Catcher in the Rye Study Guide English 10 Honors Academia del Perpetuo Socorro – Flashcards
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What do we learn about Holden's brother D.B.?
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In chapter 1, we learn that D.B. went to write in Hollywood, which is why Holden calls him a prostitute.
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Where is Holden as the story begins?
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He was atop the hill in Pencey Prep. The cannon was near his position as he watched the last football game of the season.
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Why was Holden back at Pencey at 2:30 instead of around dinnertime? What does this say about his character's opinion about competition?
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He was back at around 2:30 because they had come early from New York after forfeiting the competition. He probably thought the competition was really stupid.
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Why is Holden not going to return to Pencey after Christmas break?
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He's not going back to Pencey after Christmas break because he failed 4 out of 5 classes.
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What reasons does Holden give for being "sort of sorry" for visiting Mr. Spencer?
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He felt sort of sorry for visiting him because the whole scene made him feel depressed.
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According to Holden, Mr. Thurmer said life is a _______________. What is Holden's reaction to this outlook on life?
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According to Mr. Spencer, life is a game. Holden says only the hotshots treat it like a game.
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What is Holden's age? ________________ What does he say is ironic about his age and appearance?
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Holden was 16 when the events happened and 17 when he wrote this. Despite being young, he already has gray hair on the right side of his head and is 6'2 1/2".
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While Holden talks to Mr. Spencer, he claims to be thinking about something else. What does he think about?
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He was thinking of where the ducks go in the winter. It's important because it symbolizes his concerns about Allie and his death.
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Holden says that he didn't fail out of Elkton Hills but rather he "sort of" quit. What bothers Holden about Elkton Hills? Give an example.
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Holden says he "sort of quit" because the place was full of phonies, especially the headmaster, Mr. Haas. An example of this is when Mr. Haas smiled in a phony way to funny-looking parents. He then went to talk with other parents.
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Holden declares himself to be the most terrific ____________________. Since he is our narrator, why might this be a problem for us readers?
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Holden declares himself to be the most terrific liar. This might be a problem for the readers because he might be just as easily lying to them.
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When Mr. Ossenburger is talking about praying to Jesus, even while driving, Holden tells us, "I can just see the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs." Explain this quotation as if you were talking to someone who had not read the chapter. In addition, explain Holden's tone.
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Basically, Holden says that during the speech, Ossenburger started talking about praying to God and treating Jesus like your buddy. He says Ossenburger might've shifted into firs gear because he wanted to show how "dedicated" he was by asking him for more dead people to make business out of.
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What does Holden buy in New York after losing the foils?
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After losing the foils, he bought his red hunting cap. This item is symbolic, in that Holden wears it in a funny way all the time without caring what people thought of him, just like a child.
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Explain Holden's opinion of literature.
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Holden says he likes books that are at least funny once in a while. He also says he's quite illiterate, but he reads a lot. His favorite author next to his brother is Ring Lardner. He also likes books that makes him wish the author was a friend he could call.
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What does Holden pretend to be when he "horses" around with Ackley?
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Holden pretends he's going blind by putting his cap's flaps over his eyes.(pg 25)
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When Ackley says the hat is a "deer shooting" hat, what is Holden's response?
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He's sarcastic and says that it's a people shooting hat.
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When Holden is retrieving scissors from his closet, what happens to him?
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When he's looking for his scissor, Stradlater's tennis racket, in its big wooden press, fell on his head.
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Who is Stradlater? Why does Holden refer to him as a "secret slob"? What does he look like? Describe the relationship between Holden and Stradlater.
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Stradlater is a secret slob because even though he looks clean and hygienic, he is secretly lazy, such as when he doesn't clean his rusty razor.
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After Stradlater asks Holden to write his essay, Holden says, "[Stradlater] wanted you to think that the only reason he was lousy at writing compositions was because he stuck all the commas in the wrong place." Then Holden says about an experience with Ackley at a basketball game, "Ackley kept saying . . . that Coyle had a perfect build for basketball. God, how I hate that stuff." Why does Holden hate this "stuff"? How does this relate to Holden's disgust with phoniness?
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Holden hates this "stuff" because they were both making excuses for being bad at something. With Stradlater, it was his incorrect placement of his commas, while with Ackley, it was about not having the proper body build for basketball. This shows how phony people find excuses for being phony.
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What is unique about the way Jane Gallagher used to play checkers?
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Jane always kept her Kings in the back, and never used them. In his eyes, she is the perfect woman because she's innocent. She's never slept with another man.
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What does Holden think is the reason the school feeds them steaks on Saturday night? How does his analysis fit with his character?
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Holden thinks they feed them steak every Saturday so the student's moms would think they serve them good food while in school. This analysis shows how he perceives the way people do things in phony ways.
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Why doesn't Holden throw the snowball?
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He doesn't throw the snowball because he didn't want to alter how good the car and the fire hydrant looked. He wants to preserve the innocence.
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Describe Allie's mitt.
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Allie's mitt was written on with green ink. It had poems in it so that Allie could read while on the field.
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Describe Holden's reaction to Allie's death.
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When Holden died, Allie broke all of the windows in the garage with his fist, which resulted in him breaking his hands. He was 13 at the time.
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Holden says the following: "All the athletic bastards stuck together"? What is this in response to? And how does this observation help to further develop Holden's character?
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Holden says this in response to Stradlater saying he slept in Ed Banky's car. It shows how Holden feels about the High School cliques.
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What does Stradlater say to cause Holden to start a fight with him? Why does this anger Holden?
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Stradlater said what happened in the car was a professional secret. This angered Holden because he was angry at the possibility of Stradlater giving Jane "the time".
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Who are all the people Holden wants to call? Why doesn't he make these calls?
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He wanted to call D.B., Phoebe, Jane Gallagher's mom, Sally Hayes and Carl Luce. He can't call D.B. because he's in Hollywood, his parents might answer his call to Phoebe and he just didn't feel like calling the rest.
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Once in the hotel, what does Holden see when he looks out his window?
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He sees a crossdressing man and a couple squirting water at each other. It provides more evidence that Holden sees adulthood as perverted.
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Who does Holden call up and invite? For what reasons does he call her up?
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He called Faith Cavendish and invited her to have a cocktail with him. He called her because he was feeling pretty "horny".
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Who does Holden want to call at the beginning of the chapter? Why does he want to call her? Why doesn't he call her?
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He wanted to call Phoebe so he could talk to "somebody with sense". He didn't call her because she wouldn't have been up or near the phone.
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Explain Holden's experiences at the Lavender.
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- In the Lavender Room, Holden takes a table and tries to order a cocktail. He explains that due to his height and his gray hair, he is often able to order alcohol, but, in this case, the waiter refuses and gives him instead a coke. He flirts and dances with three women who are visiting from Seattle. After being with him for a while, they begin to laugh at him, and they depress him by being obsessed with movie stars. When Holden lies to one of them about having just seen Gary Cooper, she tells the other two that she caught a glimpse of Gary Cooper as well. Holden pays for their drinks and the leaves the room.
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What does Laverne keep asking Holden? He keeps sarcastically saying that this makes her witty.
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Laverne keep telling Holden to ask his father what he is doing tonight.
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While Holden sits in the "vomity-looking chair," what does he think about?
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"I sat down in this vomity-looking chair in the lobby and thought about her[Jane] and Stradlater sitting in that goddam Ed Banky's car, and though I was pretty damn sure old Stradlater hadn't given her the time-I know Jane like a book-I still couldn't get her out of my mind"
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What causes Holden to almost "neck" with Jane?
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One day when they were playing checkers Jane's father or stepfather came out of the house asking Jane were the cigarettes were. She ignored him until he went away. Afterwards she began crying. In the passage it is implied that Jane's father is an alcoholic and that Jane faces some kind of difficult situation in her home. Necking by definition is the act or practice of kissing and caressing someone amorously. Holden tries to comfort Jane by kissing her all over her face except the mouth. According to Holden it wasn't actually necking because they didn't actually kiss in the mouth but it was close.
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Describe the conversation that Holden has with the taxi cab driver.
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When Holden gets on the cab, he decides to ask Horwitz, the taxi driver, if he knew where the ducks went in the winter. Horwitz is a very honest and direct man, the opposite of Holden, but that is probably why Holden likes him. He is the adult Holden meets that is not a phony. Horwitz says he doesn't know where the ducks go, but when the location of the fish is in doubt he answers with plenty of confidence. Even though Horwitz's statement is very wrong, Holden is easily persuaded. The taxi driver is genuine and Holden seems to respect that the same way a curious child would. In the end, Holden tries to get Horwitz to go out for a drink with him, but he has no time for that and also notices Holden is under age. The taxi driver seems to really care for him, even though they barely know each other, when he say's "If you was a fish, Mother Nature'd take care of you, wouldn't she? Right? You don't think them fish just die when it gets to be winter, do ya?" (Salinger, 93). He drops him off at Ernie's.
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Why does Holden leave Ernie's?
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Holden's reason for saying that is because the people always clapped for the wrong things. They also made Ernie behave in a phony and arrogant way.
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When Holden is walking back to the hotel, he wishes he had his gloves. He says he wishes he knew who stole these gloves. What does Holden reveal about himself in this part?
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He reveals to us that he is kind of a coward when it comes to confrontation. He says that even if he did knew the guy who had stolen his gloves, he wouldn´t had the guts to ¨sock him in the jaw¨ like he deserved.
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Holden claims that he is different from other men when it comes to women. Explain in what way he is different. Also, how does this add to his characterization?
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He is different in that when the woman gets scared to go into it, he listens to her and stops. It shows he listens to people and cares about how they feel. This shows the respect he has for women.
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What does Holden do with the girl that Maurice sends over? Why?
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He only talks to her and excuses himself, saying he recently had an operation on his clavichord. He said Sunny was spooky.
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What does Holden do sometimes when he is depressed?
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Holden talks to Allie sometimes when he is depressed.
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Who are Holden's two favorite characters from the Bible? What does he think about the Disciples?
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• Holden's two favorite characters from the Bible are Jesus and the "lunatic that lived in the tombs and kept cutting himself with stones". • He thought that the Disciples were useless to Jesus while he was alive because they kept letting him down. He also thinks Jesus never sent Judas to hell.
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What does Maurice do to Holden?
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Maurice gets Sunny to steal $5 from him and punches him in the gut.
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What is Holden's reaction to what happens to him?
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He was thinking about dying on that very same moment. He contemplated committing suicide
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Who does Holden make a date with? What does he think of her?
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Holden makes a date with Sally Hayes. Holden thinks that Sally was quite intelligent because she knew quite a lot about the theater, plays and literature.
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What does Holden's father do for work? What does he invest his money in?
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Holden's father is a corporation lawyer. He invests his money in Broadway shows.
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Explain why Holden hates it when somebody has cheap suitcases. Include what happened to Holden to make him come to hate people with inferior suitcases.
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Holden hates when somebody has cheap suitcase because he said it depressed him. - When Holden was at Elkton Hills he roomed with Dick Slagle that had inexpensive suitcases and Holden said they depressed him. Holden says that Dick Slagle used to keep them under the bed instead of on the rack, so that nobody'd see would them standing next to Holden's suitcases. Holden decided to put his suitcases under his bed so that Slagle won't feel an inferiority complex and that same day Slagle decided to put his suitcases on the rack and the reason he did it was because he wanted people to think that Holden's suitcases were his. Slagle was always saying snotty things about his suitcases and always used the word bourgeois which was his favorite word. They ended up asking to be moved.
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Which character from Romeo and Juliet does Holden feel most sorry for? Although he doesn't explain why, why do you think he feels much sorrier for this person than any other major character from the play?
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Holden felt sorry for Mercutio because he was smart and entertaining. Holden hated it whenever somebody smart and entertaining died, especially whenever it was somebody's fault.
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What song lyrics does Holden overhear a child singing? How does this make him feel? Why?
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He overhears the following: "If a body catch a body coming through the rye". He wished he could sing like a child.
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When talking about Hamlet, what does Holden say about actors?
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He says he hates actors and that they never act like people, they only think they do.
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What does Holden say is the best thing about the museum?
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Holden says the best thing about the museum is that nothing ever changes. Only you change. He visited the Natural History Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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What does Holden find interesting about his old roommate Harris Macklin?
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What he found interesting was Harris was a terrific whistler, despite being very boring.
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Why did Sally want to go ice-skating?
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Sally wanted to go ice-skating to see herself in one of those little skirts that just come down over their butt and all.
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Summarize what Holden says about school.
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Holden hates school. He thinks people only go there to learn enough to drive a fancy car. There are cliques everywhere and all everybody does all day is talk about girls, liquor and sex.
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What does Holden propose he and Sally do? After this bit of conversation, what makes Sally mad?
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He proposes they go to the woods in Massachusetts and Vermont, sharing a little cabin. Then, Holden would get a job somewhere with a Brook. Sally gets mad at Holden because he said she gave him "a royal pain in the ass".
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What does Holden say the trouble with girls is?
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Girls justify the boys' weaknesses with the inferiority complex.
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What does Holden say about most people who cry at phony movies?
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He says people who cry at movies most of the time are, most of the time, mean bastards at heart.
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According to Holden, what would be the worst part of being in a war? What does he say he will do if there is another war?
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He says the worst part about being in a war is the army. He says if there's another war, he'll sit right on top of the atomic bomb.
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In order to make sure that the people at the bar didn't think Holden was a minor, what did he do when he ordered drinks?
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Whenever they asked him what drink he would like, Holden stood up so they could see how tall he was. He assumed they would think he was older because of his height.
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Who does Holden meet at the Wicker Bar? What does Holden remember about this guy?
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Holden meets Carl Luce at the Wicker Bar. He remembers that Luce was always giving sex talks and that he was very intellectual. Additionally, he also knew who every lesbian and flit was in the United States.
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How does Holden act when talking to Luce?
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He acted immature. At first he noticed that Luce wasn't in the mood of talking so he started talking general topics to him, but then he started asking personal detail about Luce. Luce was extremely annoyed.
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What suggestion does Luce give to Holden?
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Luce told him to go to a psychoanalyst, to help him recognize the patterns of his mind.
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Who does Holden call in chapter 20? How does he act on the phone?
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Holden called Sally. He acted under the influence while talking to Sally's grandmother. He called to tell Sally he would trim the Christmas tree.
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What happens to the record Holden bought for Phoebe?
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Holden dropped the record, which caused him to shatter it.
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Where does Holden go after the bar? Why?
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Holden went to the park after the bar because he wanted to see where the ducks were going.
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What does Holden imagine happening to him?
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He imagined him dying from pneumonia and lots of jerks coming to his funeral, along with his grandfather and his fifty aunts.
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What does Holden remember about James Castle?
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James Castle was a shy, quiet boy Holden knew in Elkton Hills. James wouldn't take back something he said about another boy named Phil Stabile. James said that Phil was a very conceited boy and one of Phil's friends went and told Phil about this. Later on Phil and his friends came to James' room to make him take back what he said. After James refused to take it back, he jumped out the window and died. Mr. Antolini was the one who carried his body. Holden later says that he never really talked to James, only that time he asked him if he could borrow Holden's turtleneck sweater.
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What does Holden say he would like to be if he had a choice?
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Holden would like to be the "catcher in the rye" if he had a choice. He says he's going to stand at the edge of the field of rye, at the cliff, and catch the children who come too close to the edge and go over.
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What did Holden have wrong with the song lyric? Why is this significant?
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Holden thought the song went "If a body catch a body comin' through the rye", but then Phoebe corrects him and says that it goes like "If a body meet a body coming through the rye". This is important because here we can see that Holden wants to "catch" the children coming through the field of rye. He wants to make sure the children playing don't go over the cliff. He wants to protect their childhood, their innocence. Therefore becoming the "catcher in the rye". The ironic part is that "if a body meet a body" refers to sex.
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What word does Mrs. Caulfield tell Phoebe she isn't supposed to be using? Why is this important?
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Mrs. Caulfield tells Phoebe to stop using the word ¨lousy¨. Since Holden uses that word excessively and in a derogatory manner, Mrs. Caulfield doesn't want Phoebe to act like him nor use vulgar language.
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What does Phoebe lend to Holden?
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Phoebe lends her Christmas money to Holden.
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What was Holden's reaction to Phoebe's generosity?
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He starts crying.
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What does Holden give to Phoebe? Why is this significant?
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Holden gives Phoebe his red hunting cap. This means Holden wants Phoebe to be safe, since he sees the hat as a symbol of protection. Also, he wishes for Phoebe to wear the hat to show her uniqueness and innocence.
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What bothers Holden about the speech class?
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Holden did not like the speech class because of the teacher Mr. Vinson. Mr. Vinson was a cruel and shallow man. He insisted that if someone was giving a speech and strayed from the point they were to yell "digression". Holden points out that to a shy boy that world really affect his focus. Holden liked it when the speech givers strayed from the points because it made the whole speech more real and worthwhile.
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What does Mr. Antolini tell Holden he can see him doing some day?
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Mr. Antolini tells holden that he can see him 30 years old and hating everybody. Mr. Antolini tells Holden he is in for some kind of "fall" a special and horrible fall. He worries that Holden will die nobly for an unworthy cause.
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What causes Holden to wake up and run out of Antolini's apartment?
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Holden wakes up and finds Mr. Antolini petting his head. He gets some homosexual vibes and decides to leave the apartment.
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Where does Holden end up sleeping?
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Holden ends up sleeping on a bench in Grand Central Station after leaving Mr. Antolini's house.
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What does Holden see on the wall that makes him very depressed? Why?
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"**** you" written on the wall makes Holden feel depressed because he says that when he dies, somebody will probably write those words on his tombstone.
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What do the children do while riding the carrousel? What is Holden's reaction to this?
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Holden says, "The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them" Holden's reaction to this is that he can't protect Phoebe forever and he has to let her grow up by letting her make decisions by herself.
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How does Holden get all wet? Why might it be important that this happens to Holden?
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Holden gets all wet because it was raining while he sat on the bench, watching Phoebe on the carrousel. It might be important that this happens to Holden because he realizes he is becoming an adult.
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Where is Holden telling this story from?
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Holden tells this story from a psychiatric facility.
