Re: Mr. Antolini
Patti Kinsey (kinsey@snip.net)
Tue, 02 Dec 1997 19:43:38 -0500
Re Mr Antolini..
I've been lurking on this list for awhile..enjoying everything vicariously,
but in a strange way never felt compelled to post.
Yet your reflections about Mr. Antolini echoes my own confusion about this
part of the novel. I am a tenth grade English teacher and part of our
curriculum is Catcher. It's always my favorite to teach..to see how
students respond each year and also to see how I myself will respond...it
seems to change. Anyway, enough digression...Antolini..this part has long
confused both my students and I. Of course many of them want to jump at
the conclusion that Antolini is a pervert --that once again an adult has
fallen short of Holden's expectations and requirements. But like you, I
can't totally buy that...I think for me it stems back to Mr. Antolini's
little drunken lecture to Holden... the old "you're not the first person
to be sickened by humanity" stuff...I think, like Holden, Antolini has been
there, but has been forced to compromise himself in order to survive...I
agree with you that maybe he's in love with Holden's last vestiges of
innocence...wants to touch it,,, absorb it somehow to maybe restore that
lost or missing or damaged part of himself. Therefore, as an adult, I'm
not repulsed by Antolini's gesture...maybe sympathetic and a little
frightened at the desperateness of the gesture...and I think that it's that
desperateness that freaks Holden out..he intuitively feels/senses the
need...and he's too needy himself to be able to withstand that
pressure..especially from the man he himself was turning to for guidance.
I hope this makes sense...
Patti