January 27, 2013
9:30-9:50
The Catcher in the Rye
Pages: 167-174

Holden comes back in the room and Pheobe starts freaking out again saying that their dad is going to kill Holden. He tells her to relax because their dad won't kill him but get a little mad and send him to a military school. But Holden says he's going to go to Colorado to work on this ranch. Pheobe says he can't even ride a horse and she starts asking him if he failed every subject and why he got expelled again. He says she has a stupid haircut and tells her that he passed English. But he gets a little agitated when she asks him him he did it again. However, he starts telling all the things he hates about Pencey. He tells her it's all full of phonies and gives her an example of students, teachers and alumni and how it all depressed him and he didn't like what was happening. Pheobe says that he doesn't like anything that's happening and when he objected she made him name one thing. He wasn't able to concentrate too well and kept thinking about the two nuns a basket and this guy James castle who borrowed a shirt from Holden, called a guy conceited and didn't take it back and the guy and his friends beat the kid up and James jumped out the window and landed on the steps and died. The guys who were in the room with him got expelled nothing else and Holden thinks they should have gone to jail. He answers her question by saying he likes Allie and sitting and talkin to her. Pheobe says he can't like Allie because he's dead and Holden gets a little upset and says just because a person is dead doesn't mean you can't like them anymore especially if they were ten times nicer than anyone alive. She tells him that sitting with her and talking isn't anything and asks what he wants to be. He says he wants a bunch of little kids with no adults except himself playing in a field of rye while he stands on the edge of a cliff and when the kids started running and getting to close to the edge, he would catch them. The poem by Robert burns "if a body meet a body coming through the rye" makes him think of this. Pheobe doesn't say anything to this except saying that dad will kill him. He goes to make a phone call to his English teacher Mr. Antolini.

It surprised me when Pheobe told Holden that he doesn't like anything. I thought it was good that she did that though because it was true and Holden needed to hear that. I also thought his dream of catching kids in the rye was a little bizarre but nice.

I read well today because a lot of questions I had were answered.