The Catcher in the Rye: ch. 22-24

The Catcher in the Rye: ch. 22-24The New York Times - 4/23/13

“Unraveling Boston Suspects’ Online Lives, Link by Link,” by Michiko Kakutani

Given the layers of irony, sarcasm and joking often employed on Twitter, it can be difficult to parse the messages of a stranger. Yet some of them can seem menacing or portentous, given what we now suspect: “a decade in america already, I want out,” “Never underestimate the rebel with a cause” or “No one is really violent until they’re with the homies.” But others suggest a more Holden Caulfield-like adolescent alienation: “some people are just misunderstood by the world thus the increase of suicide rates.” Sometimes, Dzhokhar sounds downright sentimental (unless, of course, he is being ironic): “There are enough worms for all the birds stop killing each other for ‘em.”

The Catcher in the Rye: ch. 22-24The New York Times - 4/23/13

“The Young Salinger, Mordant Yet Hopeful,” by Dave Itzkoff

The Catcher in the Rye: ch. 22-24

Totally ubiquitous, some 62 years later

The Catcher in the Rye: ch. 22“You don’t like anything

that’s happening.”—Phoebe Caulfield

James Castle

Jesus Christ

Courageous and innocent martyrs

The Catcher in the Rye: ch. 22

What Holden actually likes:

Allie

Phoebe

Innocence and the innocent

The Catcher in the Rye: ch. 22

The innocent Holden misinterprets, Robert Burns’ poem, “Comin’ Thro the Rye”

O, Jenny's a' weet, poor body, Jenny's seldom dry:She draigl't a' her petticoatie, Comin thro' the rye!

Comin thro' the rye, poor body, Comin thro' the rye,She draigl't a' her petticoatie, Comin thro' the rye!

Gin a body meet a body Comin thro' the rye,Gin a body kiss a body, Need a body cry?

Gin a body meet a body Comin thro' the glen,Gin a body kiss a body, Need the warl' ken?

Gin a body meet a body Comin thro' the grain;Gin a body kiss a body, The thing's a body's ain.

Holden’s Aspiration: to be the “catcher in the rye”

“You know that song, ‘If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’? I’d like—” “It’s ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye!’ ” old Phoebe said. “It’s a poem. By Robert Burns.” “I know it’s a poem by Robert Burns.” She was right, though. It is “If a body meet a body coming through the rye.” I didn’t know it then, though. “I thought it was ‘If a body catch a body,’ ” I said. “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to watch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy.”

Holden’s Aspiration: to be the “catcher in the rye”

Innocence

Adulthood: Meanness and Phoniness

Holden

The Catcher in the Rye: ch. 23

Mr. Antolini

“He was a pretty young guy, not much older than my brother D.B. …”

“He was the one that finally picked up that boy that jumped out the window I told you about, James Castle.

“Then I took my hunting hat out of my coat pocket and gave it to her. She likes those kind of crazy hats… I’ll bet she slept with it on.

The Catcher in the Rye: ch. 24

Holden flunks Oral Expression

Digression!

“But what I mean is, lots of time you don’t know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn’t interest you most.”

“I mean he’d [Mr. Vinson] keep telling you to unify and simplify… you can’t hardly ever simplify and unify something just because somebody wants you to.”

The Catcher in the Rye: ch. 24

“I have a feeling that you’re riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall.”

“The whole arrangement’s designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with… So they gave up looking.”

What it was, it was Mr. Antolini’s hand. What he was doing was, he was sitting on the floor right next to the couch, in the dark and all, and he was sort of petting me or patting me on the goddam head.

That kind of stuff’s happened to me about twenty times since I was a kid.