The Significance of a Sidewalk
I really want to talk about the scene where Holden feels like he's going to fall through the road whenever he steps off a sidewalk curb (this takes place the morning after he leaves Mr. Antolini's home). Although this scene was very brief, I saw an immediate connection to the passage where Holden sees a little boy walking on the road right beside the curb instead of the sidewalk, while singing "if a body catch a body coming through the rye" carefreely. I just found this contrast too great. While Holden almost has a mental breakdown every time he has to leave the safety of the sidewalk, the boy just nonchalantly strolled down the road while several cars whizzed past him. I think this kind of signifies how Holden is so far gone from being an innocent child without a care in the world. There's no way that Holden can go back to having that innocence as a child no matter how hard he tries to avoid adulthood. I also saw a parallel between this scene and a line that Mr....