A Passing Thought

As I stated in my previous post, Holden's final statement was "Don't tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody." I said that it was an extremely cynical statement, but because Holden was the one saying it, it shouldn't have surprised me. It did, however. Maybe I expected reconciliation. Maybe I expected his time in New York to have changed him somehow, made him a more likable person. Basically, I wanted a change. I didn't want Holden Caulfield to be a static character; I didn't want Catcher to be like Joyce's "The Dead", where nothing ever changes. To be fair, at no part in the story was I fond of Holden as a character. I wasn't fond of how he hated everybody and how nothing he did could possibly make me care. He calls everything a phony (he believes nothing as it is really is); he smokes, drinks, curses and calls prostitutes; he is an outwardly rude, obnoxious and generally despicable character. I wanted this to just be a passing phase. I hoped that New York was going to give him a new perspective in life (of course, nothing that happened in New York could have changed him, considering he seemed to hate everybody there as well, but it was a hope nonetheless), and that he would be at least somewhat likable. His statement made me feel like nothing had been accomplished, that the story began with nothing and ended with nothing.