Catcher in the Rye Reading Response (Revised)

            Many movies, books, or things that I see or happen to me in life, I judge as being phony, and cheesy.  There are times when I feel like people and the world doesn’t understand me, or what I am thinking.  There are times when I get angry at things that shouldn’t get me angry.  And much like me, Holden Caulfield goes through these same feelings. Holden Caulfield, is the main character in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. It is the story of Holden, who is a rebellious, defiant, and pessimistic teen growing up in the late forties.  The book starts with Holden, who got expelled from his boarding school for failing all of his classes except for ela.  After Holden is at his school for a day, he then decides to go to New York City, which is where his family lives.  Holden would have been going there anyways, but he decided to go five days earlier.  Throughout the book, Holden sees the world as though it is a phony.    Almost every person he sees he criticizes, for being a phony, or its physical appearance, or anything else he can think of. Throughout the book, I wondered how Holden sees his problems, and what he does to resolve them.

At first, Holden's problem is that he sees the world as there is something wrong with every person and thing in it.  In the beginning of the book he is failing all of his classes with the exception of one, he judges every person he sees and he describes most things as a "phony." Holden says, "One of the biggest reasons that I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by phonies." I think this quote shows that he obviously can’t stand people being phonies, (Elkton Hills was the school that he went to before Pencey, which he was failing his classes in) and this is understandable, but the things that he considers phony are show how he really he feels. Holden says that the biggest phony there was the headmaster, and the reason he was a phony was because he would shake hands with all of the parents who came up every Sunday to see their kids, and that if a kid had parents who were stranger looking, he would only shake their hands and smile at them instead of having a conversation with them.  This shows that Holden can't stand when a person will give another person an experience where it is as if they like them, when they obviously don't respect them. And although Holden says this, he will still treat people the same way, for example his roommate Ackley. Overall, Holden sees the world very pessimistically and this then leads to him facing conflicts.

Another one of Holden's problems is that since he sees the world so negatively, this leads to him not applying himself in his life.  The reason that Holden was leaving Pencey was because he wasn't applying himself, and that he just didn't care about his future.  "I told him how I would've done the same thing if I'd been in his place, and how most people didn't appreciate how tough it is being a teacher. That kind of stuff. The old bull.  The funny thing is though, I was sort of thinking of something else when I shot the bull. I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, and I was wondering if it would be frozen when I got home, and if it was, then where the ducks would go" thought Holden while he was talking to his social studies teacher that failed him.  This quote shows that Holden really just doesn't care about failing all of is classes or anything that he has done. Throughout the entire book Holden doesn't say that he was regretful or disappointed in himself of doing badly in his classes.  The quote shows that Holden cares more about frozen lagoons and ducks than his future and academic life.  All of this shows that Holden doesn't care about his life, and that leads to bad things happening to him.

Another problem with Holden is that he says and does what he wants, but this also becomes one of Holden's biggest problems.  Towards the beginning of the book, Holden gets himself punched in his face by his roommate, but it was Holden's fault that he got punched in his face.  ""Why should I?" I said - I was practically yelling. "That’s just the trouble with all of you morons. You never want to discuss anything. That’s the way you can always tell a moron. They never want to discuss anything intellig-"" said Holden until he got cut off by his roommate punching him in his face so hard that he got covered in blood.  This quote shows that Holden is stubborn and always needs to be right, or make the person he's talking to feel less superior to him. I know this because Holden was warned multiple times by his roommate that he would punch him, but he acted like he didn't care and just kept speaking his mind, until he was left on the ground bleeding.  This quote also shows that Holden doesn't care about himself.  He knew he was going to get himself punched in the face, and when he did and saw himself in the mirror, he said that he liked the way he looked, and how it made him look tough.  All in all, Holden's compulsiveness is one of his biggest problems.

In conclusion, Holden faces many problems that he makes for himself, and then does not make a real effort to resolve them.  Holden puts himself in situations that create conflicts, and he only puts himself in those situations because of anger, and at times just randomness.  He feels like he is against the world, and that his only way to get by is to go against everyone else and their “phony ways.”  I think that eventually, all people feel like Holden, at a time in their life. Where it as though nobody could understand them, or just want to go against how everyone else is.