Holden's Non-Sex Relationships In Catcher In The Rye

With the level that Holden is attracted and interested with females, his ability to know how to act and express his feelings correctly is greatly lacking. He never knows what he should say or not say, act or not act, and overall, maintain a good relationship. He continues his desperate feelings to be with her, however, than displays how he truly feels when Holden states “[c]’mon lets get outa her. . . You give a real pain in my ass, if you want to know the truth” (133). Holden repeatedly says everything that he shouldn’t with girls, or sometimes, does not say what he should.

In a complete contrast to Jane appears Sally Hayes, an attractive but obnoxious girl that Holden goes out with quite a lot. From Holden’s perspective, Sally Hayes is everything he despises in the world; phony, conceited, and stupid. But the truth is that Sally is probably just a typical, beautiful, seventeen

When asked what Holden’s demeanor is, most would say cocky, confident, and close-minded. However, when Holden starts to talk about an old friend and minor character Jane Gallagher, his feelings and attitude change entirely. His tough exterior expeditiously melts into a sensitive side that is rarely seen. In most instances when discussing girls, Holden has something negative to say. Despite that, while in a club in New York, he comes across three girls who interest him. Suddenly, his thoughts about them change when he says, “They started giggling some more, I’m not kidding, they were three real morons” (Salinger 70). Although he is interested in talking to them, Holden is pessimistic about them and their behaviors. Nonetheless, when Jane Gallagher is brought up, Holden transforms into a different person. He becomes very invested in his descriptions of her and her good qualities. “You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not, All you knew was, you were happy. You really were” (Salinger 79). Throughout his course of discussing her, he doesn’t mention a single negative word about Jane. Even when talking about how his hand gets sweaty when holding hers, he also mentions that this doesn’t matter, and he is happy with her no matter what. In the movie ‘Stand By Me’, this same event happens with the Gordie, Chris, Teddy and Vern. These four boys are on a search to find the dead body of Ray Brower, who is believed to be hit by a train. Throughout the movie, their main concern is finding the body and proving to the town how tough and brave they are for finding him on their own. However, when they see the body, a wave of guilt floods over them. They feel bad that this tragic event happened to Ray. In fact, they don’t do not take the ownership of finding his body, and instead anonymously call the police. In both The Catcher in the Rye and Stand By Me, the situations with subtle, minor characters bring out

As the novel progresses, we realize that ironically Holden's alienation becomes the source of most of his pain throughout the book. Although he never realizes the fact that his pain is being derived from his isolation and lack of human interaction, Salinger places clues in the book that tell us that it is so. With the introduction of Sally Hayes, Salinger is able to craft a relationship that effectively depicts the conflict in Holden. It is loneliness that initially propels Holden into a date with Sally. However, during the date Holden's need for isolation returns, he "didn't even know why" he "started all that stuff with her. The truth is" he "probably wouldn't have taken her even if she wanted to go." Because Sally is unable to recognize the feelings on the "phoniness" of school that he projects, he becomes frustrated and uses a rampaging monologue to upset her and drive her away. The only time in the

Looking into Holden’s thoughts about intimacy and relations, he is two-faced in his statements. He claims to believe that sex is intimate and should only be between two people who are in love, but acts on losing his virginity with just anybody. This is a strong statement about our society today. In this decade, we are losing intimacy resulting from the use of technology and lack of chivalry. When you go out, almost every person you see is holding a cellphone or a smart-device before his or her eyes. This loses human interaction in result to lack of communication. My conclusion: no one knows how to physically talk to each other anymore; therefore, “relationships” are censored to what the Internet says. Not only we’re losing human interaction,

Holden thinks the people he met once earlier in life and made friend with will be his future wife. Holden takes everyone else’s sex advice except his own. By not listening to himself Holden is in a way wounded. Holden finds other people’s stories fascinating. Holden describes, “The only thing he ever did, though, was give these sex talks and all, late at night when there was a bunch of guys in his room.

     Although Holden is extremely cynical and struggles with relationships, he is not all bad. Inside he is moral and generous. He was very charitable when he gave a considerable donation of twenty dollars to the nuns. Holden has a strange way of loving people.

This shows that he very immature with women and represses himself from them. Holden as well thinks that “Mothers are slightly insane”(Salinger 55). He never had a good relationship with his mother and add on the immaturity of women Holden

Another female that takes part in Holden's life is Sally Hayes. She is a beautiful but shallow girl that Holden has dated in the past. To Holden's standards, Sally is another "phony" person but her beauty makes Holden put his standards aside for the moment. The unusual thing is that Holden made it clear that he disliked the girl, yet he said that the minute he saw her, he felt like marrying her. On their date together, he tells her that he loved her even though it was a lie, and yet he meant it when he said it. In return, Sally tells Holden that she loved him as well. After exchanging their false feelings for each other, Holden tries to explain what is happening in his life, but she is incapable of understanding his problems.

After describing the perverted people who he walked past on the street, Holden goes on a tangent describing his beliefs about sex. He declares, “I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around with her at all and if you do like her, then you're supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it" (Salinger 54). Holden says that if you don't like a girl, then you should not have sex with her, and if you do like her, you have to be careful about having sex with her. Either way, if you like a girl or not, Holden believes that you should not have sex with a girl. To Holden, sex is degrading to women, so Holden wonders how anyone could have sex with someone they truly care about.

Even though most boys his age, during this book, only talk about how many people they have slept with or got with; Holden wants something more. His

When Holden comes home, he stops and buys "Little Shirley Beans" record for Phoebe (p 114). Even though it breaks, he still gives it to her. She loves it just as much as if it were not broken. Holden remembers Allie by his baseball mitt with the poems on it (p. 39). When Holden tried to bring meaning into the adult way of things, he was outcast. After he told Maurice to send up a prostitute, he did not score with her but he tried to talk to her (p. 95).  He tried to make something meaningful out of it but Sunny did not understand. It does not matter if Stradlater gave Jane the time on their date, but whatever they did meant absolutely nothing to either one of them. Stradlater could not even get her name right (p.31). The three girls Holden meets in the bar may be the worst of all. They could care less about anybody, but would die to get with a movie star (p. 72). These memories show thought and love which are a lot stronger than these empty sexual conquests.

Holden’s date with Sally Hayes exhibited his difficulty at cooperating with others. At first he gives us a dire impression of Sally, “I wasn’t too crazy about her, but I’d known her for years.” (p. 105) Later, he wants to marry Sally and says he is in love with her. The biggest mystery of all when it comes to women is with Jane Gallagher. Constantly mentioning Jane, Holden recalls playing checkers with her before he got sent to boarding school. When his roommate, Stradlater, has a date with Jane, Holden asks him a peculiar question, “Did you ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row?” (p. 42) Holden, jealous of Stradlater’s date with Jane, longs to see Jane but never has the courage to call her. Interactions with other people especially women perplex and overwhelm Holden. He therefore resorts to isolation, illustrating a characteristic of his mental state.

However, he admits that while the couple’s actions are “crumby” (Salinger 81) and crude, he is still aroused and “wouldn’t mind” (Salinger 81) doing it, especially to a girl he is attracted to. While Holden wants to preserve his innocence by not thinking about sex at all, he agrees that he is a “sex maniac” (Salinger 81), and is a fiend about losing his virginity. Holden even goes as far as to make rules for himself. On page 82, he recounts, “I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it-the same night, as a matter of fact” (Salinger). He is slowly losing his innocence, and while he hates to admit it, Holden’s constant thoughts about sexuality is a sign of adulthood. To him, one should only have sex with someone they truly love. Holden is almost proud of himself for having such a morally correct view of sex. This is why he is so riled when he discovers that Stradlater had sex with Jane Gallagher. Holden realized that Jane barely knew Stradlater and felt that he, if anyone, should be dating Jane. His increasing thoughts on sexuality and loss of a conventional or shielded view of sex show that his loss of innocence is apparent.

It is very disturbing that he says “sex appeal” instead of “beauty” because it really shows what his thinks of her. He starts flirting with her and says many lies to get her interested. Later on he says, “Then I really started chucking the old crap around… I had her glued to her seat”(50). Once again he is very disrespectful and rude and it is also very inappropriate to think like that to a mother of a classmate. On the other hand, he is very generous to the nuns that he meets on the train to Manhattan. It is very surprising when Holden does so many nice things to them such as pick up their basket, respect their beliefs and talk very gently because before he kept complaining about everything. Holden acts like a real gentleman, which could be because he sees the innocence in them. Holden admires them for trying to help others because later on in the novel the reader finds out that he wants to protect children from danger. During on point he says to them, “To tell you the truth, it was sort of embarrassing, in a way, to be talking about Romeo and Juliet with her. I mean that play gets pretty sexy in some parts, and she was a nun and all, but she asked me, so I discussed it with her for a while”(100). This is the only time that he is uncomfortable talking about sexual things because he respects that they are nuns and does not want to say something impolite. Holden even donates a lot of money when they did not ask for any and after