LINE FROM CHAPTERS 16-18

"If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it,.." (Salinger 141).

The passage above is saying that if there is another war, Holden wants to fight in it. The context it is in is Holden talking about how his brother, D.B. fought in the war. He hates war so it doesn't make sense for him to say that unless you analyze it. Holden also says that they now have the atomic bomb. After he says that they have that, he says the above passage. I think that he would want to go because he doesn't want to live anymore. He is sick of life, the world, and all the phoniness. I feel like he sees that as a way out. A way to escape. I think that is a huge theme in this book because he just doesn't want live anymore. We here it in every other sentence.

MY DREAM WEDDING

I want a fairytale

I want a dream come true

I want a marriage full of love and happiness

I want a nice guy

I want a sweet guy

I want my dream guy

I want a nice house

I want a white picket fence

I want a nice green lawn

I want nice kids

I want respectful kids

I want sweet kids

I want our relationship to be based on faith

I want our relationship to last forever

I want to get through all the hardships of life together

I want to have a great time together

I want our lives to be filled with laughter rather than yelling

I want a fairytale

I want a dream come true

I want a marriage full of love and happiness

Religion

When Holden meets the nuns, he is grateful that they don't ask him if he is Catholic. He thinks it would make it awkward. Holden says this about what it would have been like if they had started to talk to him about it, "It wouldn't have spoiled the conversation if they had, but it would've been different, probably." (Salinger 113). He does not hate people that are religious, he just is not religious himself. Part of the problem is that his parents are both different religions. Holden and his siblings kind of became atheists because of it.

The whole subject of religion is not really broached by Holden until chapter 15. It is also one of those things that is rapped deep within in him. It is also caused by how he was raised and how his parents treated it. If you grow up with parents who have different religions, you are going to struggle with picking a religion yourself.

I think a lot of teens in America struggle with this. With so many cultures around us, there are a lot of religions to choose from. It is stressful to chose which one you want to be apart if you want to be apart of any. Religion is also a way to conform. It also has rules and guidelines. When a teenager sees a whole bunch of rules, they tend to run away. We do not want to conform and we do not like rules, therefore people stay away from religion. This, of course, is not true of all teenagers. Some of us actually like the structure and like the comfort that the decision brings.

Phoniness

I think that the front that a lot of people put on is phony. Lots of people aren't really themselves unless they are comfortable around you. In my personal opinion, you kind of lose who you are when you act like everyone else. When you act fake, you kind of become fake.

I think at times Holden can be phony. Like when he calls that girl in chapter 9. He changed his voice so that she would not guess his age. Also when he was hanging with those girls in the lounge, he was acting how they wanted him too.

Holden can be really real too. When he was with Stradlater, he was not hiding his feelings for Jane. He was fighting for the her. He was fighting to know what happened. Also, Holden didn't write a fake story for Stradlater's composition, like some people would. He told us about a really sad memory instead. That was as real as it gets.

I do not think it is possible to grow up in the society in America and not be phony at one time or another. I could understand that if you were home schooled and not around people that often, that you would be completely real.

The struggle from going from childhood into adulthood

Part of Holden's issue with going from childhood to adulthood, is that he doesn't really know what he wants. He wants to call someone, but can't decide who to call, "So I ended up not calling anybody. I came out of the booth, after about 20 minutes or so..." (Salinger 59). He doesn't know whether he should call Jane or not. He also calls people morons, which is one of those childish names.

Instead of facing his problems head on, he tries to get away from them and hide. Holden leaves so that he doesn't have to deal with Stradlater. He goes to a hotel instead of going home, so he doesn't have to deal with his parents disappointment. I think in order for him to be an adult, he needs to face his problems and take them into his own hands.

My problem with growing up, is that I don't want to have all the responsibility yet. I don't want to work too hard. I miss the freedom of being a child. I miss playing and just not worrying about anything. There is so much on my mind these days. There is so much here to stress me out. I don't want to go into adulthood and fail.

I feel like I am like Holden because I call people childish names also. I don't want to say the worse names though, so that's why. I feel like I would not have failed out of school. I would have cared enough to do the work and get good grades. If I had failed, though, I would have gone home and faced my punishment.

SYMPATHETIC

I felt sorry for Holden after I read chapter five. It was really depressing. I had no idea before than that he had had more than one sibling. By the sounds of it, they were kind of close.

I thought it was cute that he would look for Allie, places. That kind of added a flare. I liked how he described his red hair. He also described the baseball mitt. That was a good idea to put poems on it so that he could read them while waiting on the field. He sounds like a guy that I wouldn't mind meeting.

The depressing part of the story was that Allie got leukemia and died. The night that he died, Holden slept in the garage. Holden got really mad and punched all the windows in the garage. He broke his hand doing it.

I felt bad. I can't really relate because I haven't had someone really close to me die before. But I can sort of imagine the pain. Obviously not as much as I would if I had gone through it myself.

WHEN DOES ADULTHOOD BEGIN?

The topic of adulthood is under debate by many people. Everyone has their own opinion. A common opinion is that you become an adult when you turn eighteen. Many would disagree and say it is when you reach a certain maturity.

That maturity though, is under debate as well. In my opinion, you reach that maturity when you are capable to take care of yourself and possibly others. That means that a ten year old could be as mature as an adult. There is no limit of age. You could be ten or fifty. You could die of old age and never have become an adult.

It is all about how you reacted to how you were raised. Their are those children who have to become an adult because their parents are not there to raise them or their siblings. They have to miss out on their childhood so that their siblings can have one. That is a true adult.

When you give up acting like a child to take care of others, you are an adult. I'm not saying that you can't have fun or act childish every once in a while. You just have to act mature for the majority of the time. You can have fun while being mature also.