Catcher In The Rye Comparison Essay

Since the story is only told through his eyes we might not be getting the whole truth. We are just getting his opinion on things and this causes us to only know what he believes. All the things we see in the novel are very one sided and might not be true since he does admit that he lies a lot. By the end of the novel Holden grows up a little and starts to come to senses with reality. This changes our view on the theme because it shows us how much he changed and how much he grew throughout the novel.

Throughout the novel, Holden attempts to find the true from of himself as he struggles with the social interactions around him. Due to the struggle and confusion that arouses from it,

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.

He hides under a visage of a cool ‘bad boy’ trope, seeing the world through a heavy filter- to him, anyone who's anyone is a phony, a liar, or just plain bad, despite him judging many things he later goes on to do himself. Over the course of the book we come to see Holden has built an opinion of the world that shields him from the pains and complexities of life. The author displays Holden’s traits quite prominently, especially through his use of language; he writes as Holden speaks- vulgar, rambling, and easily derailed, jumping from idea to idea infinitely

In terms of the hunting hat, Holden put it on his head and claimed “I didn’t give a damn how I looked” yet when he entered the train car, he took the hat off. Possibly, because he somehow felt foolish with it on. If he truly didn't care how he looked with the hat on then he wouldn’t have felt the need to exclaim it. The hat seems to have some significance to Holden. I assumed it represented Allie because Allie’s hair was red and the hunting hat was also red. The themes of lying and deception are evinced when he lies to the lady on the train about his identity claiming his name was Rudolf Schmidt and that he had a brain tumor. Holden seems to struggle between adulthood and childhood. In this instance, he portrays himself as someone older when he asks the lady if she would “care for a cocktail” and when he invites her to go clubbing. His interaction with the lady shows that maybe he isn’t as socially awkward as he’s

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

Modernism basically moves away from the romanticism trend to focus more on the individual in the story, which is seen throughout the story. For example, “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like…” (Salinger 1). That quote is exactly how the story starts off, so a couple of things are already clear: The story is in a first-person point of view and the tone is that of an average attitude-filled teenager. On top of this, while the entire story is being narrated by Holden, the reader doesn’t get the chance to be able to interact with him and vice versa. Thus, creating a type of mood that makes it seem as though the reader is stuck in Holden’s head, but the upside of this is that the reader is able to read and understand the character and his values much better.

During the novel Holden lies to cover up his real feelings or as an excuse to not tell the truth. In Chapter 3 Holden says, “I’m the most terrific liar…” he continues by saying how frequently he lies to get himself out of trouble (Salinger, 2010:17). After Holden is expelled he decides to leave Pency and life it up for three days in New York because he cannot stay longer. Holden cannot go home sooner because he’s not feel like telling the truth to his parents (Salinger, 2010: 54). Holden choses to do the wrong thing because it is easier than to stay at Pency till Wednesday or to face his parents. Holden is contradictory he says, “I’m quite illiterate but I read a lot.” (Salinger, 2010:19). One cannot be illiterate if you read a lot. Holden is even more contradictory when he speaks of Allie in heaven but admitted that he is an atheist (Salinger, 2010:107). It is clear that Holden’s words and actions are contradictory when he says that the movies are phony but attends the movies a few times during the three days (Salinger, 2010:30).Holden’s character is riddled with dishonesty, wrong choices, and contradictions and true to an

In the article “The Five levels of Maslow 's hierarchy of needs” by Abraham Maslow explains the basic needs that a person wants to achieve during his or her lifetime. Cherry states that there are 5 basic needs a person wants to achieve, which are physiological, security, social, esteem, and self actualization being the highest of these needs. The needs go up as a pyramid and the higher you go the longer and harder the needs are to full fill. Then higher needs become more important than the needs below it. Maslow also explains in the article how the needs will not necessarily appear in the same order depending on the type of person. In the book “Catcher in

Essay In the book “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D Salinger, the person telling the story, Holden Caulfield, talks about a part of his life when he becomes lonesome and how he wanted someone to approch and have a good comunication about how he views life. Throughout the story, Holden talks about the characters in the book whom he comes across and how Earth is filled with “phonies”. Today's teenagers can relate to Holden in some way because being a teenager myself, sometimes feel like there is no one I can talk to or no one to relate to. Many teens today only want someone who they can be open to, perhaps someone congenial.

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

“I swear to God I’m crazy. I admit it.” It is very easy to automatically assume that Holden Caulfield is crazy. It’s even a logical assumption since Caulfield himself admits to being crazy twice throughout the course of the book. However, calling Holden Caulfield crazy is almost the same as calling the majority of the human race crazy also. Holden Caulfield is just an adolescent trying to prevent himself from turning into what he despises the most, a phony. Most of Caulfield’s actions and thoughts are the same as of many people, the difference being that Holden acts upon those thoughts and has them down in writing.

Although there are essentially two Holdens, there are still traits that remain the same. Throughout the story, Holden feels the need to explain and justify himself, as though people don’t believe him. Holden tells the story

In the book, Holden, has problems with his school, Holden does not try in school and does not care what he gets in school. Holden says, “I forgot to tell you about that. They kicked me out. I wasn't supposed to come back after Christmas vacation, on account of I was flunking four subjects and not applying myself and all” (Salinger 4). For the character Holden is hard for him to accept that he has grown into a grown man, from being a kid. Holden does things that are adult like, but he does not know that he is hurting himself and making him suffer with the problems that he has with smoking.

Holden though Radio City phony and ridiculous. At the time Holden stayed at the Radio city, there was a Christmas parade. Especially, as Holden hates religion that he is not fond of talking about Catholics, he thought the city as trivial and superficial. Holden despised watching “all these angels start coming out of the boxes and everywhere”; the parade was gaudy and “mad,” and for “god’s sake,” he could not see “anything religious or pretty” (137)