Banagher begins his story adrift in his normal life, living day by day just feeling disjointed when dealing with the future he desires. His interactions with society are similar to this in the sense that conforming to the norms of life leads to more disjointedness. Through the feeling of being out of place in the world, Banagher isolates himself from others. When interacting with others at a party (that he doesn't want to be at) with his classmates he expresses his distaste in the behavior of his peers. He's annoyed by the fast paced music that fills the void of silence he prefers, he's unnerved by a drunken girl who doesn't care about the cola she just spilled on him, he's uncomfortable mingling with the girls fawning over his "cool, quiet, and rebellious nature", and he simply feels distant and different from everyone else that seems to enjoy this atmosphere. "That’s why he set up an invisible wall and treats himself as a wall flower, but these brains that are intoxicated and relaxed by alcohol don’t seem to understand his intent. Banagher starts to feel that the pressure building up in his heart continues to rise like a storm beating away as the uncomfortable body temperature surrounds him. 'I shouldn’t be here.' A part of him is prompting him to hurry up and leave, and another part of him is warning him that it’ll be a path of no return if he really does leave. In the end, he’s only left with self chiding in his heart, wondering why must he curl his tail and run off." It's not because he's surrounded by strangers, and it's not this party alone where he feels out of place; it's all of his endless daily life that he feels distanced from. The story commonly uses eyes as a metaphor for an individual's position in humanity. While staring into the limp eyes of a drunken girl, he remembers the adamant jade green eyes of the girl he rescued earlier. He makes the interesting point that both of these eyes appear inhuman, symbolizing the two opposing worlds that these people occupy; the normal world he thinks he should be in but feels disjointed and the mysterious world with the events surrounding the jade eyed girl where he feels he belongs, but fears losing his normal future. "He feels the gears that were spinning well even though they didn't fit have stopped completely today, becoming completely loose. It’s this kind of thing that made Banagher anxious and frustrated. He shouldn’t be blaming this on the people around him; Banagher hasn’t lost such rationality yet." Does Banagher's angsty distancing and isolation sound familiar to any other aimless 16 year olds? Yep, you've probably guessed by now, Banagher and Holden Caulfield turn out to have a lot in common. While Banagher isn't nearly as expressive or cynical about his dislike in the rest of society, nor does he blame people for the way they are, they do both have the same aversion to the "phony" behavior of others and both end up separating themselves from the rest of the world. | Banagher Links = 16, aimless, and isolated Holden Caulfield = 16, aimless, and isolated |