I’ve decided to try and organize my thoughts in this blog post for my critical response paper, so here it goes: In The Catcher in the Rye, I find myself weirdly satisfied with the scene with Holden and Sunny, the prostitute. But wait, hear me out: When reading James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man, we also read a scene where Stephen Dedalus messes around with a prostitute. But in this particular scene, Stephen is so young and in a very weird mindset, and so he is totally detached from the whole event. Knowing this and Stephen’s personality, it made the whole scene very awkward to read. This is why I was very disappointed when the stage was being set for a similar scene with Holden. Holden’s personality is very bipolar, which can make him very socially awkward. He is also very young, like Stephen. With these factors in mind, I would imagine, if the prostitute had gone through with her act, this scene too would have been very awkward to read. This is why I am glad that Holden stops the woman from coming on to him. Unfortunately, it backfires a little for him when he gets beat up by Maurice and, by Holden’s account, robbed by Sunny; but I’m happy he is still a virgin because I see Holden as too emotionally unstable to be having that kind of a connection with another person. (I do mean that in the nicest way possible).
Holden has the really admirable quality that his friends don't give him enough credit for of not sexually assaulting girls. Holden stops when girls say no, because he respects them and because he knows that he's not ready for such a deep level of intimacy.
ReplyDeleteWith the prostitute, Holden doesn't necessarily want sex because he could have forced himself on any number of girls if he wanted to. But what Holden is really craving is an emotional connection, and it made me a little sad that the prostitute wasn't willing to give him that.
I like this parallel. It does a good job of showing Holden's awareness and ability to analyze what is going on beyond Stephen's intense experience in the moment. It is interesting how a similar scene is present in both books as an important part of their coming of age experience.
ReplyDeleteAmong other things, this is one of the earliest scenes to really characterize Holden's deep loneliness and isolation--he gets himself into this predicament without even thinking, an impulsive decision that's more like a path of least resistance than a conscious choice, and then when she does arrive, he understandably isn't in the mood at all. But rather than ask her to leave, Holden wants to talk (a reversal of the stereotype that boys "only have one thing on their mind"). He's also struck by how young Sunny is (and her name underscores this)--we see them as two kids brought together by messed-up circumstances, both trying to act out roles as more sophisticated and experienced than they are. This whole scene, before Maurice shows up, always strikes me as incredibly sad.
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