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Personal Note: Symbol of Red Hat (paraphrase)

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Personal Note: Symbol of Red Hat (paraphrase)

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After flunking out of school, he feels depressed and lonely. In his travels, he seeks company and knowledge, and also purpose of his life. As he wears his red hunting hat through his travels, it brings him back to his sister. He visits her one night and gives her the red hunting hat to wear. A day later, he sees her as he says goodbye for most likely the last time, and Phoebe gives him the hat, as a symbol of his purpose (Salinger 212).

The red hunting hat that he wears is a symbol of his story. Holden wears the red hunting hat everywhere he goes. It is a symbol of his story because it shows that Holden is almost "hunting" for purpose. The hat leads him through his story to his ultimate purpose, living for his sister.

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Personal Note: Symbol of Phoebe (paraphrase)

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Personal Note: Symbol of Phoebe (paraphrase)

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Holden thinks about Phoebe, his sister,  all the time in his travels. Phoebe is almost a psychic mind reader and knows exactly what Holden is feeling or thinking (Salinger 165).

Phoebe seems to be his motivation for continuing on. One thing Holden cares for in life is his sister Phoebe and always strives to protect and express his gratitude for her in his life's travels. She is a hope for Holden that gives him something to live for.

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Personal Note: Theme of Searching for Meaning (quote)

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Personal Note: Theme of Searching for Meaning (quote)

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"The mark if the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one" (Salinger 188).

Holden is talking to one of his old teachers and he tells him advice from a psychoanalytic. The moral is, if the world does not satisfy, you need to find something to life for. The world isn't satisfying Holden and he needs to find something to live for. Holden's teacher feels that Holden is not living for anything and tries to encourage him to live for what is important. Holden gets depressed and lonely easily, and he needs to find something that is important to him soon because he has no time to lose.

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Personal Note: Theme of Learning From Mistakes (paraphrase)

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Personal Note: Theme of Learning From Mistakes (paraphrase)

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There is a time and place for everything. Holden's teacher tells him to unify and simplify life and get right to the point. He tells him not get lost in the details, but learn to live for what is important. (Salinger 185)

In Holden's life, he has had unfortunately experiences, but for reasons that he makes his stories prevalent to his travels and learns something from that is useful to his life.

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Personal Note: Theme of "You can't change the past" (quote)

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Personal Note: Theme of "You can't change the past" (quote)

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"You could go there a hundred times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish... Nobody's be different. The only thing that would be different would be you" (Salinger 121).

The times change but you cannot change the past. This is an insight Holden makes as he is contemplating how, as time goes on, people and life change, but history and physical objects remain the same. He references this to the museum he went to as a kid. In all the years he went to the museum, the exhibits stayed the same, but he was different each time. He had grown up, but history stayed the same. In Holden's life, he learns from his experiences, but as much as he would like to, he cannot change the past.

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Personal Note: Characterization- Effect on others (paraphrase)

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Personal Note: Characterization- Effect on others (paraphrase)

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It becomes obvious that he misses an old friend, Jane. He constantly wants to "give her a buzz" on the telephone. Then there is another girl that he goes out with in New York City, Sally. Holden tells her he loves her and falls for her in one night. (Salinger 125)

He's very impulsive and says what he wants when he wants to. With the many relationships he has had, he is able to express his feelings clearly and honestly, with no care of judgment.

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Personal Note: Characterization- Effect on others (paraphrase)

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Personal Note: Characterization- Effect on others (paraphrase)

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He is very quick to complementing others. He can seem to pick out a good quality in a person by watching them. He is constantly talking about his sister, Phoebe and how great she is at everything, or his old friend that he used to go around with, Jane, and how she was taught him many things. (Salinger 67)

Holden is quick to judging himself and complementing others. He constantly says how incapable he is of something for a number of reasons. He is not afraid of the truth and almost embraces the fact that he is inept.

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Personal Note: Characterization- Speech (personal insight)

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Personal Note: Characterization- Speech (personal insight)

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Being from upstate New York, I can imagine Holden having a distinct accent by the way Salinger expresses his thoughts or dialogue. He uses a lot of old slang like "give them a buzz" referring to calling someone on the telephone and even the extensive use of profanity. (Salinger 105)

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Holden is atheist, but has strong opinions about the Bible. He knows of Jesus and believes he is just a "good guy." He believes in Heaven when he describes his brother's body in the cemetery. (Salinger 112, 156)

He has a lot of observations about Catholics to be atheist.

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Personal Note: Theme of Escaping (paraphrase)

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Personal Note: Theme of Escaping (paraphrase)

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Holden leaves school because he got annoyed at his room mates and stays in New York City. Then he gets himself in different situations and his ultimate conclusion is for him to travel. He goes home for a brief time, but does not want his parents to find out he flunked school, so he left. (Salinger 180)

Holden feels that he needs to travel to escape his problems. He goes from one place to the next and tries to avoid the stresses of his life constantly throughout the book.

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Holden always seems to get himself into situations. He even says himself that since he was kid, awkward or screwed up life scenarios are drawn to him. He finds himself in a jam, and to escape, he travels. (Salinger 91)

Every place he goes, he finds a sticky situation to get wrapped up in.  This also builds on to his ability of vivid story-telling.

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Throughout his experiences, he gathers a wealth of observations. Throughout his travels, he applies that wealth to his interactions and is able to further understand people and life. (Salinger 74)

He has lots of witty insights about life. Holden has a vivid story-telling characteristic, and he always tags on a life lesson from each one.

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Holden is a people watcher, and seems like his life's work. Everywhere he goes he takes in a lot of observations about people around him. He also tells stories about people in great detail. As Holden is talking to his sister, Phoebe, he mentions that he wants to be "the catcher in the rye," or the person who keeps the children from falling off the cliff of the rye. (Salinger 173)

This could be a metaphor to want to keep people from falling into depression like himself. He seeks comfort in the company of others because he is so depressed and lonely all the time.

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Personal Note: Characterization- Thoughts (personal insight)

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Personal Note: Characterization- Thoughts (personal insight)

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Holden is very bold and straight forward about himself and others. He has no filter when it comes to talking about people or things that annoy him. And he feels strong towards his opinions and will obsess over them. (Salinger 12)

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"Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules... But if you get one the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then hat's the game all about? Nothing. No game" (Salinger 8).

Holden Caulfield feels that he is on the other side of life where the rules don't matter. Since he flunked out of school for yet another time, he feels that there is no game to life, thus there are no rules to the game.