Chapter 24 starts out with Holden entering Mr. and Mrs. Antolini's house and ends with him leaving. Mr. Antolini was Holden's favorite teacher and we find out that Holden used to hang out with Mr. Antolini quite often when Holden left Elkton Hills. All of chapter 24 is basically Holden and Mr. Antolini, and his highball Holden constantly point out, talking about life. In some ways I feel as if throughout the whole book, Holden has been wanting to talk to somebody but the moment he gets that chance he does not want to. I also found it sort of funny how Holden failed Oral Expression class which teaches you how to speak and how if the speaker got side tract from the topic (just like Holden does) the class yells digression. We also get to see a soft side of Holden once again when he says "I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It's nice". He says this when he explains how he felt sorry for Richard Kinsella when everybody would yell digression at him. During this chapter it is obvious that Mr. Antolini knows Holden very well, for example, he states " I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. But I don't honestly know what kind". The way I interpreted it was that Holden's abyss is approaching him and that maybe Holden never really crosses back into the "known" world or at least he never crosses back into in this book. In this chapter Mr. Antolini comes across to me as a mentor, he is constantly giving Holden advice but Holden just doesn't seem to be listening. His excuse for not listening was because he had a headache, then a stomach ache, then because he was just tired but maybe Holden just didn't want to listen. At the end of the chapter Holden wakes up from the feeling of a mans hand and it turns out to be Mr. Antolini's hand stroking Holden. Holden then tells us that he has had more problems with perverts than we can imagine. Do you think Holden over exaggerated the whole scenario?
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