Chapter Summaries Of The Left Side Journal

5) Page 13: This is ironic coming from Holden because he often repeats himself over again in his head and out loud, just like Mr. Spencer had just done.

Holden has very noble goals, he wants to protect children’s innocence. He says to his little sister “‘Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around-nobody big, I mean-except me. And I’m standing on the edge of

Holden’s immaturity causes him many problems throughout the story. Although he is physically mature, he acts more like a child. “All of a sudden I

Throughout the novel, Holden attempts to find the true from of himself as he struggles with the social interactions around him. Due to the struggle and confusion that arouses from it,

    Holden is a very dramatic character. Holden took this girl Sally out on a date. They were having a very good time. He took her to an ice skating ring. After a while Holden started to complain about his life and says something disturbing. He stated, “here’s my idea. I know this guy down Greenwich Village that we can borrow his car for a couple of weeks. We could drive up to Massachusetts and Vermont, and all around there see. I have about one hundred and eighty dollars in the bank. I can take it out when the bank opens. Well stay in these cabin camps and stuff like that till the dough runs out. I could get a job or somewhere and we can live somewhere with a brook and, and later on, we can get married or something.” He is only 16 years old saying he wants to run

One could say that Holden had a drinking problem. In the text it stated “I kept sitting there getting drunk and waiting for old Tina and Janine to come out and do their stuff, but they weren't there.” It seems as if he doesn't know how to control the way he acts that much because when he was at the bar he was asking weird questions like “How's your sex life?” So drinking for him is definitely not a good idea.

Speaks to me: I seriously like Holden now. At the beginning of the book I hated him. After a few chapters, I begin to like him. But now, I truly like and respect him. At the beginning of the novel, I can only make an opinion from what I see; however,

In chapter 7, the themes and motifs of lying/ deception, the plight of mental health, protection, isolation, and relationship/ interaction with others are overarching. Holden is a compulsive liar who tends to lie to protect himself from judgement of others and he also lies as a means of a comfort mechanism. For example, he lies to Ackley about what the fight was about between himself and Stradlater. He claims [he] was defending [his] goddam honor.” The reason he

This quote on the first chapter of the book indicates that Holden has some anxiety problems and is either in an institution to help calm and deal with the nerves, since he mentioned he is a nervous guy, or in a hospital, after a mental breakdown. The sentence encourages the reader to want to know why and how he has to calm down, and what events lead to this major “madman” occurrences.

During the novel Holden lies to cover up his real feelings or as an excuse to not tell the truth. In Chapter 3 Holden says, “I’m the most terrific liar…” he continues by saying how frequently he lies to get himself out of trouble (Salinger, 2010:17). After Holden is expelled he decides to leave Pency and life it up for three days in New York because he cannot stay longer. Holden cannot go home sooner because he’s not feel like telling the truth to his parents (Salinger, 2010: 54). Holden choses to do the wrong thing because it is easier than to stay at Pency till Wednesday or to face his parents. Holden is contradictory he says, “I’m quite illiterate but I read a lot.” (Salinger, 2010:19). One cannot be illiterate if you read a lot. Holden is even more contradictory when he speaks of Allie in heaven but admitted that he is an atheist (Salinger, 2010:107). It is clear that Holden’s words and actions are contradictory when he says that the movies are phony but attends the movies a few times during the three days (Salinger, 2010:30).Holden’s character is riddled with dishonesty, wrong choices, and contradictions and true to an

There is another lesson Holden had to learn. He needed to learn how to be satisfied with his company. He was always looking for someone to call or someone to talk to. When he finally did have some company, he did nothing but criticize them. For example, Sally Hayes went out with Holden, and throughout the entire time he complained and criticized her. He

When the girl picks up, she tells him that she won’t meet him for drinks, “Well, anyway. I gotta get my beauty sleep. You know how it is”(65), by making up a generic excuse so that she doesn’t have to meet him that night. After this, Holden ends up feeling more lonely which is why his next action is to go down to the nightclub to try and talk to girls. Holden wants to talk to girls, since he is still desperate for an interaction with somebody to get his mind off of everything

Since Holden got kicked out of Ossenburger hall because he is failing four out of his five classes, he cannot go home until Christmas break starts. He wonders into New York for a couple of days to hang out. Holden decides to go to a bar a get drunk to pass the time. Well, he does find

Here, Holden desperately wants to escape the phony, corrupt world, so he proclaims his love to her, and asks her to runaway with him. She tells him that he is crazy and leaves him.

Response 5a: Reading this made me think of 7th grade. I litteraly would write my friend’s papers all the times. Because we use to have these book reports where we had to read a book and just type a large summary. So that was easy, and my friend didn’t like doing them. So he paid me for it.