Weblog 12

Why does Holden find the trip to Ackley’s room heighten his sense of loneliness?

Before going to Ackley’s room, Holden had a verbal and physical fight with Stradlater in which Holden tried to kill him. Although Holden had tried to kill Stradlater by punching Stradlater’s toothbrush down his throat, Holden missed and the fight was over soon after Stradlater gained the upper hand with his strength. Stradlater, who was Holden’s roommate was, in all likelihood, one of the only people in which Holden was slightly friendly with. After the fight, however, Holden’s most viable option was to go to Ackley’s room. Holden, however, had many feelings towards Ackley; but enjoying his company was not one of them. Holden had described Ackley as a “peculiar guy” who “had a terrible personality” and “was also sort of a nasty guy” (page 19). Holden also added that Ackley had “lousy manners” (page 23) and said his room “always had a funny stink in it, because he was so crumby in his personal habits” (page 46). Holden’s description of Ackley were very demeaning towards Ackley and it would be implied that Holden would never really want to hang out that much with Ackley simply because he did not like Ackley as a person and that his personal hygiene was very repellent. However, after the fight with Stradlater, Holden did not have much of an option but to go to Ackley’s room for to be comforted by Ackley’s company; this, however, degraded Holden to Ackley’s ‘level.’ In addition to resorting to Ackley for comfort, Ackley himself did not want Holden’s company. While Holden wanted to communicate with Ackley, Ackley simply just wanted to sleep. A sign where Ackley wanted to get rid of Holden was when Holden wanted to sleep on Ackley’s roommate, Ely’s, bed, but Ackley pretended to have manners and said that couldn’t “just tell somebody they can sleep in his [Ely’s] goddamn bed if they want to” (page 47). Also, Ackley said directly to Holden that he could leave if he doesn’t like the room on page 48. “If you don’t like it, you know what you can do…” This shows that Ackley is implying that Holden should leave his room. Thus, because Ackley, a person who Holden believed was so inferior did not want to be with Holden, made Holden feel much worse than before. This was probably the time where Holden acknowledged his true sense of loneliness and how he had nobody in Pencey.