Catcher gives us a good idea of what Holden thinks about other people and the world, but we don't get a very good picture of how other people perceive him. Even when reading about his interactions with other people, I often feel as though my opinions on those people are being swayed by Holden's constant barrage of insults and snide remarks about the other person.
His conversation with Carl Luce is one of the only times when we see what other people really think of him. Luce is sick of the conversation before he even sits down, and does everything he can to escape Holden's company. Holden picks up on this, and it seems as if he is trying to defend himself as he describes their interaction.
"How's your sex life?" I asked him. He hated you to ask him stuff like that.
"What're you majoring in?" I asked him. "Perverts?" I was only horsing around.
In both of these examples, Holden blows off Luce's annoyance, making it seem to us like Luce was overreacting and Holden was just making a joke. He tries to make it seem as though he's really cool and Luce is boring and has no sense of humor, but all I see is a boy trying too hard to seem older than he really is. Luce repeatedly mutters something long the lines of "same old Caulfield" while Holden asks him increasingly ruder and more private questions.
With Luce, we see a bit of what he thinks about Holden, but it's still clouded by Holden's comments. In most of his other interactions, we don't get as clear an idea of the other person's perception of Holden. During his date with Sally Hayes, he makes her seem irrational even as he is acting increasingly erratic. He calls himself crazy, a description which I agreed with during that scene, but we don't know what "old Sally" thinks. Holden makes it very clear that Sally annoys him, and we don't get a clear view of her, or her perceptions of Holden.
Holden's narration is intriguing and compelling, but I often find myself wishing I had a clearer view of other characters present in the novel and their perceptions of Holden.
I think that's one of the most interesting parts of Catcher, though. Trying to figure out how Holden really is in the context of the world when you take him out of the context of his internal narration is interesting. It almost makes me a little sad. Here's Holden, being snarky and critical (likably so) to us, but then when we see his interactions with Stradlater and especially Luce, it's like "oh wait, Holden's not really as great at navigating the world as he makes himself out to be." Although I think that the fact that he shows us these conversations where he doesn't come off as very suave or grown-up speaks to the honesty of his character as well.
ReplyDeleteI think Salinger intentionally didn't give us too many of the other character's thoughts of Holden. Because the novel is so heavily intwined with Holden's character, it is almost as if the Catcher is a person that we have to judge - do we like him/it or not? If Salinger had provided the perceptions others had of Holden, the readers may have been influenced to think of Holden in a certain way. I disagree with you - I prefer the novel in the way that it is written, giving few views of the other characters. This way, it is possible for us as readers to decide what they think about Holden Caulfield based solely on our own observations and interpretations of him, rather than have our decisions made by the people already in his life. In a way, it is like real life - we wouldn't want someone else picking our friends for us, would we? We want to take charge of defining what we like and what we don't, and Salinger has given us that opportunity.
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