I think people are really bad at commenting - please get better!
1) Comment on Holden´s behavior in the Lavender room - here you should contrast how the girls act and how Holden describes them.
2) Why do people in general use irony or kid with people? Comment on Holden´s use of irony.
3) Comment on the following passage: "I always get those vomit kind of cabs if I go anywhere late at night ( ... ) New York´s terrible when somebody laughs on the street very late at night. You can hear it for miles. It makes you feel so lonesome and depressed. I kept wishing I could go home and shoot the bull for a while with old Phoebe." (Beginning of chapter 12)
4) Why does Holden wonder where the ducks go in the winter? Perhaps difficult to answer, but keep it in mind at least.
5) Why do you think that Holden keeps calling people 'old' as in old Phoebe, old Jane, old Marty, old Lillian, old bag, old Childs, old Sunny etc.?
6) Comment on Holden´s encounter with the prostitute and Maurice.
- if you find any great quotes you would like to discuss please go ahead and do so.
1) I believe Holden is acting very cool and mature in the Lavender room. He is placed next to three girls, who he describes as pretty ugly and clumsy. After ordering a coke, he starts giving “the three witches” (as he calls them) the eye, but really it is only the blonde he is interested in. The girls start giggling like teenage girls which is very childish considered they are thirty or so. Instead of being embarrassed he leans over to their table and offers them a dance. He is very confident and playing it cool! While dancing with Bernice he tries to have a conversation with her but all she cares about is celebrities. She is not listening to Holden or paying any attention to his compliments. She seems very rude and unwise by the way she just answers ‘what’ or uses very short sentences.
ReplyDelete2) While Holden is dancing with Bernice he is making a joke by saying what a good conversationalist she is, but really he thinks she is just the opposite. It is a way of telling her indirectly how bad she is without upsetting her. I believe people sometimes use irony as a tool to tell things they do not dare to say otherwise.
1. In the Lavender room Holden tries to act cool and mature. He is sitting next to three girls, who he describes as pretty and ugly. He tries to get in contact with them, but it is really only the blond one (the pretty one) he is interested in. The girls are giggeling at him. I think they find it funny that a young guy like Holden is trying to come on to them. Later on Holden dances with Bernice (the blonde one) and tries to have a conversation with her, but she is not listening to anything that he has to say. She just answers "What" everytime. In the end the girls starts aksing Holden if his father has a date tonight, just to let him know that they think that he is way to young for them.
ReplyDelete2. I would say the same as Gitte. We use Ironi to say or do something we wouldn't dare to say otherwise. Holden is using it to make fun of the girls. He is telling them something, but think something else.
3. I think Holden IS very lonesome and depressed out there on his own. He misses his family and especially his little sister.
ReplyDelete4. Hmmm...
5. Some kind of slang expression maybe?
6. When he meets Maurice he wants to act cool and show him that he is a real man. He lies to him about his age, and says that he would like to have a prostitute send up to his room, evendo he doesn't really want to. When the prostitute shows up in his his room, he gets very nervous because he is actually still a virgin. He just wants to talk to her, but she just wants to get it over with. So he ends up paying her for nothing.
I think that he feels very alone and maybe he had hoped that the prostitute could have giving him some company in some way.
Holden tries to act mature and wants to impress the women, but they are not really interested and probably only dance with him to do him a favour. While dancing with the blonde he tries to strike up a conversation with her the whole time but she is not paying attention at all.
ReplyDeleteIrony can be used to cover up what you really mean and or feel. I think Holden uses a lot of irony to protect himself.
I think the ducks could be a symbol of Holden's own life. He wants to know where the ducks go when it gets cold and the lake is frozen. It can be compared to his situation, he is really wondering what will happen when he goes home. He is afraid to go home and face the music.
'old' ... hard to explain, but I think he is using it to show familiarity. He wants to show that he is friends (buddy buddy) with everyone. But is he really??
The encounter with Maurice and Sunny shows how immature he is and that he is once again incapable of following through his decisions. He agrees to have a prostitute sent up to his room, but push comes to shove, he just wants to talk with her.
He is quite persistent not to give them the five bucks though but eventually has to give it up and starts crying. But then he starts fantasising about how he would take care of Maurice.
I think you are all right about the irony- we use it to distance ourselves, and Holden use it to protect himself, but why?
ReplyDelete@Maria, so do you think the settings is a symbol of Holden´s state of mind? Could it be a symbol of something else perhaps?
@Luina - Could you be more specific with 'old' because in that case what is then the point of using it?
Also do you not think that Holden seems more honest now?
Holden is in a state of mind, where he all the time gets more and more depressed, and you have the feeling that it is only a matter of time before he collapses. This is why he wants to get in touch with people, both people he knows and strangers. He does not like to be alone. His state of mind is affecting the way he perceives his surroundings. Thus, the cap smells like vomit and a laugh in the street at night has a terrible sound to it.
ReplyDeleteHolden is desperate to feel connected to people he knows and people he loves, e.g. his little sister. Hence, he uses the term “old” all the time because you can use this term to express affection or familiarity when you are talking to or about someone you know.
The incidence with the prostitute very clearly shows that he hungers for contact with other human beings at any price. He feels rootless and he is obviously very afraid of being an outsider, but on the other hand he is very ironic about other people and he often talks very bad about other people - maybe because he hates himself for being so dependent of them.
Holden wants to know where the ducks go in the winter because the winter makes them homeless. The ducks are forced to leave their “home”, and he feels like them homeless and rootless. He is emotionally in a no-man’s land and this makes him desperate. He wants a solution to this problem, and this is why he is so concerned about the ducks.
Martin
I have skipped the 1st, 2nd and 5th, because i think they are covered by the others.
ReplyDelete3. I think that he is sad that he is all alone, and he misses his little sister very much.
4. I think the ducks is a methaphor for himself. The ducks should be in the lake in the park, people expect them to be there. Everybody expects Holden to be in school, and he does not know where he is supposed to go next? Just like the ducks, where are they going when they aren't where you expects them to be?
5. I think he uses the term "old", for the people he knows from his past.
I think he is opening up to the reader/diary/phycologist, and is trusting the person more and more, so he is more honest now, and not afraid to be vounerable.
I agree with alot of the points here and can't really add much. I would like to say that he uses irony as a sheild and it seems to be a pattern that continues throughout the book. He is lonely and has the need for familiarity. He is all mouth but as Luina says he hasn't got the nerve to carry out things, or he actually does stuff to seem cool but doesn't really think about it, which highlights another trait of his - rashness!!!!
ReplyDelete@Julie- and how does Holden feel about people expecting things from him?
ReplyDelete@Martin- good comparison with the ducks and being homeless. Could we elaborate on that? Does anyone care about the ducks? Directed to Dave´s comment, what is the absolute worst thing you could imagine happening to you?