Meaningful Vignette Moments in Catcher in the Rye

Holden was talking about his old roommate, Dick Slagle, and how he had cheap suitcases. Holden hates cheap suitcases, probably for the reason he hates a lot of other things; it’s phony. One detail I drew from this moment was when Holden was describing how Slagle described Holden’s things as bourgeois: “Everything I had was bourgeois as ----. Even my fountain pen was bourgeois. [Slagle] borrowed it off me all the time, but it was bourgeois anyway” (108). In this moment what I believe Holden was trying to tell us was people ridicule things that they wish they would have, but know they would never get. In this case Slagle wanted to have Holden’s things like the pen or the expensive suitcases or anything that was “bourgeois” of Holden’s, but instead he has the inexpensive suitcases and no fountain pen and nothing that could be considered “bourgeois”.