James Castle
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Thu, 20 May 1999 23:52:38 +1000
Just listening to the second half of Paul's radio show (and fascinating
listening it is too) it occurs to me just how much of a double for Holden
can be found in the character of James Castle. What made this occur to me
initially is the fact that unlike Seymour (if you ignore the early short
stories) he is not deceased. However, his `mirror', James Castle, the boy
who was wearing Holden's shirt when he died - and most notably, died nobly
for a cause - does. Antolini, and Antolini only, treats James with the same
care and the same physicality that he does Holden, but the fact that James
is dead precludes our thinking of him as a predator or pedophile. Though -
Holden won't actually mention what prompted James to jump out that window,
though he implies that it is abusive and possibly sexual, which would give
him another point of reference him, as someone who has been interfered with
and `can't stand it'.
Was it James Castle that Antolini was thinking of when he gave Holden that
talk at the end of the book? You could imagine that when Antolini saw the
poor motionless person on the ground in Holden's shirt, his first thought
could have been: it's Holden. He's jumped off that crazy cliff. After all,
what Antolini is basically doing is convincing Holden not to take the same
route as James Castle did. Something occurs to me - it's crazy and very
obscure - but I remember that someone mentioned that `Holden' meant in Old
English `dweller of the valley'. Which would put him as far away from
someone in a Castle as he could be. Or on the other hand, the top of a
tower is not unlike the top of a cliff ... a cliff also being a classic
image of suicide. At the very least, James would have to have been one of
the people Holden would have liked to stop falling off the cliff.
P.S. Someone else says in the radio show - I think it was Will but I could
be wrong - said that teaching was their personal version of living humbly
for a cause. This seems very notable to me because the first thing I
thought when Holden was telling the small boys about the Egyptians was -
ah! It's so obvious. Holden is a teacher. That's his vocation. That's what
he wants to live humbly for.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
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