Holden Caulfield Relationships

59) Holden's failure to find someone to call is when his isolation comes into view, and earlier in the novel, he admits to wanting to commit suicide because of how lonesome he is. "I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead." (pg. 48) Not only does Holden not have friends, but his own parents do not have a good relationship with him. In chapter seven, Holden talks about his mother buying him hockey skates instead of racing skates. "She bought me the wrong kind of skates-I wanted racing skates and she bought hockey-but it made me sad anyway." (pg. 52) Holden's present from his mother symbolzes she does not even know her own chld well enough to know his interests. Besides his absense of friends and distant relationship with his parents, Holden's biggest sense of lonliness comes from the death of his younger brother, Allie.

From the beginning of the book the reader can interpret that Holden is a person who seemingly likes to be detached from society. He isolates himself from the football game and instead decides to stand in solitude upon a hill, looking down at all those below him. As he strives to find a goodbye to Pencey Academy, one can see that this is not a new experience for him, as he divulges the details of his mobile past, jumping from one school to the next.

In the beginning of the novel the reader learns that Holden has been kicked out of his school Pency-Prep.

In the beginning of the story, Holden Caulfield is in Pencey Prep on the last Saturday before the end of the school year. Like the three other schools he’s been to before, he has not been invited back the next year, because he failed four out of five of his classes. Holden receives a notice to return home in Manhattan on Wednesday. Holden visits the home of Mr. Spencer, his old history teacher, to bid him farewell. However, when Mr. Spencer starts to lecture him and criticize him for his lack of effort in his studies, Holden lies and leaves the house.

Holden’s school life is one of the pieces of evidence of his negative feelings towards society. He has attended numerous schools such as Elkton Hills, Pencey Prep, and Whooton. In addition, he has been kicked out of the schools, failed almost all of his classes during his time at Pencey

Holden's poor relationships with his classmates and teachers, or people in general, was evident before he went to Pencey Prep as well as during his stay at Pencey Prep. When Holden thinks back to his previous school,

It is said he has failed almost all of his classes and is going to be kicked out because of this reason. Of course this leads to Holden working even less to raise his grade in the school, instead growing a hatred for the place and the people at it who he thinks are all dumb

Although Holden enjoys reading books, when it comes to doing any work beyond reading, he does not apply himself. He has flunked out of four prep schools, including Pencey, for “not applying himself.” For example, when he speaks with his history teacher who flunked him, he admits to being a “moron.” However, it is not that he is a moron, but rather that, like a child, he cannot stay focused on the task at hand: “Well you could see he really felt pretty lousy about flunking me. So I hot the bull for a while.

The author reveals Holden’s apathetic style, making it sound almost as if he doesn’t want to be telling the story he tells and complaining at all times. Holden says in the first paragraph about his parents and life, “I don’t feel like going into it if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bore me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.” (Pg. 1) The different prep schools that he goes to and his failure at all of them symbolize the communication he has with his parents.

His belief of being superior causes him to view other classmates as “crooks” (pg.6) and “phonies” (pg.17). When sharing stories about his dorm roommates, Holden highlights their negative aspects. During the football game, one of the only other people to stay in the dorm is Ackley, Holden’s neighbour. Although Holden knew “[Ackley] hardly went anywhere” (pg.22) since the other classmates did not like him, he remains annoyed by Ackley’s behaviour and primarily describes his poor hygiene habits such as “never … using [a] handkerchief” (pg.40) to showcase him in a dehumanizing manner. Furthermore, Holden’s jealousy of roommate Stradlater’s relationship with former love interest Jane Gallagher causes the boys to get into a physical brawl. After the fight, Holden receives little to no attention from Ackley and fed up with feeling “sad and lonesome” (pg.58) at school, decides to act upon his frustration. As an outsider, Holden’s is unable to gain acceptance from his peers and find comfort at school, therefore to escape his peer’s negative behaviour towards him, Holden decides to run away from

Holden seems to have the most scorn for people who think or try to act as if they are something they're not. His bitterness, which stems from his need for a perfect and simple world, is directed towards people who hide their true personalities behind masks thus shattering his dream of a "black and white" society. Holden's need for a society devoid of complications and surprises is made evident when he visits the Museum of Natural History. Holden loves going to the Museum of Natural History because it symbolizes the ideal world he wants to live in; a world that never changes, where everything is plain and simple, and easily understandable. When external forces force Holden to see reality, that the world is a very complicated and ever changing entity, Holden rejects it as a form of phoniness. However, in his constant search for the infinite imperfections of his world, Holden fails to realize that he too is a phony. Holden admits to being a compulsive liar and also has a habit of being needlessly cruel. When Holden meets Mrs. Morrow, a classmates mother, on the train, he purposefully feeds her misleading information about her son Ernest. Holden tells her that, "[Ernest] is one of the most popular boys at Pencey," when he actually believes that "her son was ... the

In the beginning of the novel, Holden falls off the metaphorical cliff when he flunks out of school for the third time. He never applies himself to any of the schools that he went to and he admits to not liking any of the schools either. He continues to complain about the students by calling

Antolini was trying to hinder him from going down the wrong path. Holden focuses on the little details like the gasoline rainbows in the puddles on the street and which suitcase is nicer. He overlooks the obvious, “big picture” which could better help him adjust and focuses instead on little, often-insignificant things he can handle. Moreover, Holden only pays attention to the things he’s interested in and doesn’t pay attention to the teachers or work given at school. This lack of interest has caused him to drop out of four schools and, therefore missing out on knowledge necessary for his well-being and self-discipline. Holden does not like change. Holden needs change, he needs to grow up. He needs to change his thoughts and behavior. Holden says “Certain things should stay the way they are, you ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone (122).”

When Holden is on his way to say goodbye to his history teacher, Holden talks about why he isn’t coming back to Pencey. Holden explains, “I wasn’t supposed to come back after Christmas vacation, on account of I was flunking four subjects and not applying myself at all”(4). Holden is showing us that he is irresponsible because he is not using his time wisely to study for school, so as a result, he is flunking four subjects. However, Holden does not lack the ability to pass his classes, but he fails to put in the time and effort to do well. Although he knows and recognizes that he is not applying himself, he still does not strive to make a change in his academics, which makes him even more unadmirable because he knows that he could do it if he

 Nevertheless Holden has so much personal pride he refuses lower him to that level.  For if he does, in his eyes, he will be the same as all those other ?Phony Ivy League bastards? (85).  As a result of Holden giving up on school, he is unable to proceed with the natural evolution that must occur for him to move on in society.  Mr. Antolini later points out to him ?Learning is a beautiful reciprocal arrangement.  And it isn?t education.  It?s history.  It?s poetry? (189).  His goal for Holden being to see school as something he loves and not something he is being forced to do.  Mr. Antolini tried to give Holden a reason to be motivated and in which case not to give up so easily.