4 Quirks Concerning Holden

Holden Caulfield is a stagger-minded boy with confusing characteristics.

In ONE circumstance, he strikes up a conversation with one of his schoolmates mothers. Mrs. Morrow, a lady who stumbles onto the late night train and chooses the seat next to Holden, comfortably introduces herself to him and enjoys how he “shoots the crap” with her about her son. However, focusing on Holden himself, he steps into a more “suave” state of mind, as he prefers to refer to it as - we see this state anytime he’s feeling confident, like in Chapter 9 when he prides himself on being “suave as hell,” on the phone with Faith Cavendish. On the train, Holden makes a daringly strange move to interact in an overly-friendly manner with this mother. He estimates her age to be in the forties then continues on to mention how much sex appeal she had. Holden didn’t describe anything about Mrs. Morrow to exactly be traditionally “sexy,” which would probably explain why it came to be such a shock to me that he dug her so much. In his encounter with her, he changes his personality and attitude to keep up with a pace that would more easily match hers, shining light on his tendency to take the personality shape of whoever he’s with.

Overall, I got a glimpse of how Holden really can turn on the charm in instances that are necessary to him.

In a SECOND circumstance, after Holden hits up a group of unattractive women in his hotel bar, he decides he can’t get Jane Gallagher off his brain. He reminisces on the time Jane cried after her booze-loaded father showed up, how she lost eight balls when they played golf one time, how he made her feel comfortable. You get a feeling from this flashback that Holden is happy. Holden truly misses those days. However, he does tie Jane to a negative memory - Stradlater. In essence, I don’t truly believe right now that everything Holden is telling us about how great all his time with Jane was is completely truthful. I think some of what he is feeling and believing has to do with the fact that he wants to prove to himself that he knows Jane better than Stradlater does, whether it’s his subconscious or a completely unrelated coincidence.

I feel like this memory of him with a woman sheds light on who he sees himself as, happy and carefree, when he was with Jane. He seeks the attitude Jane had in all the other women he runs into and is comparing them to her constantly. She makes up his bar of standards for other women. His interactions with her differ drastically from his interactions with, forsay, Mrs. Morrow. Holden has a more caring, cautious, compassionate edge to himself when he was with Jane - or at least that’s how he remembers himself being. Holden turns on the charm, the interesting side, and the lust for Mrs. Morrow.

But despite the differences between Jane and Mrs. Morrow, Holden seeks their similarities. Mrs. Morrow’s motherly features stand out to Holden in a way that reminded him of how Jane treated him. Jane was always soft and kind to Holden and the ability of Mrs. Morrow to include those personality traits when Holden met her added to her sexiness that Holden saw.

In a THIRD circumstance, Holden displays his tendency to not let an idea go once he has it. When Holden got in a cab to go to Ernie’s to spend some time in a nightclub, he asked his cab driver about his recurring misunderstanding about where the ducks in Central Park go in the winter when the lake freezes over. Holden doesn’t seem to understand that his question isn’t completely similar to anything else a cab driver would hear and heats up an argument on his way to the nightclub. The weird thing here, though, is Holden’s behaviour is why he had his cab driver so frazzled yet his mood shut down once the cab driver began to question what trick Holden was trying to pull on him. Holden responds by getting more frustrated and more irritated with the argument that begins to brew between him and his cab driver, Horwitz. Holden introduced the random topic then proceeded to get irritated without a justifiable reason when Horwitz didn’t know the answer and gave a questionable response.

Holden’s interactions go straight from genuine curiosity to an irritated state and snarky comments. He creates the tense atmosphere and then snaps when the driver follows through with it. This is a much more different behavioral pattern than the previous two mentioned with the ladies. Holden, rather than being suave and impressive, is irrational and upset.

In the FOURTH circumstance, on his way up the elevator, Holden shows interest in inviting in a prostitute for the night. The elevator guy encourages him and Holden gets a younger woman sent up to his room. Her mannerisms and language were young and childish, contributing to Holden’s uneasiness. Holden felt unsure about his decision from the moment the lady walked into his room and, despite his desire to rip off his virginity like a band-aid, he decides that he’s not in the mood. Holden pays the woman for staying and just hanging out in his room for a couple minutes and leaving. But, personality-wise, Holden keeps changing his mind on how he’s feeling. In one night, he goes from looking at Mrs. Morrow’s sex appeal, to taking a bus to a hotel, to wanting to go to the bar to pick up a chick, to going back into a cab and arguing, to walking back to the hotel and wanting a prostitute, to no longer wanting attention.

His interactions are touchy and based solely on who he’s with. He’s a hard puzzle to put together.