Why Holden Appeals to Women?

Subject: Why Holden Appeals to Women?
From: Will Hochman (hochman@southernct.edu)
Date: Sun Oct 14 2001 - 00:35:07 GMT

On a walk the other day, I met a young lady who took a liking to my
dog. As soon as she learned his name was Holden Caulfield, the light
bulb went on and we moved from the dog to the character...I learned
that she really identified with Holden...something I've increasingly
observed in females...I asked her why women seem to like Holden and
she said that she admires his maternal feelings...I was stopped for a
moment and she explained that his desire to help kids avoid falling
of that crazy cliff is what she meant. This seems so logical and
obvious but I hadn't thought of Holden as maternal. We certainly
don't see him getting much mothering in Catcher...in fact, I might
argue there's an intentional lack of mothering in his experience in
the book. Funny...Salinger dedicates the book to his mother and
Holden is at least seen by some as having maternal feelings, but I'm
now seeing how his story can be read as the sad tale of a lack of
maternal insight...waddaya think? will 

-- 
	Will Hochman

Assistant Professor of English
Southern Connecticut State University
501 Crescent St, New Haven, CT 06515
203 392 5024

http://www.southernct.edu/~hochman/willz.html

-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH

This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Mon Nov 12 2001 - 17:22:39 GMT