No doubt, Holden has a troubled past. One way to understand Holden’s uncommon combination of characteristics is to look at the traumatic events in his childhood, most Importantly the death of his brother, Allle. How Holden reacts to his brother’s death, by smashing all of the windows in the garage that night, shows that this event has had the most impact of any on his life. One thing that is worth noting is that Holden thinks very highly of Allie, We don’t doubt that Allie was a great kid, but according to Holden, he’s the most Intelligent, nicest, sweetest, most endearing kid with the best sense of humor you’ll ever meet.
Holden’s pain over Allie’s death perhaps changes the way he dealt with life. He has lost direction. It can also be the reason why Holden started doing so poorly at school. He fails out of four schools and manifests complete apathy toward his future. Since he cant stay in one school for long, he has not been able to develop close bonding with any classmate, resulting In him having very limited number of peers. He pretty much did not have anyone to talk to, which shapes him into a very narrow-minded person.
His lack of social interactions causes negative influence to his life whether he realized it or not. Holden would certainly be considered very rebellious, perhaps due to the sorrowful childhood he had. Holden behaves differently from everyone else, he also criticizes them. He rebels by not having the same opinions as everybody else. Holden’s favorite drinks are scotch and soda, and frozen daiquiris. He would drink by himself every day until he got disgusted of the phoniness of the people around him and needed to go somewhere else. Holden also smoked a lot.
If you were to see him on the streets, he would look like a bad kid because of his constant smoking and drinking, and ecause he was a teenager by himself in New York City. Additionally, Holden rebels by being Indifferent towards his studies. “ So I got the ax. They give guys the ax quite frequently at Pencey. ” He tries to self-justify that it is perfectly fine and normal to get flunked out of Pencey. Although Holden Is naught and rebellious, and seems to not care about his studies. he’s sometimes very self critical. Holden reveals to the readers that he is irresponsible in the first two chapters.
After being asked by Mr. Spencer how his parents would respond to him being kicked out of school he said, “ This is about the ourth school I’ve gone to”. Without his parents there to gulde him, he does not get any schoolwork done. Also he’s very indifferent towards his grades. This is the main reason why Holden is considered irresponsible as a student. Another example would be during his last few days at Pencey, Holden causes the school’s fencing team to forfeit their match by leaving the team’s foils on the subway. Again, his lack of responslblllty is portrayed as he blamed his team for boarding the wrong subway when really it was all his fault.
