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I will add another interpretation from my HS English teacher: whether anything in the book actually happened. Read the first page: "Besides, I'm not going to t

by micks56 17y ago

I will add another interpretation from my HS English teacher: whether anything in the book actually happened. Read the first page: "Besides, I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam [sic] autobiography or anything. I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy." Holden is in a mental hospital. This is confirmed on the last page [approx.] of the book. "I could probably tell you what I did after I went home, and how I got sick and all, and what school I'm supposed to go to next fall, after I get out of here." From that, Holden is in the hospital. The last line of the book says, "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody." From what I remember, this means that Holden made up all of those stories. His family realized he was crazy because they know none of those things actually happened, put him in the hospital, and now he doesn't get to see his family or friends very often.

zitterbewegung 17y ago
If I recall correctly that was explored in my class. What I meant in the original comment was the fact that he misinterpreted the poem.
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zimbabwe 17y ago
The mental hospital I can see - I've heard that before - but I don't know if I'd go from that to saying it was all fictitious. It seems too detailed to be fiction, and it never slips up and reveals itself to be potentially phony. (That raises the fun postmodern question of this being a story-within-a-story, but I don't think that was Salinger's intent at all.) Of course, the fun thing about fiction that also doesn't get said enough is that the debating over what happened is part of the fun. I had one teacher who would present these analyses like they were hard fact, when in reality the only fact is what the author gives you, and the analyses can be debated with that in mind.

by micks56 17y ago

zitterbewegung 17y ago

If I recall correctly that was explored in my class. What I meant in the original comment was the fact that he misinterpreted the poem.

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zimbabwe 17y ago

The mental hospital I can see - I've heard that before - but I don't know if I'd go from that to saying it was all fictitious. It seems too detailed to be fiction, and it never slips up and reveals itself to be potentially phony. (That raises the fun postmodern question of this being a story-within-a-story, but I don't think that was Salinger's intent at all.) Of course, the fun thing about fiction that also doesn't get said enough is that the debating over what happened is part of the fun. I had one teacher who would present these analyses like they were hard fact, when in reality the only fact is what the author gives you, and the analyses can be debated with that in mind.