Catcher In The Rye :: essays research papers

Catcher in the Rye The setting of this story takes place in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. The home of Pency boarding school. Pency is a college prep schools that advertises only the best things about it and never mentions how much the students will hate going there. On the brochure there is a fake, imaginary student that does not exist playing polo. In real life, there are a couple hundred spoiled little rich students whose parents do not want the trouble of raising them. In the beginning of the story Holden is watching the Friday night football game from a hill. He had just gotten back from a fencing match that had to be cut short in New York because the captain of the fencing team, which happened to be Holden, left all of the equipment on the subway. Needless to say it was a long trip home for Holden. After all of this has happened Holden gets back only to learn that he has been released from Pency and placed on academic probation. Holden was not stupid by any means but if he did not desire to learn what was being taught he refused to try. The professors on the other hand did not agree with Holden’s reasoning. Therefore, he was failing all but one of his classes. Holden had a friend that was a teacher at Pency. He was probably the only person that halfway understood him. The only problem was that Mr. Spencer was old and senile and did not have much pull with in the school board, which meant he did not serve as much help in Holden’s cur rent situation. Mr. Spencer was always trying to prepare Holden for life. Holden rarely listened but felt obligated to say good-bye to him because he had tried to understand him, which is more than most people had ever done for him. Holden went to visit Mr. Spencer before he left. Holden was a prime example of a spoiled little rich kid who had everything but acted as though he had nothing. He had no real friends to rely on, only other spoiled rich kids who were never deprived of anything. This time was different though. This was not the first time that Holden was removed from a school. Holden always knew there was always another boarding school that would be happy to accept him and his money. This time he was not going to just sit back and wait for the next school to pick him up, he was going to enjoy himself while he could.