Holden
as he progresses through the novel seems to progressively become less and less mentally
stable. At the beginning of the story Holden just seems like a regular
under-achieving student. However you begin to see his dark sense of humor and
his dislike of almost everyone around him. Even people that he has just met he
instantly makes judgments on and treats them as inferior. While odd behavior
yes it isn’t exactly mental instability. Although as you progress you begin to
see his sporadic behavior such as when he punches Stradlator, orders that
hooker, gets in a fight with a pimp, his odd obsession with his sister and Jane,
as well as the fact that he doesn’t seem to know birds fly south for the
winter. He can’t seem to find happiness in much, and when he can it’s within a
superficial relationship that usually abruptly ends. When he asks Sally to hang
out they seem to have a good time together. Although the entire time they are
together Holden never seems to be happy and is constantly judging her behavior.
And in the end manages to make her mad and is told to leave. He also seems to
want to his sister awfully bad, although he can never manage to work up the
nerve to actually call her. Whether from fear of her disappointing him or him disappointing
her, I don’t know. Whatever the reason, the topic of getting in touch with her
is constantly on his mind. So as you can see he is constantly moving towards a
state of mental instability.
Hi Damion I agree with you about how unstable Holden is throw out the book. I also believe that he is a lazy student that likes to get in to trouble along with pissing off his class mates. Then as the book goes on it seems that he thinks he is better then everyone else and thinks that they are phonies. Also it seems that he has no disregard for the rules and society. For example he smokes in the dorms and insist on getting into fights people like the pimp and the basketball player. Another thing that is strange about Holden is that he likes to lie so that he seems more interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that Holden can't seem to figure out is how to have a relationship with girls. For example he try's to go on a date with Sally but he acts so weird on the date that she leaves half way throw the date. Another thing that Holden can't do is call one of his family or friends to help him once he gets to New York.
Damien, you make a good point about Holden’s mental progression throughout the novel. I agree that Holden’s mental condition gradually deteriorates throughout the novel. He forgets how to treat people normally, he does stupid things like buying a prostitute, and he is obsessed with his sister, Pheobe, his old firiend, Jane, and is always eager to have a conversation with anybody. He lies compulsively all the time and he doesn’t seem to have a speech filter anymore considering what he said to Sally. I predict that we will see Holden become progressively worse mentally as the story moves along. If he keeps living his life this way he will end up hurting his family. Unless Holden can get his life straight and become a normal person I don’t think we will see his life go in a positive direction.
ReplyDeleteHolden is very unstable throughout the book and I feel like he should just try to get some things in his life straightened out such as his school work and like you said his inelegance. Not knowing that the birds fly south is an example of that and he should know that already if he did better in school. He should try to move on out of the old ways of lieing and hate for people that he calls phony and just start being a better person all around so that he wont hurt people around him like his family or Sally, a person that he really likes to be with.
ReplyDelete