Chapter 19 Holden in the Bar.
In chapter 19 In The
Catcher in the Rye Holden visits a bar he used to go to, so he can meet up
with a old high school friend. He does
his usual deep background story, about the location and a short summary about
Luce, the guy he is going to meet. Before
Luce arrives he drinks his scotch and soda alone at the bar staring at other
people for quite a while. When Luce finally
arrives at the bar Holden tries to talk to him about things like his sex life
and his past girlfriends and current girlfriend, which Luce does not want to
talk about. Then Holden tries to ask for
advice and he gets cut off. Luce then
recommends that he talks to his father because he is a psychoanalyst. Luce thinks that he is going to go off on a
crazy rant about something and he tells him to calm down. Holden is very obsessed with Luce’s
girlfriend and wants to know her age, her religion, her nationality and her
job. I can tell that Luce is very
annoyed with this. Why do you think that
Luce shuts down Holden, when he is asking for help? Do you think that they had gone through this
before at one of Holden’s older schools?
I believe that Luce, being the intelligent snob he is, easily becomes annoyed by people that he believes are less intelligent than himself. When Holden and Luce were peers at school, Luce must have known Holden well enough to think that he was smarter than him. This lead to Luce shutting out Holden from really getting anywhere because Luce would disregard anything Holden said as being something stupid, even if it wasn't. This would probably be a recurring issue for Holden because of his previous struggles in school and that he gives off a dull and uninspired outlook because of his lack of interest in school.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion I think Luce shut down Holden for two reasons. First he did it because he just did not want to talk about it. He had not seen Holden in a long time and it did not seem like they knew eachother very well. Luce may not have been ok with talking about Holden's problems. Seecond it did not seem like Luce was that understanding or sensitive of a person.He had already shut down Holden when they were talking about sex and said "I hope this isn't a typical Holden Caulfield conversation". Lastly I do not think Holden would have opened up to anybody especially at school.
ReplyDeleteI think Luce shut down Holden because he was very annoyed with what Holden was saying and obviously he did not want to talk to Holden about his personal life about sex and girlfriends and etc. I think Luce knew Holden would go off on a crazy rant, which was probably the reason why he did not want to go through this again. I think he knew Holden would start asking all these questions and knew he was curious about these issues, but he just didn't want to talk about, which is understandable.
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