What Is The Difference Between Holden Caulfield And Allie The Duck

Holden and Phoebe both have childlike minds, except Phoebe is actually a child. In the novel, it appears that the only people Holden likes are innocent people like children and the two nuns. Holden does not want to grow up and experience things as an adult, he wants to keep his innocence even though it is time for him to be a grown up. Phoebe is young, so naturally her mind is childlike since she has not had to be mature yet. “I was sixteen then, and I’m seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I’m about thirteen.” (Salinger, 9) Holden knows he does not act his age, and evidently does not care to change

Throughout the story Holden emphasizes his love for childhood innocence. In a passage he says “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the golden ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything.” (Salinger 211) This immediately points to his affinity for innocence and not having the limits of being and adult. The

J.D Salinger expresses Holden growing up in a vivid image where people can see the clear view of Holden rising upward to be an adult. Throughout the book, Holden ostracizes himself in the society and makes him lonely. The readers can visualize Holden maturing when he realizes that not everybody is his enemy. For instance, when Holden leaves his teacher’s house in fear because the teacher was petting his head; he wondered “if just maybe [he] was wrong about thinking [the teacher] was making a flitty pass at [him]” (194). When he starts wondering if it was his own fault, it exemplifies that Holden is deeply thinking about his acts toward other people. His thinking can also relate to the last sentence “don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” (202). The last sentence is an example of Holden setting his importance on the people around him. But with all the obstacles that he goes through, he realizes that people that are involved in his life are an important factor of his life, and regrets having a live social life. This realization is an example of coming of age because we can truly see Holden’s thinking of what he thinks of a good life is which involves people around him.

Holden as a character displays the alienation of himself through his behaviour. Holden is not the same as many people and believes that everyone is a ‘phony’. Throughout the novel Holden realises more and more that he is different and sees the world differently to others around him. Holden has created an identity for himself and doesn’t want that to be diminished therefore he alienates himself from the rest of society to decrease the chances of that happening. Holden’s old school, Pency Prep, has the motto “since 1888 we have been shaping young boys into splendid, clear-thinking men.” (pg. 2) This increases Holden’s motivation to leave the school as it will be shaping his identity into something he doesn’t want to be; a man. Holden is all about protecting those younger than him from the dangerous world of adult hood and by alienating himself he feels he has a better chance of

“God he was a nice kid, though.” (Salinger, pg. 38). Due to Alle being taken away so young, Holden finds it as if his death was unfair and he didn’t deserve to die leading Holden hopelessly trying to fight the inevitability of growing old and death. Holden wants to maintain as pure as Allie who died at 11 meant he was uncorrupted and as innocent a child can ever be. “He was two years younger than I was, but ;about fifty times as intelligent.” (Salinger, pg.38). Holden begins to yearn for Holden feels not growing up will mean he can be the next best Allie, innocent and uncorrupted reaching what Holden believes is Allie is, a god. Disorting Holden’s thinking leaving him with unhealthy obsession with Allie. Leaving Holden with the belief that children are the only beings of being capable of innocence and pure, thus skewing Holden’s

In the beginning of the chapters, Salinger makes Holden seem relatable to other teens. “I could feel a terrific lecture coming on. I didn't mind the idea so much, but I didn't feel like being lectured to and smell Vicks Nose Drops and look at old Spencer in his pajamas and bathrobe all at the same time.” (Chapter 2) Many young teenagers can relate to this quotation, since not many people find it amusing listening to an elderly lecture. Later on in the book, his childish personality begins to show more and more as the plot moves. At some points, he would like to connect to the adult world and at other points, he rewinds to the idea of every adult being “phony” or insincere people. One example of this is when Holden meets with Sally Hayes on a date. At first, Holden seemed to believe he is in love with her at first, but he came to the state of annoyance and exasperation when he couldn't connect to the adult world Sally was living in when he asked her to move out of state with her. Holden imagines himself as the “catcher in the rye.” He conceptualizes a field of rye perched high on top of a mountain cliff, full of

In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger writes about Holden’s life and how he is remembering his past when he went to Pencey Prep, the last of four boarding schools that he has attended. Holden is seventeen when he tells the story but the part of the story he is telling, he is sixteen, the novel also follows Holden after he has left Pencey Prep. Throughout the novel Holden slowly reveals how he feels towards his roommates, Stradlater and Ackley, and how he feels towards his siblings, D.B., who is a writer in Hollywood and Allie, who passed away from leukemia. Holden shows his lonely, short tempered, and insecure characteristics through name calling and descriptive diction.

He is not intensely preoccupied with academic achievement like many more modern teenagers, having failed out of several prestigious preparatory schools, but he is clearly intelligent and tends to dwell on“heavy” topics like death and loss of innocence. His cynicism and sensitivity, in addition to the trauma he experiences from losing his brother Allie, suggest that he has depression or another untreated mental illness, an interpretation which is common among readers and supported by Holden’s visit with a psychotherapist at the end of the novel. Despite the risks he faces through having an untreated mental illness, shown when he is warned that he is “riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall” through self-destructive behavior, the conformist culture and social niceties of the 1950s prevented him from being able to discuss his thoughts for a large portion of the novel. (186) This culture, specifically the “phony” prep schools, is clearly toxic for Holden and likely contributed heavily towards his negative mental state, and therefore the negative image he often has of

were they feel like they’re alienated. In a lot of ways, Holden also literally wants

Holden does not realize his misconstrued state in life. He believes he is an adult; however he is clearly a young man who has lost his way in life. He has every confidence that the world works in the way he imagines and even says: “It’s funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want (Salinger 84).” Holden displays a sense of arrogance in the way that he envisions that he is better than the rest of the world. Holden believes he is an adult who knows how to handle himself, but he must constantly rely on the guidance of his little sister Phoebe for direction in his life (Svogun n.p.). Holden is just a boy who portrays himself as more than he is, but soon realizes that what he believes himself to be is in fact not genuine.

As described in How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, the five aspects of the QUEST include a quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges and trials en route, and a real reason to go there. In The Catcher in the Rye, the quester is the protagonist Holden Caulfield and the place to go is simply his home in Manhattan, New York. The stated reason for Holden to go home is because he got expelled from his school, Pencey Prep in Agerstown, Pennsylvania, because Holden failed four of his classes. The challenges and trials en route of Holden’s quest include his adventures and interactions with people during the few days Holden was in New York before he was supposed to go home after getting expelled from Pencey

Holden also talks of innocence as if he isn’t innocent himself, and he always remembers to show us his pure side from time to time, “Then, all of a sudden, I started to cry. I couldn’t help it…” (Salinger 198) This is a defining moment because of how in touch he is with his emotions, this seems to be him breaking out of his shell to notice that he can’t always be the tough one, and he needs someone to be there for him during some of his hardships. It’s these types of instances that we can see Holden evolving to become a genuine young adult, and is trying his best to stay calm in these struggles of his, “What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie.” (Salinger 110) He expresses his feelings to Allie, his late brother, when he feels out of place. He tries his best to keep his feelings locked up, because he thinks that’s the adult act to take on, yet when he shows us his true side in these occasions, we can really see him thrive.

“The Catcher in the Rye is a genuine initiation tale, even though it is only the candidate undergoing the ordeal who is conscious of what his final decision means; the real evidence of the decadence of his world is that the initiators who impose the ordeals upon him are too much wrapped up in themselves even to understand the meaning of their actions. (French)”. In the book, there are many people that have affected Holden’s life so deeply and they are unaware of this fact, like Allie. Allie is what makes Holden the way he is because of him Holden has taken a likeness to contain the innocence of children for them no to go out into reality because he doesn’t want to see children’s dreams to be shattered like

The standards that young adults are held to in America are exceedingly high. While they are extremely different for men and women, everyone is subject to them, and they can be difficult to handle. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is expected to be much more of an adult than he is mentally. He resorts to defence mechanisms such as aggression and isolation to try to deal with the pressures he is put under. In The Bell Jar, Esther Greenfield lives life in a society that expects her to be less than she is.

     Throughout “The Catcher in the Rye”, Holden Caufield longs for intimacy with other human beings. One of Holden’s main problems is that he sees childhood as the ideal state of being. He thinks that all adults are phonies.