Thursday, May 13, 2010

Eddie P.- The Catcher in the Rye Blog #3

After a few sections after my previous blog, Holden's emotional strength is decreasing and he is starting to contemplate about death. His sister Phoebe is running through his mind so he decides to go home and visit her, but Holden is afraid. He is afraid that his parents will catch him. But most of all, he is afraid how his parents will take the recent news about his expulsion from Pencey. He is afraid to disappoint them yet again. So he visits his sister Phoebe in the middle of the night while his parents are away at a party. His sister is very shocked to hear about Holden getting kicked out of school so she repeatedly and frantically shouts "Daddy'll kill you!"(165) Holden takes this non-literal threat from Phoebe very seriously because he is already dangerously depressed as it is, and he has been thinking of dying. He actually thinks his father will kill her.

Soon, Holden goes to Mr. Antolini's home after calling him from his house. Mr. Antolini offers a place for Holden to stay. Mr. Antolini begins to lecture Holden how his life will take a dive and he will be unhappy. "If you go along with any considerable distance, it'll begin to give you an idea about what size mind you have."(190) This means that Holden's fear of letting people get close to him and not being able to use his knowledge to his advantage will only make his life a failure. Using those ideas in a positive way can go a long way for him. Holden realizes that Mr. Anotlini was right. Holden was paying attention to the conversation and it affected him greatly. The reason he respects Mr. Antolini so much is because of the tragic death of James Castle at Whooton. Mr. Antolini was the only one to actually care for him and carry him to the hospital while the others watched. It shows that Mr. Antolini knows what its like to be near death like that of Allie's death.

After the conversation, Holden falls asleep and is woken up by Mr. Antolini petting his head. His reaction is to freak out about it because of the policy that Holden has to not let people get close to him, which Mr. Antolini might have been doing. He feels bad for Holden so that's why I think he was trying to be a father figure by petting his head(Plus, he was drunk!). Only time will tell if Holden will emotionally ever let somebody near him.

Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1945. Print.

1 comment:

  1. i disagree when you said that the conversation with Mr.Antolini affected him greatly. I think Holden didnt take the advice well at all becasue what happened the next day. When he woke up with Mr.Antolini padding his head he freaked out and left his house. Even after that Holden thinks that he might have over reacted when he left right away *Mario Melendez

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