JOURNAL POST 1
Describe a problem faced by the main character. Explain how the main character deals with the problem.
Holden Caulfield consistently fails to keep up with his studies, despite his level of intelligence. To him, there’s no longer any point putting effort into anything, which shows he is unmotivated. Deep down inside, the true reasons for his state of being are that his brother Allie had passed away and his classmate, James Castle, committed suicide. With the emotional trauma abducting his thoughts, Holden makes irrational decisions and poses unconventional criticism upon almost everything around him. “All of a sudden, I decided what I’d really do; I’d get the hell out of Pencey—right that same night and all.” (51). The main character discovers that running away does not rectify his problems, instead, it convolutes them even further; he gets scammed by a prostitute and her pimp, gets turned down by the women from the nightclub, and being receives a beating from his only friend/roommate, Stradlater.
From my perspective, the quote is significant because it’s something I oppose; I firmly believe that one should not run away from their problems. The quote reminds me of a friend who was in turmoil with the circumstances of her studies and the pressuring from her parents; she was going to run away, but fortunately she knew that it wouldn’t solve anything. I was devastated when I heard that someone in China took their own life away because she was unable to acquire 100% on her test; this only goes to show that she threw in the towel and let death get to the best of her. On the other hand, the quote is crucial to the novel because without it, there would be no story of a Holden Caulfield getting lost in the hideous world of New York at night. The quote connects to life in the sense that most teenagers tend to run away from their problems which usually doesn’t solve anything. Students need to understand that running away instantaneously makes them defeated to life and that when they actually try; they’ve got nothing to lose.
