Academic Review 2024

6 ST EDWARD’S, OXFORD

as he hangs up her dress, expressing Holden’s emotions as he does so: ‘It made me feel sort of sad when I hung it up… The salesman probably just thought she was a regular girl when she bought it. It made me feel sad as hell – I don’t know why exactly’ (p. 107). It is in this moment that Holden starts to experience an even deeper disappointment with society. Salinger juxtaposes the idea of Sunny being a ‘prostitute and all’ and a ‘regular girl’ in Holden’s thoughts – Holden realises that a girl his age is too young to be a prostitute and recognises her position in society. Although Sunny is the same age as him, she has had her innocence stripped from her time after time already. Salinger reveals that Holden is in so much disappointment and shock, he can only describe himself as feeling ‘sad’, which he repeats twice. The magnitude of gaining this insight firsthand is so large, it is beyond Holden to even process why he feels exactly the way he does. Holden is disappointed that society would allow a young girl However, Sunny also represents Holden’s failure to pass the emotional threshold into adulthood. As Holden waits for Sunny to arrive, he reminisces about all the previous times he has ventured close to engaging in sexual intercourse, lamenting that ‘when you’re getting pretty close to doing it with a girl – a girl that isn’t a prostitute or anything – she keeps telling you to stop’. He states that ‘the trouble with [him] is that [he] stops. Most guys don’t. [He] can’t help it’ (p. 103). Eller (2018) writes: ‘It is as though [Holden] believes that manhood depends on acts of courage to prove one’s dominance and sees it as a personal deficiency that he cannot push forward without women’s consent in such situations.’ Holden’s disappointment at himself is underlined, as he proceeds to elaborate for a total of 13 lines that he just keeps stopping whenever a girl asks him to (p. 103). Salinger suggests that Holden feels as though his failure to have sex with Sunny also represents his failure to become an adult. He thinks that particularly with Sunny’s occupation as a prostitute, she was his very first opportunity to lose his virginity without the possibility of being rejected, yet due to his holding onto his innocence and his emotional fragility and loneliness, he ultimately decides not to do so. Thus, Holden associates these traits as undesirable in becoming an adult and recognises himself to be emotionally not ready – all via his interactions with Sunny.

Holden’s interactions with Sunny furthermore reveal his innermost emotional tendencies, and Sunny allows him to question why he feels the way he does. Holden is so devastatingly lonely and depressed – Salinger first discloses the extent of his misery in his interactions with Sunny. When Sunny enters his hotel room, Holden is so lonely that he attempts to carry on conversing with her, even after realising that he does not have any intention to have sex with her. He notes that ‘she was a lousy conversationalist’ as he ‘sat down again and tried to keep the conversation going’. At the same time, he feels ‘more depressed than sexy’, which he repeats twice (pp. 106, 107). Salinger implies that Holden feels Sunny is not intelligent nor interesting enough to hold a compelling conversation with but as he is already feeling immensely depressed he chooses to persist with a conversation that he would otherwise find unnecessary and painful. This amplifies how lonely he is – he is forcing himself to have a conversation with a person who he finds unrefined and lousy – just so he will not be alone again. Sunny brings out this deeper loneliness in Holden that he has not experienced before, marking this interaction as a critical point in Holden’s emotional development toward adulthood.

On a journey: Holden’s downward descent into misanthropy Sunny’s interactions with Holden provide context and some initial explanation of Holden’s deep anger and disenchantment with society. Upon meeting Maurice in the elevator and hearing about the

opportunity to pay for a prostitute, Salinger shows Holden’s disrespect and condescending attitude towards older women in prostitution, as Holden tells Maurice that he doesn’t ‘want any old bag’ (p. 102). This is ironic as upon meeting Sunny, he feels that she is too young to be a prostitute. As Sunny arrives, Holden notes that she has a ‘tiny little wheeny-whiny voice’ (p. 105) directing the reader’s attention to how surprisingly young Sunny is, with the alliteration of ‘wheeny-whiny’ evoking and exaggerating an air of childishness. Salinger continues this as Holden takes notice of the way Sunny speaks, for example when she says, ‘Like fun you are,’ he thinks she ‘sounded like a real kid’ and proceeds to ask how old she is (pp. 105,106). Salinger also emphasises Holden’s shock at Sunny’s youthfulness