When I started reading this book it seemed to me that it was going to be an exciting book to read, although it was an old book , since Holden Caulfield mentioned something about a resting house/mental hospital. So I expected a book with all kinds of events that forced him to come to this mental hospital, it did though in some kind of way, but the way it is written makes is very hard/boring to read.
I read an article before reading this book and it said that the book was an essential document of American adolescence.(Yardley, J. (2004),'J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, Aging Gracelessly', Washington Post). Looking back after reading it I believe this is true.
At the beginning a slight hint is given that Holden is a bittered person because of his departure form Pencey Prep. I believe his bitterness gets sort of 'worse' throughout the book but maybe that is due to the fact that we understand his situation better. With that I mean that we get to know that his brother Allie died and the fact that he distances himself from other people.
That is one thing I do not understand; he feels that he his alienated from the rest of the world but at the same time he tries to reach out to people by arranging all kinds of meetings by phone with all kinds of people. For instance that he reaches out to his sister Phoebe, Jane (Gallagher) and even a girl he has never met before but got her number from an acquaintance! I believe her name was Faith.
During the class session we discussed different types of identity crises such as, Moratorium, Synthetic Identity and Identity Confusion ( From E. Erikson). My interpretation is that Holden deals not only with Identity Confusion, but suffers slightly from Moratorium as well. Holden has left 4 Prep schools already and is now drifting around New York city, hopping in and out of bars. It seems to me that those are signs that Holden does not know where he belongs or what he wants to be or where he wants to go to; an Identity Crisis. The reason why I mention Moratorium as well is because Moratorium means that someone is postponing to grow up because he/she is not able to or not wanting to. When Holden faces obligations or pressure from people who urge him to aspire an Academic career he laughs at them or gets irritated, for instance with mr. Spencer.
His sexuality was something I could not quite determine. The incident of seeing a couple spit water in each others faces and getting aroused by it seems a bit strange to me. It makes me wonder whether he is gay or straight. The one thing that I am sure of is that because of all the girls/ adult women he meets and flirts with while he is very young himself indicate that he is troubled with his sexuality. The only girl I believe he really liked is Jane Gallagher, because of the memories he has of the summer they had met, but then again that led to a fight with his roommate so that gets negatively emphasized unfortunately. I found the whole book boring to read but I can understand that some people may find his character (being bittered and lost at the same time) admirable.
When I ( finally) made it to the end I have to admit that I was a bit moved. With his sister Phoebe in at the museum and the park and the fact that she says she is coming with him. He does get a bit more positive since he mentioned that he is going to applicate for a new school although he writes his story from some sort of mental hospital.
Word count: 595
Additional source besides class discussion and notes made during the PP:
Yardley, J. (2004),'J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, Aging Gracelessly', Washington Post.
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