Tuesday, December 2, 2008

What two health issues does Holden pretend he has in Chapter 20?Why do you believe that our main character behaves this way?

Holden first believes he had a bullet in his guts. Then he thought he was going to die of pneumonia.  I think the reason that Holden pretends that he has these things wrong with him is because he wants someone to care about him. He wants someone to show him compassion. He wants to have the feeling that someone would actually care about him if he got hurt or died. He said he had bullets in his guts because he probably had the feeling in his guts that he wasn't being cared about. He thought nobody cared about him so it felt like he had bullets in his guts. Holden smoked a lot for someone who is his age so he probably felt that something would eventually be wrong with his lungs. He faked pneumonia because he probably felt that nobody cares about the fact that he is damaging his lungs by smoking but he wanted to see if they would care if he had pneumonia.

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