Pencey

Do onto others as you would like to be treated is the golden rule. Students and teachers enjoy being treated with respect and honor, while being seen as equals. Irreverence is the only quality presented at some schools and this does not allow learning, and good experiences to coexist. Pencey Prep in The Catcher in The Rye is one of these schools. These types of learning centers must be changed for the sake of all who work there.

Like any other school with problems in its staff as well as an undisciplined student body, Pencey seems to take the level of hatred and violence to the extreme. Boys openly brawl and whip each other as tensions mount between student and mentor. This is what makes Pencey the root cause of Holden’s insanity. Teachers are sarcastic and unforgiving, while witty enough to make hurtful comments. Pupils are always lying and insensitive about the feelings, they openly mistreat their fellows. Pencey makes all of Holden’s insecurities worse, for Holden had been weakened by years of falling short in almost all aspects of life. He deteriorated until he was toeing the line, and was barely hanging on. Pencey turned out to be the most hostile of all his schools. Here he develops a hatred for human nature, and everything appears “phony” in his eyes. Every thing here turns Holden into a loose cannon, he then makes more bad decisions such as going to New York where the behaviors of people traumatize him, and sends him over the line.

Schools already provides an awkward environment for their students to learn in, and Pencey, one with a faculty that displays apathy on a daily basis creates a antithesis environment for children, which goes against the journey from innocence, for childhood should be a fun period of time. This is why such schools must be changed for it represents the worst in education.