Blog Post for 6/6/2014: Philosophical Post on The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Blog Post for 6/6/2014: Philosophical Post on The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

            The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is about a boy named Holden Caulfield and his journey after running away from school. Holden is kicked out of school but decides to leave early one night. He heads to New York City, where he lives. He has many interactions with old friends, strangers and even an ex-girlfriend. But over the course of the book hen shows the reader the many different characteristics that he has.

One of the main characteristics that he shows is generosity, when he’s not much of a social person.  The first example of his generosity is when he asks a little girl if she knows his little sister Phoebe and where she might be, the girl does know his sister but doesn’t know where she is, she ends up not being much help but still Holden says “She was having a helluva time tightening her skate. She didn’t have any gloves on or anything and her hands were all red and cold. I gave her a hand with it. …I asked her if she’d like to have a hot chocolate…but she said no, thank you.” He did it as an act of kindness really.  Another example of his generosity is when he is eating breakfast at a diner one morning and meets two nuns. He notices that the two nuns were holding a straw basket like the ones that nuns usually hold when collecting money. After introducing himself and engaging in a conversation, he says, “‘I could make a small contribution. You could keep the money for when you do take up a collection.’… They let me give them ten bucks as a contribution.” Later he says, “I would’ve given them more but they wouldn’t let me and besides I was running low on dough.” If you were wondering why ten dollars is a big deal, this book takes place in the 1940s when money was worth way more than it is today. Also, I see this as an act of kindness really it was with very good intentions.  Later he offers to pay the nun’s lunch bill but they even say, “You’ve been more than generous, you’re a very sweet boy.” And these moments are not the only times that Holden does something like this. Another time he offers to pay and does pay for the drinks of a few girls that he meets. I’m not making a big deal out of these small deeds but they really add up and I can tell by the way Holden is as a character in the book that he really is just trying to be kind and is doing these things with good intentions. But don’t mistake my words; there are characteristics to Holden’s generosity. The first of these characteristics is that he's very practical with his generosity; it’s not as if he’s just a nice guy going around New York City handing out money. For example, this is not a great topic to be bringing up with generosity but Holden entered an elevator and the elevator man asked him if he wanted a prostitute to be brought up to his hotel room. The man says that if she stays for a little bit it would be $5 and the whole night would be $10. Later after the girl leaves, the elevator man came back yelling for another$5 but Holden doesn’t go down without a fight. He gets beat up and the $5 get taken away from him but the point is that he is not stupid with his generosity, he’s not just going around giving away money. But let me tell you something, he is stupid with money. 

Another one of the main characteristics that Holden shows the reader is being very descriptive and also very critical of others. The first example of him being this way is when he’s at a club in New York. He dances with this girl he meets and then sits with her and her friends at a table. He goes on a streak of criticism, here’s what he had to say throughout the whole encounter, “God, could that dopey girl dance…I hate a guy that does a lot of show-off tricky stuff on the dance floor… I danced with them all—the whole three of them—one at a time. The one ugly one, Laverne, wasn’t too bad a dancer, but the other one, old Marty, was murder. Old Marty was like dragging the Statue of Liberty around the floor. The only way I could even half enjoy myself dragging her around the floor was if I amused myself.” This part really got on my nerves because Holden is not perfect, he’s not a good dancer either and he even says he’s not that much good looking, so in what sense does he think he can criticize others about flaws that he has himself. He really acts like a big jerk when he criticizes others and he really does it way more than necessary. He's always either describing something for a long period of time or talking about he hates certain people and the flaws of other people. As me and my philoso-phamily discussed in our meetings we think that Holden does this because he hates himself and his own flaws. Another example of Holden criticizing others, later on in the book he is waiting for his date at a theater and all he does is look at all of the other students from different schools around him, describing certain people and what he hated about them, even when he didn’t know any of them. Here’s what he had to say, “A lot of schools were home for vacation already, and here were about a million girls sitting and standing waiting for their dates to show up. Girls with their legs crossed, girls with their legs not crossed, girls with lousy legs, girls that looked like swell girls, girls that looked like they’d be bitches if you knew them. It was really nice sightseeing if you know what I mean… You figured most of them would marry dopey guys. Guys that always talk about how many miles they got to a gallon in their goddam cars.” I really don’t know where he comes up with all of these ideas, there are many moments like these where it seems like Holden doesn’t know what to tell the reader so he just starts describing the people around him, and he does it if he’s the one that’s perfect when he’s really not. He also seems to be very jealous of others at many times and that’s what seems to lead him to start the criticism that he always uses. A third example but definitely not the last example of when Holden shows this characteristic of criticism would be after a play that he watches with his date. He goes on about how the play was terrible and how certain actors could have done better things. And after the party his date, Sally Hayes sees one of her old friends and Holden’s jealous criticism begins to kick in. He says, “The jerk had one of those very phony, Ivy League voices, one of those very tired, snobby voices. He sounded just like a girl. He didn’t hesitate to horn in on my date.” Sometimes Holden needs to relax and just stop criticizing others. The reason for that is because he’s very contradictory with his words; he doesn’t do what he preaches. He often criticizes others about being a specific type of person but he’s really the same type of person.

A third of Holden’s characteristics that I noticed was that he gets off topic very quickly. AT one point in the book he was talking about how cold it was outside, he stops when he brings up his gloves and almost goes a page describing the gloves and finishes what he’s saying by talking about how he would sock the person that would of stole his gloves. This type of thing often happens with two people having a conversation but in this case it’s only Holden that changes the topic while talking and he does it so often that you have to stop and remember what he was talking about before that got to what the text is talking about at that particular moment. My question is how do you go from talking about the weather to how you would sock the person that stole your gloves? It’s really mind-perplexing. But there’s almost a technique to the way he gets off topic. He’ll be saying something and stop because he brought something up that he also wants to talk about. Then when he wants to go back to what he was originally saying, he always says “Anyways…” And he does so often throughout the book.

These characteristics of Holden’s raise many philosophical questions for me. The first of these questions is: Is there a limit to generosity? My answer is that in my opinion, it’s always good to be generous, in general, meaning being willing to help out others. But you might find yourself in a certain situation where you just can’t be generous, where there is a limit to generosity. For me, to be a good person you have to be willing to help others and feel with others. But in some situations like with Holden and the elevator man’s scam, you just don’t want to be seen as the guy that gives away money. If you become the person that is seen by others as the kind person, that is willing to help, that’s willing to give away money or anything really, you become a person to be taken advantage of. And that’s the first thing people will begin to do to you, take advantage. The second philosophical question that Holden’s characteristics raised for me was: Is picking and choosing who you want to be generous to fair? Well, I believe that it depends on again the situation and who the people involved are. If the person that you’re going to help with money, for example, is rich then there is no reason to give them money. You’re better off being generous to a person that is in need of the money. But let’s say that it’s not money that you’re being generous with. Maybe its care, medical care or emotional care or whatever the case may be. In these cases it doesn’t matter the person is that you’re helping. The third philosophical question that Holden’s characteristics raised for me is: Is it wrong to be a different type of person on the outside than what is your real mentality on the inside? I think that it’s very unethical to be this way. Holden often pretended to be glad to meet somebody and tell the reader that he really wasn’t. The problem with this is that what you’re making yourself is fake image. If what you think and believe on the inside is the opposite of what you present on the inside, then the person that others meet is real a misrepresentation of yourself. And it’s just really unethical because if you live your whole life like that nobody would ever really meet the real you and you might even forget what you value because the disguise that you put onto yourself is so believable that it even gets in your own head and you forget who you are. The fourth question that Holden’s characteristics raise for me is: Is it ethical to criticize people when you yourself are not perfect? You have no right to talk about a person and speak about who you hate their flaws, like Holden did when you have your own flaws. If you have the right to criticize others than they have that same right and when you learn this you no longer criticize them because you don’t want to be criticized. Criticism is always okay to the person that uses it until it’s used on them.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger’s main character Holden Caulfield has many characteristics that he presents to the reader throughout the book. These characteristics raise many philosophical questions and ideas to be thought about.