The reason to Conrad’s suicide attempt is his mom's acute coldness towards him shows her ultimate despise of Conrad because she blames him for not dying instead of her favorite first born son. After his suicide, Conrad is asked to see a psychiatrist by his father. Cal tries to bring the family back together, Beth, Conrad and himself, but fails to do so. Beth never once visited Conrad in the hospital and barely checks up on him to see if he was asleep. She began to shut herself from her husband and most importantly, her son.
He dislikes ackly for the simple reason that he has bad hygiene and it annoys Holden. This small annoyance is something that most people would be able to get over but Holden has a habit of dwelling on these minor problems he has with everybody and not being able to get over them. With Stadlater just the fact that he took Jane out on a date and Holden has a secret crush on her, even though he hasn't seen her in years and there is no way for Stadlater to know that. Holden insists on disliking him for that small
In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist Holden Caulfield is a thoughtful young man, who happens to also be very angry. As a result of his anger, Holden purposely isolates him from his surroundings, leaving a feeling of depression and arrogance. This arrogance can be seen throughout the book, when Holden generalizes certain people as “phony”, and labels himself as the only “real” person in this world. Later in the book, you learn that Holden’s younger brother Allie has died due to complications of leukemia, and it is inferred that Holden has not moved on, causing his anger.
He is of average intelligence but has a hard time with reading comprehension, which caused him to be held back a grade. At 16 he also falls into the same stage of Identity vs. Role confusion as Ponyboy. With parents that fight a lot and are alcoholics it seems like he was unable to learn any kind of coping skills and relies a lot on what other people tell him to do. His shyness and a social awkwardness lead to the question of abuse and PTSD; this belief is also substantiated as he has a scar on his check from being beaten by 5 grown men. Johnny also has frequent thoughts of suicide which could be due to depression, feeling unloved by his parents, socially undesirable, seeing himself as “out of place” even amongst friends, and that he internalizes that actions of others.
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.
Ponyboy just had to see Johnny kill Bob and that was enough to make him lose his innocence. People like Randy and Steve just resent and hate the world so much that that would cause them to lose their innocence as well. Someone could lose their innocence just by thinking bad thoughts. S.E. Hinton definitely does not agree with William Blake’s poem: The Lily because in The Lily, William Blake is saying that innocence cannot be abolished or destroyed.
He doesn’t like people and rather be alone than with people. He also tries hanging with people that are only his associates, but then he realizes how phony they are and dislikes them so he pushes them away. Despite all this Holden’s future had some
ENGLISH STANDARD-INTO THE WORLD As the story begins 21 weeks after the accident Tom is in a state of shock and grief. He is constantly numb with despair. He restrains all his pain silently inside and is reluctant to continue his life shown through the statement “Bad thoughts... suffocated any hope I had of getting my life back.” The uses of flashbacks show his memories of Daniels previously erratic behaviour, “He just got away with it”. He constantly recalls the accident, “I was sucked deeper into that long black tunnel”. When Tom received an email from Matt, he deletes it, as he cannot express the overpowering emotions he kept inside.
Maggie's condition throughout the novel is forced upon her by things outside of her control. She has a crush on a boy, like many girls do at her age, but is too naive to the world to understand his intentions. Her family is mad because they believe she is sleeping around. While she is truly just an innocent young girl with a crush. These misunderstandings escalate to the point that Maggie is kicked out of her home.
This is one of the reasons for his mental break down. Holden sees the world as corrupt and wants to protect the children’s innocence. Holden cannot find a place for himself in the world. All of this leads to his downfall, consisting of his parents abandoning him, him not fitting in, and nobody wanting to be around him. A symbol from this novel is Holden’s red hunting hat.