Rajneil

Chapter 21SummaryIn Chapter 21 Holden decides to go back home and check up on Phoebe. He arrives in hisbuilding and takes the elevator up. The elevator boy is not the usual worker and Holdentakes advantage of this by lying to him. This allows him to sneak into his apartment withlimited number of people knowing. He gets to his apartment and sneaks through theapartment as his mother is a light sleeper and commonly cannot get to bed. He realizesthat Phoebe sleeps in D.Bʼs bedroom when he is away. When Holden arrives in the roomhe pays attention to Phoebeʼs books before waking her up, they start to discuss variousthings including Phoebe in the school play, their parent are at a party and the recordHolden bought. The conversation changes when Phoebe asks why Holden is home earlyand she eventually figures out that he has been kicked out of school again. Phoebe getsangry repeating that father will get angry. The chapter ends when Holden goes out into theliving room to get some cigarettes.TechniquesSymbolism: “The one on top is called Arithmetic is Fun!”. Phoebeʼs books have interestedHolden. This is rather odd as Holden has no interest in his own studies. the book as asymbol may show his admiration for other intellectual people. It may also be a reminder ofAllie and his intelligence as Holden remembers it.Mood: “How come youʼre not home on Wednesday...you didnʼt get kicked out oranything...” This change in the mood is very sudden as Phoebe is reveled more in thestory, by figuring out Holden got kicked out we are shown her intelligence and she goes onby repeating “You did!”, showing her stubbornness. This use of mood has developedPhoebeʼs character more showing though she is very close to Holden she does have herdisagreements.Allusion: “...write a picture about Annapolis.” With the publication of The Catcher in the RyeAnnapolis was the capital of the United States temporarily and now is a town. Thecharacters talk about it being a movie and ironically in 2006 it did come out as a film.Though the tone of Holden towards Annapolis is very negative and judgmental, he wasjudgmental of the whole idea of D.B writing in Hollywood and despises the idea greatly.This can show Holdenʼs prejudice nature of various themes in the book, but mainly of D.Bwriting in Hollywood.Individual and SocietyHolden explores the concept of individual and society briefly in this chapter. However, andexample of his individualism is him lying to the elevator boy, this is probably the only timeHolden lies for effect. Him lying further alienates him from himself loosing his identitythrough “phonies”. At the end of the chapter he goes for some smokes, going for smokeseven at the oddest of times shows his desperation to fit into society, to be like everyoneelse, but he contradicts himself by calling all of them “phonies”.-Rajneil Prasad