The future is often a scary event for adolescents. Going from a kid to a young adult is a big jump. For people who don’t like change it is a big struggle because they don’t always get all the help they want or deserve. In the book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, a boy named Holden Caulfield is going through this dilemma. He has been to school after school and always getting kicked out. He seems as if he’ll never grow up. Time after time he seems as if he wants to head towards the future. Holden Caulfield tries to do the right thing, but never goes through with them because he doesn’t want to grow up. When talking to others, sometimes Holden doesn’t quite get the hint that he needs to stop talking. Stradlater, Holden’s roommate goes on a date with an old friend of Holden’s, Jane Gallagher. Holden is very fond of this young woman and is jealous of his roommate. After the date Holden asks and asks and asks about what had happened on the date. …show more content…
Holden does just the opposite of that. He lets every little thing get to him and he always has a comment on it. “If there’s one word I hate, it’s grand. It’s so phony”(Salinger 118). This word is just the worst thing ever to Holden. It bothers him that anyone would ever thing to like the word because he doesn’t like it. He just won’t grow up and realize that everyone has different opinions. When young children are learning new things they start to decide what they like and don’t like, but as they grow up their viewpoints become their own. They start to understand that everyone doesn’t think alike and it doesn’t bother them. In Holden’s case, his childhood is still in charge and he hasn’t grown up enough to realize it’s not all about him. This causes him to act in these ways although it is just a single word. Eventually, he may grow up and realize these things, but at the moment he just
Holden allows the reader to hypothesize that he is attracted to a girl named Jane Gallagher, by constantly telling of his fond memories of her, but when push comes to shove his tendency to alienation himself from society, to "protect himself from losing his innocence", takes him over. On page 116 of the novel, Holden tells the reader that after he got his sister a record he went to a phone booth and called Jane's house. But when her mother picked up the phone he hung up. Holden tells the reader that he "didn't feel like getting into a long conversation with her mother" so he hung up but in reality Holden's personal preference of alienating himself frightened him and prevented him of making any contact with Jane.
When we grow up we’re raised to do our best and to be mature. People know their right from wrongs. Throughout the novel The Catcher in the Rye by, J.D. Salinger the main character goes through a difficult life and time growing up. Growing up too fast is not the answer for everything. The main character Holden Caulfield is a misfit because he is very dramatic, he avoids facing things, and he shows reckless behavior.
This character is going to tell it like it is, and he does. The most powerful emotional standpoint in the story is when Holden goes to his sister’s elementary school to deliver her a note. While he is there, he discovers two words scribbled on the wall. “Fuck you.” Most people would look at that and think nothing of it. Some would bow their heads in shame at the person who thought it was funny. Others might laugh. Not Holden. He did not think about the normal persons response to the note. He thought about the child’s response. About how a little kid is going to see that seemingly meaningless phrase and wonder what it means; about how some dirty kid would explain what it meant; and about the person who wrote it and how they are destroying the childhood of everyone who reads the ‘harmless’ graffiti. This section takes the reader to the door of Holden’s mind. It is at this point that one truly understands his emotions.
Holden Caulfield had finally decided to leave Pencey after being expelled for three days. When taking an interview with him, he said, “When I was all set to go, when I had my bags and all, I stood for a while next to the stairs and took a last look down the goddam corridor. I was sort of crying. I don’t know why” (52). Before Holden actually left, Holden yelled at the top of his lungs, “Sleep tight, ya morons” (52). Holden left Pencey sometime after curfew. Since it was too late to call for a cab, he walked all the way to the station. After he got off at Penn Station, he wanted to call someone, so he went to the phone booth to call up someone. At first, Holden couldn’t think of anyone to call. He thought of giving Jane Gallagher's’ mom a call,
Many students and adults do not like the novel,”The catcher in the rye”. The writer of this paper is one of those people. Most of the time the problem is the main charachter, 16 yaer old Holden Caulfeild’s tendencies an language. “ the catcher in the rye”, has been banned from many schools for these reasons, but when one takes a closer look at this seemingly spoiled teenager, one may notice that Holden has a mental illness. Holden Caulfeild has symptoms relating to post traumatic stress disorder, depression, and bipolar disorder. He should be admitted to the State Sanitariom for specialized treatment, thus resulting in better and more stable mental healt in the future for him.
Holden Caufield emphasizes on the loss of innocence in children. He feels that once they lose their innocence, they will soon turn into phonies like everyone else. The loss of innocence is very common in the development in human existence. It is caused by many factors. Past a certain age, children are either forced or led unintentionally into a pathway of corruption. A child is also known to lose their innocence by desires, fantasies, and attention. But once they lose their innocence, they tend to desire to go back and pretend to be young again. In the Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden discusses the importance of innocence in children's lives. He feels that once a child loses his/her innocence, he/she will soon be leaded to a
There is only one experience that unites every single person in the world. Many people in the world can agree that it isn’t always the greatest experience, and many people have an extremely hard time getting through it, but every single adult goes through the act of ‘growing up’. For many, the transition can be very depressing, and confusing. When a child is young becoming an adult seems to be enjoyable and exciting, but it isn’t until that child is forced into the cruel, harsh world where the innocence of childhood can be appreciated and missed. The novel Catcher in the Rye explores how teenagers who are nearing adulthood see the adult world to be incomprehensible. J.D Salinger illustrates the confusion of a teenager when faced with the challenge of transitioning into adulthood using Holden Caulfield.
Holden is constantly using crude phrases that would have shocked the original readers of the book. This is to represent the fact that Holden is trying to merge with the adult world and he assumes that by using more ‘adult’ language he can achieve this. The present day Holden refers to most of the people he met during the time he was in New York as ‘’Old.’’ This helps him to disassociate himself with the past and shows that he feels it is a different part of his life. So although during his ‘journey of discovery’ Holden appears not to have emotionally progressed towards adulthood, clearly he has now evolved and grown up, be it just a
Why does Holden continuously judge people based on their physical appearance? Could this be a projection of his insecurities or a reflection of his mental health?
Stradlater doesn’t know or care. Holden becomes so overwhelmed by the thought of him “giving Jane time,” he gets into a physical altercation with his roommate. After this incident, Holden begins to idealize Jane’s image increasingly, leading to him imagining a fantastic scene after he gets robbed by a pimp, Maurice. “Then I’d crawl back to my room and call up Jane and have her come over and bandage up my guts. I pictured her holding a cigarette for me to smoke while I was bleeding and all” (Salinger 104). This is why Holden can’t talk to Jane; he has created another disjointed image of her in his mind that he uses to rescue himself. Jane saves him; but it’s not really Jane, more likely than not, the Jane in Holden’s head hasn’t existed for years. His image of her becoming more and more warped, and his cowardice in refusing to talk to her, show Holden’s inability to reconcile the past, his childhood, with the present: the fact that he and others around him are growing up. [ADD SOMETHING HERE?]
Several adolescents in today's world are wanting to grow up to become independently at a young age and decide on their own to leave school. In J.D. Salinger novel “The Catcher in the Rye” he introduces the life of Holden Caulfield a seventeen year old boy who experiences difficult times in his life. Holden was a young boy that was kicked out from several schools. When he was going to high school they school was going to kick him out because he was failing four classes and passing one which was English, but before they kicked him out he decided to leave and quit school. In today's world, there are still several young people that are experiencing and making their own decisions for what they have been through in life.
In the book “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger, the story describes Holden Caulfield as a mystery man that a rReader would have to find clues to discover the hidden truth behind him. Holden is afraid to go into the adult world and he wishes he can stay in his childhood world, because Holden wants to avoid the adults world phoniness and it's painful for holden to grow up; knowing thats he’s been through so much as a boy and how he has heard so many lies growing up.
Holden is in a cab on his way to Ernie’s and after he asks the driver with Holden. When Holden asks why he is “sore” about it, the cab driver denies being upset. Holden seems to constantly anger people throughout the story due to his blunt way of addressing topics and his inability to see the positive side of things. The cab driver on the other hand, is clearly upset, but is instead choosing to be passive aggressive by denying his anger. I do not like when people are passive aggressive. I would much rather someone talk to me directly and maturely if they are upset.
Holden is deathly afraid of conforming, growing up, and having to assimilate into the phony adult world. As a result he comes off as hypocritical as he is the most prominent phony in the novel. He constantly lies, refuses to connect with others and overlooks his own pain, letting it deeply impact his life. Holden is a compulsive liar; he does not have one honest conversation with anyone except his sister and Jane for the duration of the novel. When he is on the train with Mrs. Morrow, for instance, he claims his name is Rudolf Schmidt and preaches about what an amazing guy her son is, even though he is “the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey, in the whole crumby history of the school.” (61) This shows that Holden falls victim to the same social conventions as everyone else. He says exactly what Mrs. Morrow wants to hear, despite the fact that he
Holden Caulfield, a boy who struggles with his mental health, starts his story by saying, “I’m not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything. I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas” (Salinger 3). Published in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger depicts a three-day journey of Holden as he tries to find out more about himself. Through his struggle, Holden experiences many obstacles and events, such as depression and profanity, that take place in most teenager’s lives, making the book a primary target for banning due to offensive language, suicidal tendencies, sexual content, violence, and outright negativity (Information). Though The Catcher in the Rye contains controversial topics, such as depression, vulgar language, and sexual discrimination, the novel is still relevant and relatable to teens today; therefore, the story should remain an option for students to read.