Catcher In the Rye-Chapter 24 PDF

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Summary

Novel Analysis for the German-English Class....

Description

Chapter 24 When Holden arrives at Mr. Antolini’s, Mr. Antolini and his wife have just wrapped up (toparlamak) a dinner party in their upscale (üst sınıf) Sutton Place apartment. Glasses and dishes are everywhere, and Holden can tell that Mr. Antolini has been drinking. Holden takes a seat, and the two begin talking. As Mrs. Antolini prepares coffee, Mr. Antolini inquires about (sorgulamak) Holden’s expulsion (atılmak) from Pencey Prep. Holden reveals that he disliked the rules and regulations at Pencey Prep. As an example, he mentions his debate class in which students were penalized for digressing from their subject (konunun dışına çıkmak-konudan sapmak). Holden argues that digressions are more interesting. Instead of offering complete sympathy, Mr. Antolini gently challenges Holden, pointing out that digressions are often distracting (ilginin dağılması), and that sometimes it is more interesting and appropriate to stick to the topic. Holden begins to see the weakness of his argument and becomes uncomfortable. But Mrs. Antolini cuts the tension, bringing coffee for Holden and Mr. Antolini before going to bed. After this respite (araya giriş, duraksama), Mr. Antolini resumes (yeniden başlamak) the discussion on a much more serious note. He tells Holden that he is worried about him because he seems primed for a major fall (düşüş, hayattan kopuş anlamında), a fall that will leave him frustrated and embittered against the rest of the world (very angry about unfair things that have happened to you), particularly against the sort of boys he hated at school. At this suggestion Holden becomes defensive and argues that he actually, after a while, grows to semi-like guys like Ackley and Stradlater. After an awkward silence, Mr. Antolini further explains the “fall” he is envisioning, saying that it is experienced by men who cannot deal with the environment around them. But he tells Holden that if he applies himself in school, he will learn that many men and women have been similarly disturbed and troubled by the human condition, and he will also learn a great deal about his own mind. Holden seems interested in what Mr. Antolini has to say, but he is exhausted (tükenmek). Finally, he is unable to suppress (bastırmak) a yawn. Mr. Antolini chuckles, makes up the couch, and, after some small talk about girls, lets Holden go to sleep. Suddenly, Holden wakes up; he feels Mr. Antolini’s hand stroking his head. Mr. Antolini claims it was nothing, but Holden believes Mr. Antolini is making a homosexual advance and hurries out of the apartment.

Analysis-1 

Holden heads for (goes to) Mr. Antolini's house. He used to see the guy a lot after he left Elkton Hills. Once Mr. Antolini got married, the three of them used to play tennis together.

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Mrs. Antolini is "about sixty years older than Mr. Antolini" (which we take with a grain of salt, as Holden is prone to exaggeration) and apparently has a lot of money.

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A cab (taxi) ride later, Mr. Antolini opens the door, dressed in a bathrobe, wearing slippers, and holding a highball (highball glass-içki bardağı) in his hand.

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Mrs. Antolini is out in the kitchen; Holden notes that they're never both in the

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same room at the same time. (Hmm.) Holden has a cigarette with Mr. Antolini, noting (to us) that he still feels rather

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dizzy (the reasoning behind his taking a cab instead of walking). Mr. Antolini wants to know all about Holden's classes. He says he passed English, but flunked (failed in) Oral Expression because you were supposed to

avoid digressions (the action of moving away from the main subjectyou are writing or talking about and writing or talking about something else) and Holden, if you hadn't

noticed by now, is quite the fan of a good digression. 

He feels like that's when people tell you the really good stuff—by accident.

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But Mr. Antolini counters with the point that there is a time and a place for everything. If someone starts telling you about one topic, they should stick to that, and tell you whatever the digression is later.

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Eh. You never know what's most interesting, what it really is that you need to talk about, until you get going, right?

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Mrs. Antolini finally comes in from the kitchen with coffee for everyone, looking old and quite unattractive (curlers (saç bigudisi) in her hair and all).

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She heads off to bed; Mr. Antolini gives her a kiss, which Holden says they do quite frequently in public. (Hmm again.)

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Mr. Antolini keeps on drinking, and then tells Holden that he had lunch with his (Holden's) dad a few weeks ago. They're both worried about him.

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(Hm, we feel a lecture coming on.)

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We were right. Mr. Antolini worries that Holden will end up thirty years old and hating everyone.

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Surprisingly (to us), Holden claims that he really doesn't hate that many people, or at least he only hates them for a little while.

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Oh, well, in that case …

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But Mr. Antolini Holden is in for some kind of "fall"—a "special" and "horrible" fall. He worries that Holden will "die nobly" for an "unworthy cause."

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Hmm, sounds like we're getting into tragedy territory here, doesn't it?

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He hands Holden a quote (alıntı) he's written down from a psychoanalyst named Wilhelm Stekel, which reads: "The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly (alçak gönüllü bir şekilde) for one."

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Holden thanks him and puts it in his pocket, but to be honest he'd rather be sleeping off his headache than playing quotable quotes (alıntı) with this guy.

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Mr. Antolini argues that once Holden finds what he's passionate about, he'll be able to allow himself to be in love with knowledge and just forget about the Oral Expression classes that at the moment irritate him to no end.

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Ugh, adults can be so annoying sometimes.

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Then he gets all poetic (şiirsel) about how men have felt exactly this way before, but when people can teach and learn from one another, it's a "beautiful reciprocal (karşılıklı) arrangement," etc., etc.

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He says it's not that you need to be educated to change the world, but that men who are brilliant and creative and also educated tend to be more valuable than those who are merely brilliant and creative.

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Basically, he's just trying to convince Holden that school is cool.

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After Holden yawns (esnemek) (come on, he has been awake for the last 24 hours), the two of them make up the couch (koltuk) for Holden to sleep on, with a few more hints that Mr. Antolini sure is drinking a lot.

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Since he doesn't have any pajamas, Holden just gets under the covers in his shorts, i.e., underwear.

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And then something happened to him that he doesn't like to talk about.

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He wakes up when he feels someone's hand on his head—Mr. Antolini is sitting next to the couch (in the dark) and sort of petting Holden's head.

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It terrifies Holden, who jumps up with a "What the hellya doing?"

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Mr. Antolini responds that he's just "sitting here, admiring—"

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Nope (Olamaz, hayır). Holden is having none of it. Even though Mr. Antolini acts very casual about the whole thing, Holden grabs up all his stuff and insists that

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he's got to go because he left all his bags at the station (in the locker, remember?) and he has to go get them back. As he's leaving, Mr. Antolini tells him he's "a very, very strange boy," which Holden sees right through.

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Holden ends the chapter telling us, "When something perverty like that happens, I start sweating like a bastard. That kind of stuff's happened to me about twenty times since I was a kid. I can't stand it."

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Hm. This sheds some light (ışık tutmak-ipucu vermek) on the subject.

Analysis-2 3

At first, Mr. Antolini seems to offer Holden his only chance of making a sympathetic connection with an adult. Holden respects his teacher’s intelligence and seems interested in Mr. Antolini’s lecture about finding “what size mind you have.” It is significant that Holden consistently refers to his former teacher as “Mr. Antolini,” whereas he refers to Mr. Spencer as “old Spencer” or “Spencer.” But a subtly menacing undercurrent runs through Holden’s description of his time at the Antolinis’: the unwashed glasses from the dinner party, Mrs. Antolini’s unattractive appearance without her makeup, and Mr. Antolini’s excessive drinking all contribute to a feeling of discomfort that Holden never explicitly acknowledges. When Holden wakes to find Mr. Antolini stroking his head, he snaps. The pressure of his surging sexual feelings, combined with the nervous homophobia he exhibited around Carl Luce, make Mr. Antolini’s gesture more than he can handle, and he leaves Mr. Antolini’s apartment awkwardly and hastily. The question of whether Mr. Antolini really made a homosexual advance on Holden is much more complicated than Holden implies. Holden might be right—Antolini’s inquiries about Holden’s girlfriends and the fact that he calls Holden “handsome” as he wishes him goodnight could be read as flirtatious advances. But it seems far more likely that Mr. Antolini’s gesture was simply a tipsy (çakır keyif sarhoşluk) sign of affection for a student in obvious pain, a student in whom Mr. Antolini sensed something fragile and genuine. But, as with everything else, Holden is rash and uncompromising in his interpretation of his teacher’s behavior, and, with that rash interpretation, all of Holden’s trust and faith in Mr. Antolini vanish. Mr. Antolini is clearly a more complex and multidimensional character than Holden makes him out to be. But, as we have already seen, what little stability Holden has left depends on his maintaining an oversimplified worldview—he cannot tolerate motives that are at all ambiguous. Throughout the scene, we remain as puzzled as Holden is as to what is really going on, which allows us to empathize with Holden in the crisis he experiences as a result of the encounter. The fact that Mr. Antolini is trying to prevent Holden from “a fall” obviously parallels Holden’s image of the “catcher in the rye.” Yet, Mr. Antolini is a very different kind of catcher from the one Holden envisioned, and the type of fall he describes is different from the one Holden imagines. Holden fantasizes about protecting children from adulthood and sexuality , but Mr. Antolini describes the more frightening fall that will come if Holden himself refuses to grow up. Holden maintains an idealized view of childhood, and simplified view of adulthood, in order to justify his withdrawal from society. He resists intimacy (içtenlik) because the complexities of realworld relationships collapse his simplistic perspective. Mr. Antolini’s criticism forces Holden to see his own problems, while the ambiguity (belirsizlik) of his motives force him to encounter the complexity and ambiguity of the adult world. As such, he is beginning to see the trap of painful loneliness and isolation he has created for himself with his largely self-imposed alienation.

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Holden Caulfield (in General) He is novel's narrator and protagonist, Holden is a high school junior who has flunked out of (başarısız olmuş, failed) prep school several times. He is from New York City, where his younger sister, Phoebe, still

lives with his parents. Holden also has a deceased younger brother, Allie, and an older brother, D.B. On the brink of adulthood (…eşiğinde), Holden struggles to bridge the gap between the innocent perfection he perceives (algılamak, anlamak) in childhood (namely in Phoebe and Allie) and the "phoniness" that he thinks makes up most of adulthood and the rest of society.

The novel opens with Holden recuperating from (nekahat, iyleşme periyodu) an undisclosed ailment açıklanmayan, belirtilmeyen tedavi) in a rest home, and he tells the reader that he will relay (anlatmak, nakletmek) the “madman stuff” (deli saçması şeyler) that happened to him just before last Christmas.

His story begins shortly after he learns that he has failed out of his most recent school, Pencey Prep. Wanting to bid this chapter of his life a proper farewell (elveda demek), he visits his elderly history teacher, Mr. Spencer, who tells him to heed (dikkate almak) the headmaster’s advice to play the game of life by the rules (kuralına göre oynamak).

This idea frustrates Holden, who thinks it’s absurd (acayip, gülünç) to approach life with such a narrowminded worldview. That night, he discovers that his roommate, Ward Stradlater, is going on a date with Jane Gallagher, a girl whose family lived in the neighboring house two years ago when Holden’s family summered in Maine. Since then, Holden has built up an image of Jane as a perfect woman, which is why he finds himself distraught by (-den çok üzülmek, endişelenmek) the idea that Stradlater might try to have sex with her. When Stradlater returns, Holden picks a fight with him before deciding to leave Pencey that instant, packing his bags and leaving Pennsylvania for New York City without another thought. For the next several days, Holden makes his way through the city, posing as (gibi davranmak) an adult, drinking scotch and sodas (viski soda), encountering prostitutes, and calling up old acquaintances (eski tanıdığı) like his on-again-off-again (ara sıra) girlfriend, Sally Hayes. He also meets up with his old

mentor, Carl Luce, sneaks into (gizlice girmek)his family’s apartment to see Phoebe, and spends the night at the house of his old English teacher, Mr. Antolini. But every time Holden reaches out to someone from his past, he ends up alienating (yabancılaşmak) them and going off on his own (birden bire patlamak, sinirlenmek) again, wishing all the while that he could work up the courage to call Jane. The lofty (yüksek) plans he makes for the future also fall through as he physically and mentally deteriorates (kötüleşmek) over the course of a few days (müddetince, süresince) in the city. 5

In the end, Holden has a mental breakdown, which occurs some time before he begins writing his story. By the novel’s conclusion, he is facing depression and struggling with the harsh (acımasız, ciddi) inevitability (kaçınılmaz) of growing up.

There are obvious signs that Holden can be seen as a troubled and unreliable person: he fails out of four schools; he manifests complete apathy (ilgisiz olmak) toward his future; he is hospitalized, and visited by a psychoanalyst, for an unspecified complaint; and he is unable to connect with other people. We know of two traumas in his past that clearly have something to do with his emotional state: the death of his brother Allie and the suicide of one of his schoolmates. But, even with that knowledge, Holden’s peculiarities (acayiplikleri) cannot simply be explained. The most noticeable of Holden’s “peculiarities” is how extremely judgmental he is of almost everything and everybody. He criticizes and philosophizes about people who are boring, people who are insecure, and, above all, people who are “phony.” Holden applies the term “phony” not to people who are insincere but to those who are too conventional or too typical—for instance, teachers who “act like” teachers by assuming a different demeanor in class than they do in conversation, or people who dress and act like the other members of their social class. While Holden uses the label “phony” to imply that such people are superficial, his use of the term actually indicates that his own perceptions of other people are superficial. In almost every case, he rejects more complex judgments in favor of simple categorical ones. A brief note about Holden’s name: a “caul (plasenta)” is a membrane that covers the head of a fetus during birth. Thus, the caul in his name may symbolize the blindness of childhood or the inability of the child to see the complexity of the adult world. Holden’s full name might be read as Hold-on Caul-field: he wants to hold on to what he sees as his innocence, which is really his blindness. Hol den Caul f i el d,t he 17y ear ol d nar r at orand pr ot agoni stoft he nov el ,s peaks t ot he r eader di r ect l yf r om ament alhospi t alorsani t ar i um i nsout her nCal i f or ni a.Thenov eli saf r ames t or y( a st or ywi t hi nacer t ai nf i ct i onalf r amewor k )i nt hef or m ofal ongflashback .Hol denwant st ot el l what happenedov erat wodayper i odt hepr ev i ousDecember ,begi nni ngont heSat ur dayaf t er noonof t het r adi t i onalseas onendi ngf oot bal lgamebet weenhi ssc hool ,PenceyPr ep,andSax onHal l . Hol deni s16y ear sol dast hecent r alst or ybegi ns ,t al lat6f eet21/ 2i nches,par t i al l ygr ay hai r ed, ol duk çaaşı r ıbi rş ek i l de)s ki nny( z ayı f ) .Hehasgr own61/ 2i nchesi nj ustoney ear . andwoef ul l y( Hei soutofshapebecausehesmok est oomuch.Hi sgener alheal t hi spoor . al gı l ar ıaç ı k ,anl ay ı şl ı ) ,bi got ed Hei sal t er nat el ydepr essed,conf used,angr y ,anxi ous,per cept i v e( ( bağnaz) ,r esent f ul ,t hought f ul ,ki nd,andhor ny( azmı ş) .Toputi tsi mpl y,Hol deni sst r uggl i ng.

ToHol den,Penceyandt heot herpr epschool st hathehasat t endedr epr esental l t hati sar t i f i ci al ( " phony"i soneofHol den' sf avor i t ewor dst odescr i bet hi sar t i f i ci al i t y)andal l t hati sdespi cabl e ( aş ağı l ı k ,i ğr enç)a boutanyi nst i t ut i oncont r ol l edbyadul t s .Het hi nkst hatt hesc hool sar ef i l l edwi t h l i esandcr uel t y .Her angest hem i ndegr eef r om t her el at i vel yhar ml essPenceyschool mot t o ( " Si nce1888wehav ebeenmol di ng( ş ek i l l endi r mek,k al ı bas okmak )bo y si nt ospl endi d( muht eşem) , cl ear t hi nki ngy oungmen. " )t ot hebr ut al l yf or cedsui ci deofJamesCast l eatEl kt onHi l l s. 6

Hol denhat esf r om t headul twor l dandr esi st sent r yi nt oi t ,buthehasl i t t l echoi ce. Soci et yandhi sownbodyar et el l i nghi mt hati ti st i mef orhi mt ochange.Hei sat t r act edt ot he t r appi ngsofadul t hood:booz e,ci gar et t es,t hei deaofsex ,andaki ndofi ndependence.Buthe s evmemek ,nef r etet mek)t hecompr omi ses( ödünv er me) ,l ossofi nnocence,absenceof despi ses( i nt egr i t y ,andl ossofaut hent i ci t y( ger çek l i k)i nt hegr ownupwor l d. Despi t ehi sl i mi t edexper i ence,hi sat t i t udet owar dwomeni sact ual l yadmi r abl eandmat ur e.He st opsmaki ngsexual adv anceswhenagi r l says" No. "Hehast r oubl ebei ngv er yi nt i mat eunl esshe knowst hegi r l wel l andl i k esheral ot . I nhi sconf usi on,heseest hi sbehavi orasaweaknesst hatmayev encal l f orps y chot her apy . al mos t )aboutt ocr ash.Neart hebegi nni ngaswel l ast heendoft henovel ,he Hol deni sl i t er al l y( f eel st hathewi l l di sappearorf al l i nt oanabys s( di ps i zk uyu)whenhes t epsoffacur b( k al dı r ı m)t o cr ossast r eet .Somet i meswhent hi shappens ,hecal l sonhi sdeadbr ot her ,Al l i e,f orhel p.Par tof Hol den' scol l apsei sduet ohi si nabi l i t yt ocomet ot er mswi t hdeat h.Thought sofAl l i el yi ngi nhi s gr av ei nt hecemet er yi nt her ai n,sur r oundedbydeadbodi esandt ombst ones,hauntHol den ( ak l ı ndanç ı k mamak ) .Hewant st i mei t sel ft ost op.Hewant sbeaut i f ul moment st ol astf or ev er ,usi ng ashi smodel t hedi spl ay si ngl assatt heMus eum ofNat ur al Hi st or y ,i nwhi cht hesamepeopl ear e showndoi ngt hesamet hi ngsy earaf t ery ear .

Hol den' sf ear sanddesi r esar eunder s t andabl e,buthi ssol ut i on( av oi di ngr eal i t y)i si mpossi bl e. Li f ei schange.Hi s...