As Othello was being manipulated by a situation that really should not have harmed him, Holden was also going through a related experience. When Holden was at Phoebe's school to deliver a note, he noticed a shocking profanity on the wall, and angrily thought:.
It drove me damn near crazy .
I kept wanting to kill whoever'd written it. I.
I figured it was some perverty bum that'd sneaked in the.
school late at night to take a leak or something and.
then wrote in on the wall. (p. 201).
Instead of ignoring the profanity on the wall, Holden becomes enraged and naturally assumes this was the works of an adult through his naivety and false illusion. With the vulgarity written on the wall still on Holden's mind, he begins to be disturbed by his thoughts as he says, "If I ever, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say Holden Caulfield' on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say Fuck You'."" (p. 204). The illusion that this profanity would be written on Holden's tombstone troubles him and therefore, he suffers from this pessimistic thought. It is evident that both Othello and Holden Caulfield suffer heavily by their illusions from situations that really meant to harm. Situations caused these two characters to suffer, alike, they both also suffer from another similar source.
Holden Caulfield and Othello both suffer greatly from the words of two unlawful characters. Although Holden is not particularly gullible, certain statements made by his roommate, Stradlater, an honest man, may have pushed some of the wrong buttons. As Stradlater mentions that he has a date with a childhood friend of Holden, Jane Gallagher, fury and rage elevates in Holden as he exclaims, "What'd you do? Give her the time in Ed Banky's goddam car?- (p. 43). Rather than calmly analyzing the situation, and taking an optimistic approach to what Stradlater said, Holden hastily jumps to conclusions, and now this negative illusion has been planted in his mind.
