Phoebe

Phoebe is the only person that Holden feels he can trust. She is perfect in his eyes, and will always be. I think that he almost looks up to her, rather than her looking up to him. I think the hardest part is that Holden is starting to see her grow up, and that is the one thing he does not want to happen. I can relate to Holden because I don't want to see my sisters grow up either. I think it would be nice if they stayed young forever. But that will never happen :)

Poem

I felt like I was in love with her, I wanted to marry her.

I swear to God I’m crazy.

I told her I loved her and all, it was a lie.

I sort of hated old Sally by the time we got in.

It was brutal

Then all of a sudden, I got this idea

C’mon, lets get outta here.

Isn’t it fantastic?

I said no.

We both hated each others guts!

I swear to God I’m crazy!

So basically I tried to write it how Holden would. He changes his opinion so much, its confusing.

Once again Holden is running away from his problems. Once he realizes that he spilled the beans about how he feals about everything to her he wants to try to run away from his problems by suggesting they run away together. Then oce again when he gets turned down he takes it out on her rather then realizing that it was such a crazy question to ask. He is going to have to face his problems one time or another!

Double Personality

I have been noticing that Holden seems to have 2 different personalities. To some people, when they think of 2 personalities they think of someone that may be nice in front of those older than him or her but when it comes to his peers he or she suddenly changes to a "bad" person. I don't necessarily think that this is the case. I do realize that he smokes, lies and swears and does some things that make him seem as "bad" when he is around his friends or those more his age. But when he met the nuns he didn't totally change into this angelic boy who sings in his church choir and volunteers at the humane society. He was being real! He was still smoking and was honest somewhat honest about Romeo and Juliet. So to me he seems to be more real to those who are older than him than to those his age. I feel that when he is with his peers he tries to act tough. That is why it was such a shock that he cried when Maurice and Sunny took his money. I realize that it was probably more than this but this is the first time that I actually saw that there was more to him than this big tough guy that he tries to portray. Obviously this can change, and I have a feeling i will probably feel something different after he has his date with Sally, but for now I think that there is more than one side to this Holden Caulfield.

Childhood to Adulthood

I find Holden as a very hypocritical person. I don't think that he is conscience of how he will think of one thing and then do the exact opposite. Like the fact that he tries to buy alcohol but yet is like a child, too scared to confront his parents about beeing kicked out of Pencey. It seems that normally the transition between childhood and adulthood may be hard, but not as difficult as Holden's. I feel that he is scared to leave his childhood because he was a child when Allie was alive and maybe that growing up will distance his connection and memory of him. I think that he also has problems with the idea of attatchment. He has never stayed long at one school, his parents and him are not close, he lost a brother at a young age, and that maybe growing up will "detatch" the one thing that he is still attatched to, his brother's memory.

Repetition

I am not sure why but it really annoys me the way Salinger writes for Holden. Salinger constantly repeats words or phrases over and over. I often find my self lost and confused because I think that I have read the same line 3 times, when actually it is like that. Does anyone else feel this way?! When I read this it makes me feel as though Holden is not very smart because he repeats himself constantly and because his vocab is very small. What do you guys think? Why would J.D. Salinger write like this?

I do believe that life is a game, its just a matter of how you play it. Take school for example, if you just do your home work and do what the teachers ask you wont have a huge problem. Although some people choose not to which will put them behind with grades, maybe failing a class, and this could even lead to not passing high school. The way I picture this is like the gmae Chutes and Latters. There are ways to get ahead just by luch, or even if you know the "game" well enough. This would be by climbing the latter of "success" or what you would like to call it. But there are also those unfortunate slides you run into, sometimes things in life are unexpected and just put you behind, and there are some things that put you behind because you made a bad choice or decision.
Overall I think life is a game it is just a matter how well you know and play it.

So by the end of chapter 3 I could say that I didn't really connect to Holden very well. So if I would have posted before reading chapters 4 and 5 I would have used the word "judgement" to describe my feeling towards Holden. But now I think that after reading chapter 5 I am leaning more towards the "sympathy" feeling. I think this is mainly because when he talks about his brother Allie. He describes such a vivid picture and I you could tell that it was really hard on him when he died. So I have a feeling that this will probably be changing alot.