Mr. Antolini

Let's just cut right to the chase. Does Mr. Antolini come on to Holden? The answer is…it's not clear. But you can argue either way.

There are definitely some hints that something is up here. We know that Mr. Antolini's wife is much older than he is, unattractive, and has a lot of money. While the two kiss a lot in public, they're never in the same room together, which makes us wonder if they're making a public show of what privately may be a marriage of convenience. If this is true, we could buy that, although married to a woman, Mr. Antolini is in fact gay.

Mr. Antolini calls Holden "handsome" before heading off to bed, and then sits next to him in the dark (while Holden's sleeping), and pets his head. When asked about it, he pretends things are casual, but lets slip a "I'm simply sitting here, admiring." Admiring? Sure sounds like he's attracted to Holden. When he's caught and accused, Mr. Antolini tries to shift the focus to Holden, accusing him of being a "very, very strange boy."

On the other hand, Holden and Mr. Antolini have been friends a long time, and the two are obviously close. They used to play tennis together, Mr. Antolini hangs with Holden's parents, and we can tell from his lengthy discoursing that he cares a lot about his former student. You could see calling Holden "handsome" as simply a friendly "good night." And Mr. Antolini may have been too distraught at this young man's plight to get any sleep. He might simply be ruminating about the boy's future when Holden wakes up, has a cow, and leaves in a nervous huff.

As it turns out, we have to choose not only how to interpret this scene, but also how to interpret Holden's subsequent comment that "When something perverty like that happens, I start sweating like a bastard. That kind of stuff's happened to me about twenty times since I was a kid." Twenty times? Holden is prone to exaggeration, but still – twenty times.

Now we also have to wonder what exactly falls into Holden's category of "perverty" behavior. If the preceding fiasco was sexual in nature, and if that sort of thing has happened frequently to Holden, we can understand why he always sees sex as degrading – might been the victim of sexual molestation on several occasions. On the other hand, if the Antolini business wasn't sexual, and if Holden just thinks that normal behavior is "perverty," the problem is with him, not his environment or circumstance.

Now let's look at Mr. Antolini's big lecture on education. He makes some rather compelling points in his argument that Holden needs to take school seriously. 1) Teaching and learning is a beautiful and symbiotic relationship, 2) Native talent can go to waste without the proper cultivation, and 3) Holden's much less likely to die a bitter, angry death if he gets an education.

Now, if he's coming-on to Holden, one and two could be potentially self-serving. But, giving Mr. Antolini the benefit of the doubt, these are all rather reasonable arguments. We'd go ahead and argue that it sounds like the tone here is genuine; that is, it doesn't seem like the author is poking fun at this set of beliefs in any way. It sounds a lot more like this is the real deal. And interestingly, Holden doesn't make sarcastic comments in response. He's tired, and he doesn't exactly applaud the speech, but he doesn't berate it as being phony either, which is sort of a first.

What does it mean, then, if the one person (besides Phoebe) who offers Holden real emotional help ends up trying to take advantage of him sexually? Or, what does it mean for Holden to imagine that this one person is trying to molest him? Does it negate the value of Mr. Antolini's advice? Taint it in some way? We'll let you take it from here.