The controversies of this novel have dawned on me, and, let me just say, it has been overwhelming. Holden’s character captures the worst situations for a teenager in almost every aspect, creating a situation where every teenager can relate with him in some way or another, but we’ll get back to that later.
Chapters 6-10 broaden all our views of Holden from the previous chapters. In other words, everything just got real.
In chapters 1-5, we saw how Holden had trouble bonding with acquaintances. In chapters 6-10, Holden’s true loneliness is extremely relevant. It all begins on page 51 when Holden gets in a full-on fight with Stradlater. After the fight, Holden feels the need to bond with someone, so he hits up Ackley. On page 54, he says, “I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead.” Then he tells Ackley that the fight was about him and he was defending his honor, which is a flat out lie. Later, on page 56, he asks Ackley about joining a monastery. This is a little ironic, since he’s skeptical about religion; however, we also being to see a bit of confusion over sexuality in this section, so abstinence would make sense. I don’t think Holden actually wants to join a monastery, he’s just desperate for companionship. On page 57, Holden describes how “quiet and depressing” the corridor is. Skipping forward to chapter 9, we can see that Holden is desperate to talk to somebody, but he doesn’t have anyone to talk to. He tries to bond with some pretty odd people, including his cab driver (67), Faith Cavendish (a former burlesque stripper whose number he had gotten from a guy he didn’t really know) (71), three girls he met in the Lavender Room (79), and one of his former fellow student’s mother (61). None of his attempts to bond end in his favor.
Another theme of the novel that grows infinitely in this section is Holden’s addiction to lying. The first lie he tells is an attempt to bond when he tells Ackley that the reason he fought Stradlater was to stand up for his honor, but he takes it back and tells Ackley he was only kidding (54). We can see Holden’s unreliability on page 55 when he says, “The thing is, you didn’t know Stradlater,” while talking about how terribly he treats girls. On page 29, however, Holden tells Ackley “You don’t know him, that’s the trouble,” while talking about how Stradlater is “not too bad.” Later, when Holden meets Ernest’s mother, he falls into a lying rampage. He tells her that his name is Rudolf Schmidt, Ernest adapts well, he got hit by a snowball, Ernest is one of the most popular boys at Pencey, a lot of boys wanted Ernie to be president of the class, he has to have brain surgery, and that he is going to South America, all of which are lies he made up on the spot. He even admits, “Once I get started, I can go on for hours if I feel like it” (65). I think that Holden’s lies are an attempt to be who others want him to be so that he can bond with him, but it never really works out. You’d think he’d realize that by now.
To be continued…
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