Chapter 17

In this chapter Holden meets up with "old Sally" but seems to think nothing but his own escape from New York, from the taxis, the movies and everything else he dubs as "phony". He sort of spontaneously announces his love for Sally, though he doesn't mean it, Holden simply wants out. Even though his original escape was to New York. Holden just can't find his own spot. Maybe he needs to find where these ducks at?

Chapter 14 Escape

Again in this chapter Holden talks about religion, after his awkward first encounter with Sunny, and he goes on to talk about how he doesn't like the Disciples because they were "crumby" to Jesus. At Holden's old school he didn't see eye to eye with Arthur Childs about religion, which isn't the first time he's had disagreements earlier over religion with Ackley. The reason why this may be is because Holden seems to turn to religion when things get tough. Ackley seemed to have resented him for this after his beef with Stradlater and presumably Arthur had the same feelings. To me Holden compares himself to Jesus, unknowingly, as at one point he tells us how Jesus picked the Disciples but in the next breath it's not Jesus' fault for their (the Disciples') "crumby" actions toward Jesus. Things like Holden labelling Horwitz a nice guy which was clearly putiing his faith into a "crumby" character makes me think he also picked the wrong Disciple. Holden looked towards religion possibly for answers or an escape from his looming depression.

Escaping Chapter 13

From the middle of the first page of chapter 13 (page 96) to 3/4 of the way down page 97 Holden seems to use, what I believe is, his most frequent form of escape which is his own immagination. Holden is walking the long trek back to his hotel when he feels the winter cold. He begins to concoct a story in his own head about someone who stole his gloves and the action he would take. Through doing this he escapes the cold into his mind and he plays out the scene of him not having "the guts" to punch the theif. Holden creates a whole scene of fiction that you get lost in in order for him to escape the winter cold. He does this evtremely convincingly though so half way through the tale you forget your inside his head.

Wag1 peeeps ;)