This song would be played on page 122 at the bottom of the page after Holden can't find Phoebe. The song talks about loneliness and how depressing life itself can seem when a person is lonely, and Holden is very lonely at this point in the text. He can't even find his only friend.
The song Rocket Man, by Elton John, represents Holden's depression and insanity through its lyrics about the mindset of lonely people. In the first verse of the song, Elton says, "I miss the earth so much I miss my wife, It's lonely out in space, On such a timeless flight". I think this conveys Holden's depression, but instead of missing a wife, Holden is missing all of his friends and mostly his family. Holden is always alone and he searches for friendship on a long and "timeless" journey. On page 122, Holden seems like he wants to give up on everything in his life because he's deeply depressed. He says, "When I got to the museum, all of a sudden I wouldn't have gone inside for a million bucks. It just didn't appeal to me-and here I'd walked through the whole goddam park and looked forward to it all. If Phoebe'd been there, I probably would have, but she wasn't" (122). I think this point in the book relates to the line "And I think it's gonna be a long long time" from Rocket Man because Holden is feeling like it will be forever until he finds Phoebe.
I agree with your idea of this song representing Holden's loneliness and depression due to that loneliness. Holden often seems to metaphorically feel like "a rocket man out in space" isolated from the world, and this song fully embodies that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Max and Heru about this song demonstrating Holden's feeling of isolation. I also think the line from the song, "I'm not the man they think I am," relates to Holden because Holden puts on so many characters for different people, like trying to act mature at the bar, or acting like he was friends with the mother he met on the train. He acts in such different ways that no one really knows what his true character is, so everyone thinks of him differently, some of which are not true. In that way, Holden is not the person people think he is because he rarely acts like himself.
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