Catcher in the Rye: The Ending

WARNING: This will give away the ending of the book

So, the carousel? All of a sudden Holden takes Phoebe to the carousel in Central Park and lets her ride it over and over. First of all, Holden is paying for this after he complained that he was running out of money. So he is okay with wasting money on a ride when he will have no money for food the next day. Second, he is extremely happy (in a crazy way) just watching his sister and sitting in the rain. It really does not make sense. 

 

The only explanation that I can think of is "life is a circle". I guess this could symbolize Holden coming full circle and gaining maturity. But he was not riding the carousel, he was watching Phoebe ride. I guess that could mean that Holden stays exactly how he is while others come full circle. ?? I think that the ending would have more power and end the book with a bang if this scene was clearer. 

Catcher in the Rye: Holden and Phoebe Relationship

Holden is Phoebe's older brother and hero. She looks up to him and wants to be just like him. This is typical of many sibling relationships, although the Holden-Phoebe relationship starts to seem creepy after reading more into the book. Holden is around double her age, but still asks her for advice and unloads all of his problems onto her. She is too young to have to deal with his deranged teenage problems.

Phoebe is really important to Holden because he sees her as his only family, even though he has loving parents and an older brother. He is always thinking about her, which is kind of scary. I mean, he is at a boarding school with teenage boys full of antics, and all he can think about is his kid sister. This does not make sense at all and boarders on stalker-ish. Holden is always wanting to know what Phoebe is doing and who she is with. It is almost like he sees her as a possession that needs to be kept perfectly.

Very Weird.

Catcher in the Rye: Part 1 in 25 words

So, what happened in A Catcher in the Rye? 

Well, the main character, Holden gets kicked out of prep school. This is probably because he finds every error of human nature. To him, people are always phony. His teachers are phony, his roommate is phony, all the people at school are apparently phony. However, it is really him who is phony. He feigns angst to put himself above everyone. If he "suffers" because he has "insight" into human nature, then he puts himself on a pedestal on which to judge others. But he is overall the ultimate hypocrite. An example of this is when he admits that he has to be in the mood to talk about certain subjects but then does not understand why these same topics are ignored by other people. He does not seem to get that these people also have to be in the mood to speak about these subjects. 

One of the worst areas of Part 1 was the constant changing of topic in Holden's internal dialogue. He would go from talking about his new hat, to the train he was on, to magazines and back. It was hard to follow the point that he was trying make about a subject. The opposite of this topic-jumping, super repetitiveness, also occurred constantly. Instead of changing topics when the opportunity arose, Holden would say the same thing five different ways. Both of these writing styles made some parts of the story hard to follow.

What there is to like: very descriptive passages, teenage rebellion, time in NYC

What there is to dislike: repetitive wording, hypocritical overuse of the word "phony", conflict without reason

In 25 words: Holden fails classes. Kicked out of Pencey. Not tell parents. Goes to New York. Acts older and drinks. Unable to stand human nature. Definitely insane.