Holden's Cry

This blog will contain my thoughts and feelings involving why Holden cried when he was getting ready to leave his house.

“Then, all of a sudden, I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. I did it so nobody could hear me, but I did it. It scared the hell out of old Phoebe when I started doing it, and she came over and tried to make me stop, but once you started, you can’t just stop on a goddam dime” (Salinger 178). The events before this must have triggered this kind of emotion out of Holden. Holden asked his sister, Phoebe, if she had any “dough” on her. After claiming that she only had her Christmas dough, he decided that he did not want to take that. She still offered, though, and that is when he started to cry. I do not think this is the sole reason he cried, though.

I think that he had this built up inside of him for a very long time. I think that the final straws mainly happened when he visited Phoebe. He realized that his family was not going to be happy that he flunked out of school. He also realized how much he missed Phoebe. When she mentioned that he did not like anything, he probably thought he was messed up. All of these emotions probably led to the big cry at the end of this chapter.

He apparently cried for a very long time. At least that is how Salinger made it seem. I think he was also upset that his parents did not catch him. In the past few chapters, he did not want to be caught so bad that he had trouble tying his shoes, but in other parts, he really wanted to be caught. And in others, he claimed that he did not even care what happened and how it happened. I think Holden is just putting up a front for everyone. It is starting to become real, though. It seems like even he believes the lies that he is telling. He is lying to himself along with everyone around him.

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, 2001. Print.