Analysis Of Growing Up In The Catcher In The Rye

Arguably, art is the purest form of human expression: it is art that has consistently shaped cultures throughout human history. Various art forms can comfort people, enrage people, unify people, divide people, and overall provoke a form of sentiment in people. In certain circumstances literature and music harmonize with each other, forming an entity that is capable of both igniting a powerful emotional response in an audience and illuminating a deeper meaning in both pieces of art. In The Catcher in the Rye, a paradigmatic American novel, the protagonist Holden Caulfield has a myriad of paradoxical characteristics that make him both relatable and detestable, but most of all, complex. Nevertheless,

Holden has matured in many ways throughout the novel. He had grown from an immature child who only cared about himself to a mature adult who wanted to make something of his life. In the beginning of the story we are introduced to

In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden, cannot accept that he must move out of childhood and into adulthood. One of Holden’s most important major problems is his lack of maturity. Holden also has a negative perspective of life that makes things seem worse than they really are. In addition to Holden’s problems he is unable to accept the death of his brother at a young age. Holden’s immaturity, negative mentality, and inability to face reality hold him back from moving into adulthood.

Holden is very immature and cannot act his age for anything. In the beginning of the story, Holden was very immature and self-centered and he often did very immature things, but he wanted to be an adult. This is very contradicting considering that he is very immature. In the novel, Holden states, “Boy! I said. I also say Boy! quite a lot. Partly because I have a lousy vocabulary and partly because I act quite young for my age sometimes. I was sixteen then, and I'm seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I'm about thirteen.” (Salinger 16). This shows how Holden is very immature and needs to start acting his age and this could be dangerous to society. This is why he needs to stay inside the mental facility. In the mental facility, he will be safe and he will not cause any harm to anyone or to himself

Throughout the story Holden experiences loss multiple times, but one stands out to him among all others. Holden loses his brother when he is 13 years old to leukemia. Holden then freaks out and unleashes his anger in the garage and punches out all of the windows causing him to break his hand. “I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage. I don't blame them. I really don't. I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it.”(P.44) Holden had a strong relationship with his brother, he did everything with him except for one time, and he feels guilty about it and he always thinks back about it when he is upset. This shows how Holden acts without someone to make a connection to as would everyone if they lose someone that means so much to them.

Holden experiences extreme difficulty accepting his current realities and one of the main factors causing this is the lasting negative impact his brother Allies death had on his life. Firstly, when Holden decides to leave his school, he tells readers , “I don’t care if it’s a sad goodbye or a bad goodbye, but when I leave a place, I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse” (Salinger, 4). Holden’s need for closure is evident in this quote. When Allie died, it was very unexpected and he was not prepared to let him go, resulting in his denial that his brother is actually

Throughout the book, Holden tries to talk and act as a mature person around other adults, yet can't restrain himself from acting as an immature teenager. Holden at a young age obviously lost his innocence; he talks about the many things that annoys him. He curses and judges everything that he sees. Holden interprets people's action differently because according to him, everyone has different motives.

Holden is detached from responsibilities, and life in general. Holden does not apply himself in school and shows that in his note to his teacher in an essay, “It is all right with me if you flunk me though as I am flunking everything else except English anyway, Respectfully yours, Holden Caulfield (12).” The reason Holden does not care about school is because he does not care about his future, “Oh, I feel some concern for my future, all right. Sure. Sure, I do...But not too much, I guess. Not too much, I guess (14).” Holden is also detached from his family, specifically his father, and not having a loving father figure can affect a person, “You can hit my father over the head with a chair and he won't take up, but my mother, all you have to do to my mother is cough somewhere in Siberia and she'll hear you. She's nervous as hell (158).” The only meaningful relationship Holden has is with Phoebe. Holden can not confide with anybody except for Phoebe and even if there was someone else to confide with Holden doesn’t have the will to explain the problems that are occurring, “I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it (122).” Part of the treatment will be to help Holden to trust again. This trust will allow him to open up and not keep all of his problems to

Holden can save some peoples' innocence, but he himself hasn't even reached the adult world

Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye, is stuck in between two very important phases of life. As James Bryan would say Holden “is poised between two worlds: one he can not return to and one he fears to enter.” Holden Caulfield grasps on to childhood because adulthood confuses him. He does often contemplate about adulthood, but he still seems to not understand many concepts that occur within the adult world. Holden Caulfield makes a great deal of decisions that show that he is still acting like a child, but he also shows a lot of actions that have him leaning towards the progression into adulthood. Even though he makes these crucial actions that could lead him into adulthood he always seems to fall right back into his

He doesn’t apply himself at school. He doesn’t want to become smarter than Allie was. He doesn’t care about his life. Holden has failed out of

Holden’s relationship to his sister Phoebe and his outlived relationship with his brother Allie both exercise as means of preserving his own adolescence and innocence. Holden analyzes the traits of his younger siblings and longs to keep those aspects of their individuality alive within himself. Sustaining ties to his childhood is one of Holden’s compulsions; which is balanced with his second compulsions which is to ward off ones advancement into adulthood. We can see these qualities of Holden through his lack of motivation to excel in school. Another example of this tendency is when he is reluctant to have sex with Sunny the prostitute, although a part of him was eager to take a step towards adulthood, he was too timid and scared of losing his own innocence. Phoebe immediately realizes Holden’s obsession with preserving the innocence within people; especially her, and she calls him out "You don't like anything that's happening. . .

     Although Holden is extremely cynical and struggles with relationships, he is not all bad. Inside he is moral and generous. He was very charitable when he gave a considerable donation of twenty dollars to the nuns. Holden has a strange way of loving people.

Holden, a young adult has trouble accepting the fact that he is growing up, and time cannot wait for him to accept that. He constantly struggles to realize that actions come with consequences, and that one cannot remain a kid and an adult at the same time. One must make decisions and determine what kind of future they want to have based on those decisions

Adult’s play a big role in why Holden viewed the world as such a bad place because he loathed that they were always trying to impress someone. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory played a big role in the development of Holden as a character due to