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Catcher In The Rye Chapter 9-14 Analysis

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In Chapter 9-14 Holden Caulfield leaves Penecy Prep and heads to New York City. Where he will stay for a couple days before winter vacation starts and he will head home. Delaying breaking the news to his family he got kicked out of school for as long as possible. These chapters are where Holden’s loneliness becomes abundantly clear. The reader is subjected to many long rants by Holden about the company he wants, though he attempts to settle several times. Betraying the strict rules he appears to had made for himself on not interacting with ‘phonies’. This is the type of person he has made clear he hates and never will become. Chapter 9 starts with Holden arriving at Penn Station. Where he stays in a telephone booth for nearly twenty minutes trying to think of someone to call up. In the end he finds himself not having a single person he could or want to call in the late evening. Leaving the station in defeat he quickly hails a cab to a hotel where he will not run into anyone he knows. This is peculiar, his longing for companionship for the night over shadowed by his embarrassment to be kicked out of school. Running into someone who knows him would require answering too many questions he is just not ready for. …show more content…

Asking each cab driver he has for drinks, even offering to pay for them. This is the first indication of Holden’s willingness buying his friends. At Penecy Prep he does favours for his peers he has no indication of liking. Writing papers for them, letting people borrow his type writer and clothing. His is eager to do whatever it take to be liked by others. In the least to have people just want to be around him. Every cab driver turns him down this doesn’t diminish his determination to spend the night with

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Holden Caulfield’s story begins on a December Saturday at Pencey Prep School in Pennsylvania, where he 's just been given the ax for failing all his classes except English. As it turns out, getting the ax is a frequent theme in Holden 's past. Before he leaves the school Holden runs to his favorite teacher’s house to say goodbye to him. Back in the dorm, Holden goofs around with Robert Ackley, a pimply and annoying kid. We 're introduced to Holden 's red hunting hat, and we meet his roommate, Stradlater, who is getting ready for a date with Jane Gallagher, an old friend and sort-of romantic interest of Holden 's. Holden is not happy about this impending date, but agrees anyway to write an English composition for Stradlater.

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Holden originally attended Pencey Prep but could never connect with the people around him. He is always criticizing or fighting with others, which lead him to leave Pencey without telling anyone. Holden heads to NYC where he faces many challenges with others and himself, emotionally and physically. Holden finds himself in his hotel room with a prostitute and feels extremely uncomfortable with what he is doing so he pays her and sends her off. The next day he plans a date with Sally Hayes, an old girlfriend, to see a play where he calls her “a pain in the ass” and laughs.

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In the beginning of the book soon after being told he couldn’t return the following semester he decides to simply leave the school and wander around New York City. In New York, Holden continues to get himself into trouble. For example, he hired a prostitute and did not give her the correct amount of money resulting in her pimp beating him up. At the end of the novel, he made a plan to run away again. Although, this time he decided he would go to a far away place and live on his own in the middle of nowhere.

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During his short time in Manhattan, just the thought of his yellowness and his gloves being stolen at Pencey Prep depresses him to the point where he decides to have more alcoholic drinks after a night in the town. After a night in which Holden didn’t socialize the way he wanted to, he feels so depressed that he wished he died. These instances are important, because it shows that his feelings are unreasonable, and as a result, his depression affects his rational

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It is as if he has no friends on facebook, showing an empty screen. When looking at empty screens we see nothing but ourselves, which shines the light on Holden’s self-isolation. A literary criticism article written upon the topic of Holden’s isolation agrees with the claim, Holden self-isolates. The article states,“The fleeting nature of his interactions is responsible for much of his loneliness,” continuing to add that it is “self imposed” (blooms literature 1). Holden’s state of mind is complex,

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For years, Holden had been placed in numerous expensive boarding schools, which all ended in the same way—getting expelled. Because Holden’s parents don’t recognize Holden’s clear difficulties with boarding schools, Holden essentially gives up trying as he is so consumed with grief that could have been better dealt with if his parents gave him the proper guidance to do so. Holden’s parents repeatedly sent Holden to boarding schools that always ended in him getting kicked out, and Holden’s father, who is described as “quite wealthy,” gives Holden many resources, such as money, that in his perspective, sets him up for success (140). However, at these luxurious boarding schools, Holden’s father sends him to surround him in an environment full of “phonies” and loneliness (MLA). At Pencey, according to Holden, “All I did was, I got up and went over and looked out the window.

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The beginning of Holden’s journey starts with the innocence and naivety of childhood. Childhood is the stage that ignorance is bliss with no care in the world. Holden goes to a prestigious boarding school for boys and he believes that everyone in that school is a phony in some way. Holden is an observant character as he stays in the background, but he can also cause the most trouble. Like a child, he asks many questions and he is very curious to the point that he can be annoying.

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After arriving, Holden “went into [a] phone booth” and spent “about twenty minutes” without calling anybody (77-78). After pondering the many people he could call, Holden finally thinks of calling “Carl Luce, but [he] didn’t like him much” (78). While Holden has many people whom he could call, he spends twenty minutes convincing himself of why he cannot call any of these people. This illustrates alienation as Holden chooses to avoid talking to others, isolating himself when he could have easily chosen to interact with others. Moreover, this alienation provides Holden with self-protection as he does not run into any chances of his parents finding out that he has been expelled from school and has run away to New York.

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The only motivator that Holden has to continue living is his younger sister, Phoebe, who is extraordinarily intelligent for her age. After he gets kicked out of Pencey, Holden is lost in life. He speaks to many people, seeking advice and comfort, but they are not able to help him find a human connection. Holden’s depression increases throughout the novel, almost to the point of suicide. He criticizes many people and ideas, labeling them as ‘phony’.

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Furthermore, Holden starts to hate all the adults or loses faith in them, calls them phony. Holden has a second thought of becoming an adult he loses hope in his future and it seems to him nothing in the world matters to him anymore. We can see that throughout the book. He smokes, gets drunk, and does daring acts like getting a prostitute in his room. He also tries to escape all this guilt and grief by wasting time with unnecessary people he calls phony.

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