How Does Holden Contradict

Holden knows that his plan is impossible, it is a comforting daydream born out of desperation; Holden resorts to fantasy because his desires ultimately contradict. Holden begins this passage gripped by paranoia that he will “never get to the other side of the street”(217) and that “nobody’d ever see [him] again”(217). Sweating through his shirt, he becomes so distressed that he begins to plead with Allie to save him, despite the fact that he considers the interaction “make believe”(218). Although Holden does not believe that Allie can really help him, he is driven to praying to him out of lack of better options. Holden is “still sweating”(218),meaning that his anxiety persists, as he decides to “go away”(218). Initially, it seems as though
The things he would actively do are of no concern to him; he doesn’t care about what job he would have as long as “people didn’t know me and I didn’t know anybody”(218). He would pretend to be deaf so that he “wouldn’t have to have any goddamn stupid useless conversations with anybody”(218). Even the seemingly positive aspects of Holden’s fantasy are phrased in terms of what they are not. His cabin would be “near the woods, but not right in them”(219) rather than simply in the sun. Holden’s loving wife and family are not even integral to his dream. He frames their existence as optional, saying “if I wanted to get married or something”(219) and “if we had children”(219). Conversely, he states that his wife would not be able to hear, and that his children would not be tampered with in definite terms, saying that “we’d hide [the children] somewhere”(219) and “I’d meet this beautiful girl that was also deaf mute”(219). This demonstrates that the purpose of mentioning these things was to explain how they would not exhibit the traits he so dreads. These positive aspects of Holden’s dream are only vehicles for showing what he is