They include having many failures, not having any close friends, and the loss of his younger brother Allie. Since his many failures at school, Holden has been in a downward spiral that will eventually lead to his mental break down. Not being able to talk to any close friends makes Holden’s depression much worse. Holden thinks that he should be dead instead of his brother Allie which does not help with his depression. If Holden’s parents had let him go to a school near his apartment he might have been able to establish a few long term relationships.
At his last school, Pency Prep in Agerstown, Pennsylvania, he failed four out of his five classes (10). He doesn’t like Pency because he claims that it is full of phonies. At the school, he continually separates himself from all of his class mates. During a football game while everyone was down watching the game, Holden resided on top of a hill next to a cannon, and while he watched the game he shot insults at all of the students of Pency (3). He dislikes both his roommate, Stradlater, and his neighbor, Ackley, because they appear “phony” to him.
While his time there, Wind-Wolf’s teacher labeled him as a “slow-learner” because he did not know the things an average kindergartener knew. The teachers and the students talked him down and Wind-Wolf felt somewhat ashamed, dumb, and embarrassed. All he wanted was to fit in with all of the other kids in his class. He was constantly teased for having long hair and he begged his mom to cut it off. She tried to convince him that in the Indian culture, long hair is a sign for masculinity and balance but Wind-Wolf was too hard-headed to understand.
Chris was always critical of his parents and their lifestyle, but that criticism turned to outright anger when Chris learned that his father had lived a double life with another family for a time. Chris saw his father as a liar and a hypocrite and he was never able to forgive his father. A recurrent theme in Chris' journal was a search for "truth", and he linked that search to the lack of truth he perceived in his family life. After graduating from college Chris felt the need to flee from his family and their expectations in order to seek the truth that he felt he had never experienced. To say that I grew up in a broken home growing up would be a gross misstatement.
When he comes to see her, they go out on a date but she realizes they've drifted apart and aren't the same so breaks up with him, who has no reaction. He later comes back and tells her it hurt too much. When her brother wins a cruise on the S.S. Tipton, she goes also and meets Zack Martin, who develops a crush on her and asks her out, but she says no. When he gets blamed for a prank she pulled on her brother, he finds out it was her and asks her where she's been all of his
This had a huge effect on Conrad. With the lack of communication with his mother, Conrad feels that she no longer loves him. On the other hand, Cal, Conrad’s father, wants more communication with his son and is too over obsessive with his son’s feelings. All these conflicts create an ‘interpersonally distant family’.
He started having trouble since he was entering the class. Victor was a guy who was nervous because he was weak in English and other student and teacher assumed that Mexicans were bad, dirty people. His school was strict and all the students had to go according to rule of the school. He also did pee in the class when the teacher did not let him go to the restroom. When he speaks in Spanish language with his friends in class his teacher used to yell at him by saying only English!
If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though." This is Holden being a “phony” himself. Holden hates phonies, he really does. He hates them so much; one time he even left a school for it, because it was full of "phonies" or that is what he says at least. Then, what is he doing in this last quote?
At home, he lived in fear of his mother and resented his father for not helping him. His siblings, at the insistence of his mother, often joined in abusing him. Dave Pelzer had every reason to develop into a product of nurture. After entering the foster care program, Dave Pelzer did not know how to behave in society. He defied his foster parents rules and go in trouble at school.
What a son of a b****,” I said under my breath, “to bring them to this.” Tears streamed from my selfish eyes over my selfish face. I sobbed, my fists clenched in shame. I wept for the guilt I had caused them to feel.” [Bell 158]. Crabbe is misled by his own pride thinking his parents will not care if he runs away but clearly they cared a lot leaving Crabbe in a pile of guilt. The teachers that have Crabbe in their class rooms are tough on him because they are preparing him for his adult life which is much different than his adolescent life.