Journal Entery

Date: September 24, 2007

Entery Number: 2

Page/Quote reflecting on: Pg. 4

I don't understand when Holden says, "I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by" (4). (He even spelled bye wrong.) How can you feel some kind of a goodbye from a prep school who gives many guys the boot? He says, "I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse." I understand part of this statement but it is still really confusing. If you leave a place you really like and you don't know that you are leaving for good then it is sad because you'll never see it again and you didn't really get to say goodbye. But Holden really didn't like all those prep schools and especially Pencey. He was always talking about how fake all these guys were and how the headmaster, Mr. Thurmer, was really fake too. He really didn't say all to much about the positive things of Pencey. For most people if you had to leave a place you really didn't like, it would be a good ridance and, for me, I wouldn't care if I got a goodbye or not, I'd just be happy to leave. So it is rather interesting that he needed a goodbye to know that he was really leaving, which I still don't really get. (If I thought harder I could maybe come up with something more but it's late.)