Philosophy of Education (Phil 115)

I very much like the relationship between Holden and Phoebe.  The fact that Holden seems to prefer children to adults really makes sense on my idea of Holden.  He is an idealist, unable to cope with reality, and believes growing up attributes to fake-ness.  I also like how Phoebe is more mature than Holden, even though Holden is older and has more experience.  It is an tribute to how Holden is unable to cope with the harrows of real life, to be so concerned with medial things to actually realize that he has joys in life and that if he were to disassociate from his screwed up view of how unfair the world is because most people are not very vulnerable.  I think that if Phoebe were in Holden’s position, she would be stronger than Holden in dealing with those situations.

Also, I love the meaning of “The Catcher in the Rye”.  I think that Holden wishes to be the catcher because he does not have the stones to try not be in the rye.  I think Holden wants an excuse to stay in his slump/breakdown instead of trying to put in effort to get out of it.  But, when Phoebe corrects him on the lyrics, you can see that the correction Holden needs to make in his life is that he needs to form relationships with people by being somebody who is not an all or nothing “phony” or “real” person.  That, having flaws is justified and that developing while in a state of mind where you are OK with your faults is much better than trying to hide because you can’t cope with yourself.

In the final chapter of Catcher in the Rye, Holden’s apprehension about his future and dealing with other people becomes very apparent.  His interactions with other people he’s met over the course of the book have soured him so much that he considers moving out west so he never has to deal with people ever again.

It seems like rather than confront the problems he has, Holden escapes or ignores them.  Maybe the fear of what the future will be like is such a scary though to him that he’s unable to deal with it effectively due to the anxiety he feels about it.  It’s strange that moving hundreds of miles away from his family being his only course of action ( or so he thought) doesn’t scare him more.

Maybe the thought of escaping west doesn’t seem so crazy to him because he feels like he has no one to talk to or call his friend.  Phoebe is able to get him to reconsider his plan, which shows that she’s one of the few people in his life that are important to him.  It’s clear that Holden hates to upset the people he truly cares about.    I think it’s possible that Holden had a hunch that dealing with Phoebe directly would have gotten him to change his mind, which is why he left her a note instead.  Leaving a note means that he wouldn’t have had to see Phoebe upset, so he could have focused on his plans for the future without feeling bad.  It’s also possible he never would have gone through with it even if Phoebe hadn’t interfered, since he mentions missing all the people he’s dealt with.

I’ve been waiting to meet Pheobe for a while now, and to be honest she is exactly what I pictured her as. A ten year old wiz. I feel like I have a certain spot in my heart for Pheobe just as holden does, the way she acts is so mature and unlike a ten year old I can finally see exactly why Holden has this special love for her. I can certainly tell that Pheobe does not over analyze her family situation but in no way leaves it to be just the way it is. I can see she has an absolutely perfect balance with her conception of holden, and reality. Reality says that Holden is everything we’ve been discussing in class, which I doubt she isn’t completely unaware of, and the way she sees him as her older brother. I can’t tell if she is on a level to be able to analyze her brother in an orderly fashion so that she’d be able to refrain from pushing certain buttons, or that her mind goes completely out the door when holden is actually in front of her face. I don’t doubt that she is able to comprehend a slight amount of the actual situation with holden, but I question whether she is able to keep those thoughts while he is in-front of her, it must be overwhelming for a ten year old, but with what we’ve read about Pheobe before we were introduced to her, I wouldn’t be surprised.

I still haven’t wrapped my hands around my opinion of holden, his actions character a psycho but something tells me that he has somewhat of a good reason to act the way he does. With his family neglecting him in these type of circumstances I certainly don’t blame him for his actions, but I wonder whether as a kid with his background, with such an intelligent gene pool, should we expect holden to see the light?

So in the beginning of this section, Holden goes back to his apartment to see Phoebe. Luckily there was a new elevator man so his parents wouldn’t know he left school early. He wakes up Phoebe and later in the dialogue, Holden states he wants to save kids from falling off the cliff like in the song “Comin Thro the Rye” despite getting the lyrics wrong which Phoebe corrects him on.  I think Holden admires Phoebe not only because she listens and cares for him, but he also admires her innocence as a kid.

Upon his parents arrival, I was so nervous for Holden, especially since he was smoking a cigarette. I thought it was hilarious when Phoebe took the wrap for him. I was almost certain that his parents would catch him but they didn’t.

In Chapter 24, Holden reaches Mr. Antolini’s house. I couldn’t believe that his wife could be 60 years older than he was, considering Holden tends to exaggerate some but based on the description she was significantly older. I also got sort of a bad vibe from Mr. Antolini. He seemed like a cool guy at first but some of his mannerisms and his dialogue like calling Holden “handsome” just had me nervous for Holden. Having said that, I refuted this assuming that Mr. Antolini was probably only concerned for Holden given the situation. It’s a shame if Mr. Antolini was indeed only looking out for Holden, because this is one of the few people who are willing to listen to Holden and are only trying to help. Sometimes Holden can just be overly critical.

In the next chapter Holden reunites with Phoebe. I noticed that Holden’s health was seeming to decline throughout the novel. Earlier he felt as if he were getting pneumonia and now he is feeling weak and keeps fainting. Also in Ch. 25 it seems as if Holden is beginning to reach some development after dismissing his ideas to move out West and bring Phoebe with. The ending scene of the flashback is quite a significant moment where Phoebe places Holden’s red hunting cap on his head and he is overjoyed when he sees her ridding the carousel , and he realizes that he is making a real connection with someone and perhaps more importantly the process of innocence and happiness occurs cyclically and doesn’t just decline as life goes on.

You can really see the similarities in Mr. Antolini and Holden as they encompass the “catcher in the rye”. Holden wishes to protect children from the depths and phoniness of adulthood and watch over them in their childhood, whereas Mr. Antolini wishes to make sure Holden doesn’t self-destruct as Holden tries to sustain his very simplified view of the world and childhood vs adulthood. From such similarities and given Holden’s character, I can see how Holden would overreact to Mr. Antolini stroking his hair in the middle of the night, and how severe such an event would be to Holden. Holden had trusted Mr. Antolini to have the same views as Holden to an extent (note that Holden refers to him as MR. Antolini, which is a first), but Mr. Antolini’s actions do not mesh well with Holden’s homophobic personality and his missed perception on such ideas.

Holden really starts crumbling in our last section of our reading. After his conversations with Phoebe and Mr. Antolini, Holden really struggles with coming to terms of his growing up. He is so disconnected with reality that he begins to call out to Allie and believes he will disappear. I think that Holden’s decision to run away from home comes from the fact that he realizes that his view of the world isn’t compatible with the world around him.

My last topic of this blogging for this class will be regarding Holden’s last words: “Don’t tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody”. The words “missing everybody” seems out of character for Holden. Perhaps at this point in the book, when Holden’s in therapy and recovering, his hard shell of childish cynicism has been broken through. Of course, we will never know how his therapy goes, but at least he’s starting to leave the field of rye. Maybe.

I think that Holden has this fantasy about being a “deaf mute” who lives out West just living off a “goddamn” salary where people have to “shove” him notes is because he is so totally afraid of loss. If he rids himself from all attachments to people, he will not have to deal with the loss of the attachment, like he did with Allie. He says in the last few sentences, “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody” (214). The cynical view of the world that Holden is stricken by has shaped his mental facilitates to run into one giant, negative if-then statement: if you meet someone and like them, then they will inevitably leave you with grief. The only time he is happy is when he sees his sister in a loop, going around the ride at the museum. He knows that as long as she stays put on that ride, she won’t grow up, and she won’t leave him. He isn’t so much afraid of change as he is afraid of being lonely, and missing everybody.

In the last few chapters of The Catcher in the Rye, most all of our suspicions are confirmed. For instance, when Phoebe accuses Holden of not like anything, and Holden replies that he likes Allie. Even Phoebe recognizes that this is not a healthy response. Holden is just so stuck in the pain of his childhood lose. Then, in the same conversation, Holden reveals that if he could hold any job in the world it would be to have the job of standing at the edge of the cliff at the edge of the rye field where children play and catch, or save anyone that gets too close to the edge. This is again not a very stable thing for a sixteen year old boy to say, given that the rye field he is referring to is from a song, but it along with his severe hate towards whoever wrote “fuck you” on the walls of Phoebe’s school confirms his deep concern for others and his high regard for the innocence of children that we discussed in class on Tuesday.

When Holden goes to visit one of his old teachers, his teacher sort of predicts the future. He warns Holden that he thinks he is in for a very big fall, which is seen when at the very end, Holden is writing to the reader from a mental hospital.

At first I was pretty disappointed with the ending of this book but the more I think about it the more I think that maybe this is the only way for such a story to end. A “to be continued” sort of thing for the reader to figure out. Holden clearly had some confusions and misinterpretations throughout the book, form talking to his dead brother while crossing the street, to the many character analysis he made of those around him, to thinking on multiple occasions that he was going to die, and perhaps the mental hospital could be seen as a fresh start for Holden.

Do you remember when Holden talks to his History teacher? He says that when you think about old Spencer too much, you wonder what the heck he was still living for. I think this is essentially Holden’s biggest problem. He thinks about people too much and he can only see the negative side of them. He pity’s nearly everyone he meets because he thinks life is hopeless and he even feels sorry for them. Another example of this is how he was enjoying sightseeing all the women that were waiting for their dates at the train station, until he starts to think about them too much. He thinks about the phonies and dopes that they might be marrying, and essentially how they will all go on to lead very unhappy lives. Holden is miserable because he can’t help but empathize with every person he meets, and he can only see everything in a pessimistic light. As Luce suggested, I think that psychoanalysis might be good for Holden, he might recognize his pity for everyone as one of his “patterns of his mind.” I think Holden wanted to escape to Vermont with Sally Hayes and build log cabins and whatnot because he wanted to escape the misery of the world as he sees it, which is another reason why New York might be a bad place for him. There are simply too many people for him to ‘imagine’ how horrible their lives are.

In these chapters we get some additional insight into Holden’s character flaws. For example, in chapter 15, when he talks with the nuns over breakfast, he states that the the thing he hates about Catholics is they are always trying to convert or push their religion onto others, but that he doesn’t blame them because he would probably be the same way. This shows that Holden is very hippocratic.

On page 117 we figure out what it is about movies that Holden dislikes so much which is because the whole time he is seeing one he is distracted by the thought of wether the actors are being phony or not.

Also, I found it interesting that Holden seems to generally like only children. For example his sister, the little boy singing about people catching each other in the rye, and the little girl in the park with the ice skates. This furthermore illustrates his distrust of adults.

When I read The Catcher in the Rye my sophomore year of high school, I couldn’t believe that this book was required reading for many high schools. I remember thinking, “What could this story add to my life?” Holden Caulfield was the most negative, unlikeable, and unmotivated character I had ever encountered in a story. When I read a book, I like to be inspired or learn a lesson. This book gave me little to think deeply about and I found it frustrating that I couldn’t even trust the narrator to tell the true story.

Reading it again now, I am having a slightly different experience. Although I still dislike Holden as a character, I notice that my critical reading skills have developed since now I can pick out things in the story that might not be completely true. In high school, I took the story for what it was, but now I analyze each scenario and try to disect Holden’s perception and figure out the reality. I think the reason this book is highly esteemed is because it is a story about perception, not truth. You as the reader need to judge Holden and the situations he encounters for yourself. Therefore, there are many different perceptions of the book itself because people interpret Holden’s perceptions in different ways. Some may like him or find him charming, and some are like me. One thing I still struggle with is the overall point of this book. What was the author trying to communicate through this story? It seems like Holden just wanders aimlessly throughout the book and the classic plot structure is not used by the author. There are so many questions I would like to ask J.D. Salinger about this book. Maybe that was his point, to bring about questions and allow the reader to form their own interpretations.

As we get into the later chapters of the novel, we start to see a exactly what emotional state Holden is really in. In chapters 15 and 16, we see the usual Holden as he makes a date with an old friend Sally, comes in contact with two nuns whom he befriends, and rambles on about phonies once again and their cheap suitcases, and then goes on to talk about his hatred for movies and the phony actors who play in them. However, for a brief moment in chapter 16 we see a glimpse of Holden’s appreciative side when he sees a church going family and a little boy singing a song, and he finds this innocent and pure. After this moment we start seeing more uncontrollable fluctuation of his emotions and throughout the next chapters his fragile mental side seems to show more frequently. This especially becomes prevalent in chapter 17.

In chapter 17, Holden goes on his date with Sally. The date at first seems innocent as they see a theatre show, and then go ice skating while Holden admires her and complains about his sore ankles. However, when they both sit down, their conversation becomes rather heated. Holden is complaining about all the phonies from his school (in a much more fiery way) and how he feels rejected and almost alienated, and he then suggests that he and Sally run away together to a “cabin in the woods.” Sally obviously claims that the notion is ridiculous and insults him. Holden then becomes angry with her and starts yelling without being aware of it, calls her a pain in the ass, and finally making her cry. He tries to turn the situation around, but it is too late and he leaves her at the ice rink.

This chapter really starts to show how emotionally unstable Holden is, and how detached from reality he is, which leads him on an aimless journey to a drug store, and then to a bar where he meets his old friend Luce, from Whooton. After trying to talk about sexual things with Luce, Holden finds himself alone once again when his friend becomes so annoyed with him that he leaves the bar. At this point, Holden has been “alienated” by two of his friends within hours of each other, and this is what arguably leads him to become drunk and wonder to the pond where he first inquired about the ducks. These chapters seem to highlight Holden’s complete solitude from his friends and even life. Holden Caulfield seems to be on a downward spiral towards emotional breakdown.

I am pretty sure that if I had not received as much positive reinforcement in high school that I did that I would be very much like Holden.  My personal philosophies on not liking “phonies” and trying to connect with people on a “real” level is very similar to him, and, when I look at other people and I am in a bad mood, I actually hate them because I think it is safe to say that most people are fake most of the time.  And, if I am in a sour mood I would be unwilling to fuel in my own energy to a social interaction because it simply isn’t there and by trying hard to do so or keep the mood light, I would essentially be acting “fake”.  I believe Holden’s problems are that he does not have the reinforcement from others that what he is doing is good (he is actually being expelled making it seem that he is worse than his peers), therefore causing him to not be energetic enough and too pissed off to be “real” and liked at the same time because he is so pissed off.  This just causes a spiral into depression in Holden which is, I believe, very and too common in the high school setting.  While he is real, he is actually pissed therefore creating a pissy mood.  Or, he can act happy, fueling a bit of positive energy with others but being a “phony” himself which, due to his idealistic philosophies is the number one thing he will never do.

Holden bottles up his emotions, and this is an important theme in the chapters of the book we’ve read so far. Once the author has started mentioning the tragedies holden has gone through, I began to humanize holden. What I mean by Humanize is do my best to put myself in his shoes, and it did help me paint the closest possible picture to what I can imagine his life is like. I have a brother just like he did, although I am the younger brother, from just knowing my brother I can imagine him almost developing the same characteristics holden has if something that tragic has happened to me. Once I started seeing holden as a victim of personal tragedies, that started to have an effect on my judgement of holden in almost every situation the author writes about. For example, when holden fights his roommate, a normal view could explain the situation as just boys being boys, but when you put holden into the equation, it begins to be a matter of holden being holden. Any two guys can fight over a female, but when holden attacks stradlater, it is an obvious expression of a deeper anger.

One thing I’d like to comment on is holden’s comical personality. One thing that had me cracking up was when he said, ” I was the goddamn manager of the fencing team”. Him being a part of the fencing team is hilarious, although another expression of holden being holden. Usually, a teenager takes joy or interest in watching sports or participating in them in some way, but not holden. I feel as if he just does things, either just to do them, or to accomplish something in the most half-ast way possible. He left the equipment on the train and thought it was funny, in a way. I think this is important to remember because as the book goes on i think this attitude he holds which has been directly exemplified in this situation, will slowly change its course, and I think its important we don’t forget about this particular situation as we keep reading.

Holden exemplifies an interesting human phenomenon: he is concerned with people caring about his image or how he looks after he has already died. If we take a moment to really think deeply on this topic, we would come to the conclusion that if you decide to kill yourself, then you would find it completely inconsequential what other people think of you because you are dead. You wouldn’t know what they think of you, and it wouldn’t matter because the message of suicide is that there is nothing worth living for. For some reason, though, Holden can’t seem to look past what others think of him. This plays into his schooling, too. He is too afraid to ask for help in school when he clearly needs it–he takes a more apathetic view to his school career to cope with this. I think that many of us are Holden who refuse to reach out for help in school, either because we don’t know how or because we are too afraid to ask for the help. How many times have any of you neglected to raise your hand when you needed help out of fear of being judged? Then what do you do–you blame the teacher for sucking and move on with your life. I think that this is a real issue in education.

At this point in the book, the reader gets a very good idea of how Holden see other people.  If there’s one thing that Holden seems to despise it’s the sense of people acting “phony” as he puts it.  It definitely seems like the only people that Holden views in a very positive light are his brother D.B. , his sister Phoebe, and Jane.  Even as he’s spending time with people, he’s judging them in the back of his mind.  For instance, while he was spending time with the women in the club, all he could think about was how dumb and bland they were.

When he sits down at a table at Ernie’s, he spends his time remarking on the conversation he’s listening to.  For as much as Holden derides the people around him, he seems to have a genuine interest in letting the reader know about his opinion on them.  If he was completely apathetic about these people, one would think he wouldn’t even waste his time listening to them or describing them.  Perhaps Holden doesn’t necessarily hate being around people, it’s just that his cynical nature prevents him from forming any kind of close relationship with them.

I can recall in the initial chapters of the novel Holden, highlighted on the thievery at Pencey, despite most of the boys being very preppy and charming. Holden had also mentioned his brother, Allie, who had passed away at an early age of leukemia a few years back. While in the outfield Allie would write poems in green ink on his glove. It seems that the premature death of his little brother has affected Holden by demotivating his academics.

The glove was very sacred for Holden, and the only person he ever showed it to was Jane. The glove seems to symbolize Holden’s true feelings and his introverted personality. In chapter 13, Holden is so upset with the person who he believed stole the gloves. I think the bottling of his emotions, leads Holden to make some irrational decisions, like hiring the prostitute when he is frustrated. He also has a lot of trouble dealing with people such as Maurice or Stradlater. Holden doesn’t say what he is truly feeling and he just throws out insults and ends up getting hurt.

I read the catcher in the rye sophomore year of high school and I really didn’t like it at all. Looking back, I can’t remember if I didn’t like the book based on its merits, or if my hatred of my English teacher got in the way of me liking anything we had to read, but I am definitely enjoying the book much more the second time around. J.D. Salinger won me over last week with one word, “ironical”. I really like his writing style and Holden as a character in general. Through chapters 8 to 14 you start to see how Holden is really losing his marbles, or that they were already lost. Not only does he lie to random strangers who he actually thinks are nice on trains, but I think he is lying to us as readers too, whether or not he realizes it. We now know that he has been to the movies much more than even a handful of times, yet he “can’t stand the movies”. He will tell the reader, “you wouldn’t believe me even if I told you”, and then he proceeds to tell us whatever we won’t or probably shouldn’t believe. He actually starts out the book in this manner. He says that he “doesn’t really feel like going into it”, and then he spends 214 pages getting into it. Even though Holden is a complete wack job, I actually like him. I think he sees life as a game, which is pretty ironical considering he was given a lecture with this as the theme from an authority at Pencey Prep. Although I think Holden sees the game a bit differently, one where he doesn’t see the value in winning, and therefore chooses not to play, at least not by the rules.

In chapters 8-14 of The Catcher in the Rye, you start to feel sorry for cynical Holden. He says quite often that he is “depressed” and that simple things make him sad, like receiving presents or “when some girl in an awful looking hat comes to all the way to New York from Seattle Washington to wake up early and see the first Radio City Music  Hall show.” You can also see by this point that Holden is a perpetual liar. He knows he is lying and continues to do so anyway, usually with little to know regret. This could maybe explain his inability to stay in one place for very long. I also find it interesting that Holden seems much older then his actually age, buying drinks and offering to buy older women drinks as well as dancing with them, but he refers to his younger sister as “the only with any sense” and only wishes to talk to her. He also states a couple times that he is the only dumb one in his family. To me, he doesn’t seem dumb at all, just conflicted. But perhaps this lack of confidence gets in the way of his educational success also.

The beginning chapters of the Catcher in the Rye, main character Holden Caulfield talks about when he was sixteen years old and was attending a prep school called Pencey. Pencey is known for “molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men (page 8).” Caulfield however, gives his account and according to him the school is no greater than any other school, and he himself is failing every one of his classes besides english (four out of five classes). He then talks about his living quarters at Ossenburger Hall and some of the students whom he liked or disliked at the time, one of which being Robert Ackley, a senior who got on his nerves. He then proceeds to talk about some of the excursions he had with some friends at Pencey. This is where the story in the first few chapters is interesting. Most of what Holden is describing is in some way, shape or form a sort of goodbye to the school. He seems to be somewhat saddened, but the odd thing is is that he seems rather unaffected by it, as if he has no care about whether he graduates or not. He seems to have no desire to use education to his advantage.

Catcher in the Rye is an odd book in that it is the first novel of all of our readings. At first, on the surface it does not seem that the book relates to all of the other readings we have had over the semester. However, when I thought about it, Holden Caulfield actually in a way represents the dilemma that these great educational philosophers try to address. Many of the philosophers, such as Dewey and Neill, believe that one of the most important aspects for education is for the student to be happy. Caulfield represents the student who is unhappy, and how an unhappy student is effected by the situation they are in. I believe that reading Catcher in the Rye is the perfect closing book for the semester because all along we have talked about the theories of why students are educated well or poorly, and with the character in the novel, we can see firsthand how an ineffective school or unhappy student can effect their education.

Catcher in the Rye makes sure we understand Holden as a cynical boy. His narration is mostly very negative, yet I think his cynicism is not unjustified. The book begins with a brief recollection of his past and “all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but [he doesn’t] feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth” (Salinger 1).* There is clearly some event in the past that he does not want to dig up again. His younger brother’s death (Allie) traumatized him quite significantly. Holden’s breakdown at the time of his brother’s death, described in pages 38-39, is indicative of the shock. I believe Holden’s cynical personality is a result of his attempt to protect something from the harsh present.

As a reader looking into Holden’s life, I believe his character (i.e. personality) will lead Holden to some downward spiral. Until now Holden must have gotten by with his cynicism, but something must be happening internally that is crumbling his cynical infrastructure.

*David Copperfield, a novel, is a Dickens novel tracking from childhood to adulthood. The reference merely a reinforcement of the fact that Holden does not want to delve into his past.