I made a comment a couple of days ago in class about how Holden would see Esther and the other girls she works with, and how he would probably have a very wrong idea of what kind of people they are (or at least Esther is).
The basic point I made was that it is hard to know people from just a quick glance at them. This is a fact that Holden blatantly ignores through Catcher as he continuously judges everyone he meets, and often makes huge assumptions about their lives. I do not say this in an attack on Holden, because he does sometimes think positive things (particularly about the kids he meets). I just think that Holden feels quite depressed in a large part because he feels so alone, and that no one understands or thinks like him. I think that how he was likely viewing Esther only proves that Holden's loneliness was at least partially invented. If he had seen Esther, he would have assumed she did not feel at all similarly to him. In reality, Esther does feel at least in part much like Holden. I think that if Holden had approached more people with his thoughts, he would have found some people who agreed. Admittedly, many people would have reacted like Sally Hayes, but I think that if he had persevered and talked to more people instead of just getting discouraged, Holden would in the end be much happier and feel much less lonely.
I am trying to write a paper from Holden's perspective about how Stephen's issue is that he never connects with people (unlike Holden who has Phoebe) but I think that this also applies to Holden. Also I realize that both that paper and this post assume a lot of things based on previous assumptions about Holden and Stephen, but despite this, I think that most of my assumptions are valid and based off of legitimate aspects of their characters.
