My favorite sentence from this reading had to be, "The arms were in sad shape, because everybody was always sitting on them, but they were pretty comfortable chairs." (Salinger 18). In the short sentence, I furthermore get a glimpse of Holden's voice and personality, this time by seeing him contradict himself. He describes how sad looking and beat up the chair is, yet goes on to say how nice and comfortable it is. This to me is a very important clue to Holden's overall personality in regard to life.
The only motivator that Holden has to continue living is his younger sister, Phoebe, who is extraordinarily intelligent for her age. After he gets kicked out of Pencey, Holden is lost in life. He speaks to many people, seeking advice and comfort, but they are not able to help him find a human connection. Holden’s depression increases throughout the novel, almost to the point of suicide. He criticizes many people and ideas, labeling them as ‘phony’.
From the beginning to the end of the novel, Holden is seen continuously distancing himself from his friends by calling them “phonies” as reasoning to not be close with others to hide his depression. Eventually, Holden is left with barely anyone who he sees as a friend, leaving him all alone. For instance, on his way to a hotel since he cannot go home, Holden asks the taxi driver, “Would you care to stop on the way and join me for a cocktail? On me, I'm loaded” (Salinger ). This evidence demonstrates to the reader that Holden cut out everyone in his life and is now left with no one due to his isolating methods that provide influence to his depression.
Furthermore, Holden starts to hate all the adults or loses faith in them, calls them phony. Holden has a second thought of becoming an adult he loses hope in his future and it seems to him nothing in the world matters to him anymore. We can see that throughout the book. He smokes, gets drunk, and does daring acts like getting a prostitute in his room. He also tries to escape all this guilt and grief by wasting time with unnecessary people he calls phony.
Holden Caulfield lives his life as an outsider to his society, because of this any we (as a reader) find normal is a phony to him. Basically, every breathing thing in The Catcher in the Rye is a phony expect a select few, like Jane Gallagher. What is a phony to Holden and why is he obsessed with them? A phony is anyone who Holden feels is that living their authentic life, like D.B. (his older brother). Or simply anyone who fits into society norms, for example, Sally Hayes.
As the book starts Holden describes his childhood and how he has been kicked out of several school and once more again from his currently school, giving a sense of irresponsibility and no care in the world. Holden later on mentioned slowly the loss of his brother due to leukemia and how he reacted outrageously by breaking the windows of his garage home. As a reader one would view that behavior as abnormal, but Peter Shaw descried it as a normal behavior for a fictional character in the 1950s and by mentioning that Holden, “is presenting in a somewhat different manner than are the sentimentalized young people in other novels if his period” (par. 3), admitting that Holden was somewhat of an outcast of a character even for its time he is still considered normal. Shaw also challenged the reader’s view of Holden by emphasizing that Holden is not a real person, but a fiction character developed in the 1950s and in fact a mad psychological character is normal and made the reading rather more interesting and acceptable during that time. As readers someone may come across as understanding Holden’s behavior due to a loss and everyone mourns differently and as Shaw said, “ the one period of life in which abnormal behavior is common rather than exceptional” (par.
The beginning of Holden’s journey starts with the innocence and naivety of childhood. Childhood is the stage that ignorance is bliss with no care in the world. Holden goes to a prestigious boarding school for boys and he believes that everyone in that school is a phony in some way. Holden is an observant character as he stays in the background, but he can also cause the most trouble. Like a child, he asks many questions and he is very curious to the point that he can be annoying.
Holden originally attended Pencey Prep but could never connect with the people around him. He is always criticizing or fighting with others, which lead him to leave Pencey without telling anyone. Holden heads to NYC where he faces many challenges with others and himself, emotionally and physically. Holden finds himself in his hotel room with a prostitute and feels extremely uncomfortable with what he is doing so he pays her and sends her off. The next day he plans a date with Sally Hayes, an old girlfriend, to see a play where he calls her “a pain in the ass” and laughs.
He takes the reader on a journey over a few days from him leaving the school to roaming the streets of New York. The question is Holden a Phony often pops into the minds of the reader. Holden is a phony because he is a hypocrite who does things that he criticize others for. He is a phony because he pretends to be someone that he is not,
After arriving, Holden “went into [a] phone booth” and spent “about twenty minutes” without calling anybody (77-78). After pondering the many people he could call, Holden finally thinks of calling “Carl Luce, but [he] didn’t like him much” (78). While Holden has many people whom he could call, he spends twenty minutes convincing himself of why he cannot call any of these people. This illustrates alienation as Holden chooses to avoid talking to others, isolating himself when he could have easily chosen to interact with others. Moreover, this alienation provides Holden with self-protection as he does not run into any chances of his parents finding out that he has been expelled from school and has run away to New York.