Then I went over and laid down on Ely's bed. (2.78)įrom Holden’s perspective, literally anything can sound depressing: like wishing someone "good luck"-which, if you think about it, could just imply that the person needs it. It sounds terrible, when you think about it. I'm pretty sure he yelled "Good luck!" at me. Just what do you think he’s wearing at the place he’s been sent to “rest up”?Īfter I shut the door and started back to the living room, he yelled something at me, but I couldn't exactly hear him. Holden is depressed by physical illness (obviously), but he’s not in such great physical condition himself by the end of the novel. I don't much like to see old guys in their pajamas and bathrobes anyway. What made it even more depressing, old Spencer had on this very sad, ratty old bathrobe that he was probably born in or something. I'm not too crazy about sick people, anyway. He was reading The Atlantic Monthly, and there were pills and medicine all over the place, and everything smelled like Vicks Nose Drops. The minute I went in, I was sort of sorry I'd come. Make sense? Now compare this to the last paragraph of the novel, where Holden says not to tell stories, as you then miss the people in them. Here, however, he seems to decide that he would rather feel sad about leaving a place than feel sad about the fact that he doesn't get to feel connected enough to feel sad. Hello, paradox: Holden wants to make connections with people (or, in this case, with places), but to do so means to make an emotional investment that will probably end up depressing him. I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of good-by.
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