Why does stradlater beat up holden

See, most of the guys at Pencey just talk about sex, but Stradlater actually does it. Like this one night, he double-dated with Stradlater in the very same car.

Holden was in the front with his date and Stradlater in the back with his. All night, he could hear Stradlater coercing his date, with a very quiet, sincere voice, while she said things like "No—please.

Please don't" and so on and so forth. That is… troubling. No wonder Holden was so upset. By now, Ackley has fallen asleep. Holden wakes him up and asks him what's the deal with joining a monastery, and if you have to be Catholic to do it. Ugh, he'd probably join the wrong kind of monastery, anyway—the kind with a bunch of "stupid bastards. He did not take any action of displacement at that moment because his feelings were too overwhelming to bear.

D Salinger which relates to how some teens felt at one point in their life. The novel was published to attract adult readers and has become popular for its themes, motifs, and connections an individual has with the main character, Holden Caulfield. We tend to feel a connection to the struggles of Holden Caulfield as we put ourselves in his shoes and see life through his perspective.

The book is still pertinent due to Holden facing challenges such as loneliness and the inability to make a connection to make with a purpose thus the readers see themselves in Holden. Before the turning point, Bud despised being called by other names because of what his mother constantly told him when she was alive.

He also did not have family that he could trust and give love to. A form of egotism is present within Malvolio, Orsino, and Olivia throughout the book, their egotism affects their actions, motivations, and relationships. Malvolio is very self absorbed in imagining what he could have.

Malvolio is strongly in love with Olivia but he is her butler so he cannot act on his feelings. He daydreams about what his life could be like with Olivia. But he found a letter supposedly from Olivia and it had M. But the only problem is… she has a husband with a big ego.

Several years before, Allie died of leukemia. Though he was two years younger than Holden, Holden says that Allie was the most intelligent member of his family.

He also says that Allie was an incredibly nice, innocent child. He gives a brief description of Allie, mentioning his bright red hair. He also recounts that the night Allie died, he slept in the garage and broke all the windows with his bare hands. After he finishes the composition for Stradlater, he stares out the window and listens to Ackley snore in the next room.

Home from his date, Stradlater barges into the room. Holden tears the composition up and throws it away angrily. Afterward, he smokes a cigarette in the room just to annoy Stradlater. The tension between the two increases when Holden asks Stradlater about his date with Jane.

When Stradlater nonchalantly refuses to tell Holden any of the details, Holden attacks him, but Stradlater pins him to the floor and tries to get him to calm down. Holden relentlessly insults Stradlater, driving him crazy until he punches Holden and bloodies his nose. He goes to the Edmond Hotel instead, where he stays in a shabby room.

He looks out of the window and can see the other side of the hotel. From this view he can see other rooms; in one of them, a man takes off his clothes and puts on ladies' clothing, while in another a man and a woman spit their drinks at one another. Holden thinks that he himself is the "biggest sex maniac you ever saw," but then paradoxically claims that he does not understand sex at all. He then thinks of calling Jane Gallagher but again decides against it, and instead considers calling a woman named Faith Cavendish , who was formerly a burlesque stripper and is not quite a prostitute.

When he calls her, he continues to ask whether or not they might get a drink together, but she turns him down at every opportunity. Holden describes his family in more detail in the course of this chapter. His sister Phoebe is the smartest little kid that he has ever met, and Holden himself is the only dumb one.

Phoebe reminds Holden of Allie in physical appearance, but she is very emotional. She writes books about imaginary Hazle Weatherfield, a girl detective. Holden goes down to the Lavender Room, a nightclub in the hotel. The band there is putrid and the people are mostly old. When he attempts to order a drink, the waiter asks for identification, but since he does not have proof of his age, he begs the waiter to put rum in his Coke. Holden "gives the eye" to three women at another table, in particular a blonde one.

He asks the blonde one to dance, and Holden judges her to be an excellent dancer, but a moron. Holden is offended when the woman, Bernice Krebs , asks his age, but he tells these women, who are visiting from Seattle, that his name is Jim Steele. Since they keep mentioning how they saw Peter Lorre that day, Holden claims that he just saw Gary Cooper, who just left the Lavender Room.

Holden thinks that the women are sad for wanting to go to the first show at Radio City Music Hall. By Chapter 6, Salinger has established that Holden suffers some great psychological difficulties, yet knowledge of these instances come from secondary sources. But in this chapter, Salinger brings Holden's unpredictable behavior clearly to the fore.

Holden behaves almost solely on impulse, even when there seems to be no rational motivation for his behavior. As this chapter demonstrates, this inability to control his behavior reaches far beyond any normal teenage impulses, as shown when Holden rips up Stradlater's essay when he fails to appreciate Holden's work. The fight between Stradlater and Holden also shows Holden's inability to control himself; when he suspects that Stradlater has slept with his old friend, Holden responds by punching him.

This event reveals contradictory impulses within Holden. Although he claims that he is a pacifist, a dubious statement that reinforces his status as an unreliable narrator, Holden seems disconnected from the violence he causes and the pain that he suffers.

He views his fight from a distant perspective, appreciating the look of his bloody face without considering the actual fight itself. This predilection for extreme behavior and lack of connection to his own actions will be a consistent theme throughout The Catcher in the Rye , as Holden continues to allow his behavior to reach disturbing extremes. Indeed, The Catcher in the Rye, for all its apparent episodic nature and aimlessness, actually follows a pretty traditional structure, complete with intensifying rising action, leading to a climax, and then ultimately a denouement.

In Chapter 7, Despite the fact that Holden is still bleeding from his fight with Stradlater, he remains curiously unconcerned with his wounds, allowing his mind to focus upon details external to his action physical condition. Holden reveals more of his psychology during this chapter. His greatest concern seems to be whether Stradlater seduced Jane Gallagher, revealing an unhealthy, if predictable, view on sexuality.

Holden follows his thoughts on Jane Gallagher by musing about joining a monastery and thus becoming celibate. Holden seems to harbor a disgust for any type of sexuality, whether Ackley's obviously false boasts or Stradlater's successful seductions. At this point Salinger leaves ambiguous the actual reason why Holden would be concerned about Jane Gallagher in particular, for the only information Holden gives about Jane is that they would often play checkers together. Holden finally reaches a breaking point in this chapter by leaving Pencey early, with no concrete plan for what he will do.

In many ways this is typical of Holden's established patterns of behavior: impulsive, selfish and aimless. His final insult to his fellow students shows that Holden believes himself to be in some major respect different from the other Pencey students, possessing a greater, more acute intelligence.