The Catcher In The Rye-Bread

Holden's entire perspective on life reveals a lot about his character. He uses sarcasm as a defense mechanism to make up for his own defficiencies. The fact that he has been through so many boarding schools shows that his parents find him so impossible to deal with that they need to send him away. Holden attemps to play off the fact that he has been kicked out of various schools as if it were his own choice, as he said "One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by phonies" 13. In reality, Holden could not find the self-esteem to push himself through school. Holden's lack of self-esteem stems from his self conciousness in his physical appearance, and the fact that he is considered the failure in the family. Because of this, Holden realizes that life is a game and "If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, thats a game alright...But if you get on the other side, then whats a game about it? Nothing. No game" 8. I think this is Holden's general perspective about everything. He is not the best at anything, so he figures why try if he will always lose. His lack in confidence is also shown when dealing with women.
When Stradlater goes on a date with Jane Gallagher, Holden cannot contain his excitement and interest. At first, Holden just seems interested because he used to be friends with Jane. He repeatedly says he "oughta go down and at least say hello to her" 32, but never actually does. Instead of admitting he was too shy to go to see Jane he just claims he wasn't in the mood. this shows how Holden cannot even admit his true emotions to himself, but always has to make up an excuse so that he doesn't feel inferior to others. Furthermore, later that night when Stradlater returns, Holden takes out his own anger at himself on his roomate. Stradlater didn't ACTAULLY do anything wrong by going out with Jane, but Holden is obviously mad at himself for not having the confidence to say hi to jane, and for succumbing to Stradlater's request to write a paper for him. Rather than looking inward and realizing that the issue lies within himself, Holden acts out aggressively. This aggression was shown before, when Holden's brother Allie died from leukemia.
After Allie died, Holden "slept in the garage...and I broke all the windows with my goddamn fist, just for the hell of it. I even tried to break all of the windows in the station wagon we had that summer, but my hand was already broken and everything by that time" 39. During this rampage Holden claims to have "harldy even know what he was doing" and during the fight with Stradlater he says he can't really remember what happened. This is also just a cover up like when people say they were "soooo drunkkkk" as an excuse for doing embarassing or demeaning things. Also, Holden apparently can't deal with his emotional problems causing him to be aggresive. I think he would be considered a "passive aggressive".
Holden also feels like he is basically on a different level than everyone else, and that he is soo far above society. Once he said "people never listen to you" and another time "people never believe you" 37. These phrases show that Holden catagorizes everyone else as "people" and that they are all against him. He probably feels betrayed by his family, so he views everyone else as a threat. Because he feels threatened, he constantly puts others down by "dissing" them. As he said about Stradlater "Stradlater was putting on his tie infront of the mirror. He spent around half of his goddamn life in front of the mirror" 33. Holden is threatened by Stradlaters' good looks so he calls him vain to feel better about himself.
This is totally out of order, but when Holden talks to Mr. Spencer in the beginning he makes up all these excuses for why he has to leave, not only to Mr. Spencer, but to himself. As he says "But I just couldn't hang around there any longer...and the way he kept missing the bed whenever he chucked something at it, and his sad old bath robe with his chest showing, and that grippy smell of Vicks Nose Drops all over the place" 15. Holden points out all of these details so he can avoid that fact that the reason why he really wants to leave is because he can't face the fact that he has let himself, teachers, and his parents down once again.



Cant wait to keep readdinnngggggg xxx0000000000xxxxx
payyyyyce and LuVvVVVv, @ndrea