Chapters 6-8 Response

In my opinion, these three chapters were the funniest chapters I have read in the book so far. First of all, there is the fight that Holden has with Stradlater that starts on page 43 of chapter 6. I thought the fight was very unexpected, but very comical at the same time. Based on Holden's reaction to hearing that Stradlater may have given Jane "the time" when on his date with her, I would say that Holden has some very strong feelings for Jane. I mean, he tried to punch Stradlater! I didn't expect any of these actions from Holden, but I guess I may have had the wrong idea about him. I was very surprised at Holden's childish actions during the fight as well. Holden resorted to name-calling which is very childish in my mind, but it was very funny to see how annoyed and mad he could get Stradlater to be. Holden was very good at provoking the fight because of how he kept getting inside of Stradlater's head. I've seen that all too often with people at our school where they know what makes the other person angry and annoyed, so they start to purposely get on their nerves to create some unneeded conflict.

Another funny moment was in chapter 8 when Holden was "shooting the crap" with Ernest Morrow's mother. The whole conversation that Holden had with Mrs. Morrow was about how amazing and special her son was. It was pretty funny because the whole time you could tell that Holden really got a kick out of making up stories and telling them to people. Holden kept telling Mrs. Morrow how great her son was, even though the truth was that he didn't like Ernest at all and not many others did either. Some of the stories that Holden came up with to tell to Mrs. Morrow on the spot were pretty funny such as how everyone liked Ernest at Pencey and that they wanted him to become the president of their class, which was a huge lie. This was funny to me because it reminds me of kids in general and all of the crazy lies and stories they come up with to tell their parents. Everyone has made up a story and told it to their parents before! Even YOU!!!!! (Whoever is reading this)

Holden is certainly acting like a child throughout much of these chapters, even though he tries so hard to be an adult. He definitely seems to be a little confused with what his purpose in life is, but then again many people at his age are in the process of changing from a kid to an adult and they don't know what they want in life...