Readers Response #4 - Catcher in the Rye

I have started a new book called The Catcher in the Rye. The main character is Holden who tells the story from in a mental institute, which I am really confused about... He goes to Pencey Prep, in the book he talks about how he is failing 4 of his 5 classes and the only one he is passing in is English. Why that matters? I have no clue but I guess he likes English. Holden doesn't apply himself to school at all. He states that he is the fencing teams manager and how he loses all the equipment on a train ride to their match. The headmaster at Pencey Prep later in chapter two asks Holden to drop by his house so they can talk. So when Holden arrives his teacher is laying there in his bed lecturing to Holden about how he needs to play by the rules and how he wont be allowed to come back to this school after the fall term. The teacher tells him "Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules." Holden is just basically tuning out everything the teacher is telling him and finally just gets fed up with it and walks out in the middle of the teachers lecture about school. Seems to me like this book I am really going to be able to relate to because we both are teenagers and the problems I foreshadow for him in the future are problems I could relate to.

This is a picture that I am imagining the teacher giving Holden a lecture looks like.