In chapter 20 Holden is at Santon hotel bar and has finished meeting and talking with Luce. Holden is very drunk in the beginning of the chapter and simply has no idea what to do. Suddenly he gets the idea to call up sally. He then proceeds to have one of the worst conversations in the book making a total fool of himself. Holden just keeps yelling at Sally that he wants to go over and help her trim her Christmas tree Christmas eve. Sally knows Holden is drunk and tells him to go home and go to bed. Finlay she ends up hanging up on Holden. Holden goes to the bathroom to wash up when he talks to the piano player who also tells Holden to go home and get some rest. Holden gets his coat and hat and decides to head to the park to see the if the ducks are there. On the way he breaks the record he bought for phoebe. Holden gets to the park and looks around for the ducks at the pond. Soon however, he gets extremely cold and starts to think what would happen if he got pneumonia and died. Then he talks about all his relatives having to go to his funeral and how much he would hate it if they came. The one sentence that seems odd to me was "I felt sorry as hell for my mother and father". This setence stood out to me because it is one of the only times he has said a nice thing about his parents. The Holden goes on to tell us about how he hates cemeteries and about allies grave. Holden tells us how his parents put flowers on Allie's grave and that he hates when it rains when they visit Allie's grave. Holden says "It was awful. It rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach. It rained all over the place". Finnaly Holden gets the idea to go and see Phoebe and leaves the park going to his house.
Why do you think Holden would call up sally that night for such a wierd reason? Why wouldn't he call Jane? Why do you think Holden would fell sorry for his parents if he died? Also what do think is so bad about the rain on Allie's grave
Throughout The Catcher in the Rye Holden has moments he thinks about calling Jane, but decides against it because he claims he doesn’t feel like it. I think the real reason is that he is scared what she will think of him. In chapter 20 he uses the excuse that he is “too drunk” to call her, but apparently still sober enough to call Sally. This shows how much more Holden cares of Jane’s opinion of him than any other girls. I think Holden would feel sorry for his parents if he died because he knows how hard it was for his family when Allie died, and he doesn’t want them to go through that again. I think the rain on Allie’s grave bothers Holden so much because he idolizes Allie so much that he believes he deserves nothing less eternal days of good weather.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 20 on page 150, Holden says "I wasn't much in the mood anymore to give old Jane a buzz. I was too drunk, I guess. So what I did, I gave old Sally Hayes a buzz." This quote right here shows that he called Sally, because he knew how drunk he was and he really didn't want to make a fool of himself in front of Jane. So he calls Sally, hoping that calling her would make him feel better, but as soon has he hung up, he "wished he hadn't even phoned her." I think he just called Sally, because he was drunk and needed to blow off some steam. I think Holden would feel sorry for his parents because he doesn't want to destroy their lives by dying. He knows they're still sad from losing Allie, and he doesn't want to make the pain worse. I mean, he doesn't want to be the reason for their pain. He doesn't like the rain, because when everyone else gets to go inside, Allie has to stay outside and get rained on. I think it symbolizes loneliness for Holden. He hates leaving Allie alone in the depressing rain all by himself while everyone else gets to leave.
ReplyDeleteThinking of Allie's small corpse, with a mop of red hair, laying in a cold wooden box, under some wet dirt with only some flowers now and then, surrounded by other unknown bodies, must be a draining thought. On top of that, he has to watch people scatter, the moment it starts to rain, running to their warm, comfy cars that will take them somewhere safe and dry, but he can't take his little brother with him, because he's buried under the cold wet dirt. The emotional strain Holden goes through just thinking about the graveyard quickly explains his willingness to let alcohol wash the pain away, almost as if he wishes he could go right then and spray away all the dirt, open the coffin, and pull out Allie alive. Only after that does he wonder if his parents would feel the same way he does if that were him in the ground. "Feeling sorry" doesn't even cover the grief of loving parents, but teenagers have difficulty expressing our emotions the way we truly feel the. Hyperbole and understatement are the tools of the trade for us. Calling up Jane would be a terrible idea when he was that drunk, and Holden knows it, but he's still lonely, so calling Sally becomes his only option at the time.
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