During our discussion on the novel, many new ideas were introduced.
Like many teenagers, Holden never seems to fit in with everyone else. At
school, he is not popular enough to hang out with Stradlater and his friends,
but he is not as rejected as Ackley, who has no friends at all. Stradlater
looks down on Holden, and treats him like he is of less worth than Stradlater
. But then Holden treats Ackley in the same way. This results in Holden
having almost no friends or social life. Social events at school, such as
the big football game, mean nothing to Holden. When he does go out at night,
he is old enough to go to bars, but he is not old enough to drink. Holden
is not old enough to live on his own, like his older brother D.B., but his
parents think he is old enough to take care of himself. They send him to
boarding school, which ends up to be a huge mistake.
Holden often questions about where the ducks in the pond in Central Park
go for the winter. He wants to know if someone takes them away, or if they
fly south by themselves. He is trying to understand whether or not he is
normal. When he finds out that the ducks just fly south by themselves,
because of instinct, he wonders, Why do they know what to do, and I don’t?
Holden never learned to make decisions on his own.
He grew up in a boarding
school, an orphan, without ever getting any
guidance or advice from his
parents. Holden often states that he is very
immature for his age. This is
because no one ever taught him how to grow up
and act like a man. The root
of all of Holden’s problems seems to be that he
was sent off to boarding
school during his teenage years, a time when he needs guidance from his
parents more than ever.