Catcher In The Rye Phoebe Character Analysis

The whole book is set as a flashback of Holden's past year. When he starts narrating the story, he mentions that he got "pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy". This says that Holden has had a tough year, with a breakdown, he is in some kind of place where he's taking it easy. His previous diction/word choice gives us hints that he might actually be in a mental hospital(words like madman). He describes the place as 'crumby' and also says that his brother, D.B., visits him every weekend. And, at the very end of the book, last chapter (26), Holden says, "...this one psychoanalyst guy they have here, keeps asking me if I'm going to apply myself when I go back to school next September." 'Psychoanalysis' is, according to FreeDictionary, " The method of

Holden can’t get over the loss of his brother’s death, Allie, and even blames himself partially for his death. Holen in the book says “Anyway, that’s what I wrote about Stradlater’s composition about. Old Allie's baseball mitt. ”(Salinger 39). These two quotes both explain how Holden feels on the inside and the outside.

One of the hardships Holden must cope with is his inability to come to terms with death, in particular that of his younger brother, Allie. Holden seems to have experienced a

Holden’s immaturity causes him many problems throughout the story. Although he is physically mature, he acts more like a child. “All of a sudden I

In chapter 21 Holden returns home two days early because he wants to say his goodbyes to Phoebe, when arriving at his family's apartment he walks over to Phoebe’s room and sees that she is not there, he then goes to D.B’s room to find her sleeping. Before deciding to wake up Phoebe, Holden sits in D.B’s room and looks at his brother’s desk and says “You ought to see her doing her homework or something at that crazy desk. It’s almost as big as the bed. You can hardly see her when she’s doing her homework. That’s the kind of stuff she likes, though” (Salinger 175-176). Phoebe is a smart, strong and a confident young woman. Phoebe redefines stereotypes by being intelligent which is one of the traits that Holden admires throughout the course of the novel. Phoebe embodies such a conception of perfection by being intelligent that she becomes an ideal for Holden as he thinks highly of

He left 3 days before they were supposed to go home for winter break. He goes to a hotel for at least a week and walks around the city. He does not want to go home and face his parents mostly his father because Holden has got kicked 3 other private schools and his dad would “kill him.” Holden’s sister Phoebe says to him “I suppose you failed in every single subject again.” His little sister was not surprised at all that he failed out of his school again. Phoebe is 10 years old giving her bigger brother a talk about why he’s not good in school. Phoebe should not be able to give his older brother advise because she is the younger one. Holden should be mature enough to lead his sister to do good overall in life by facing his

How did Holden’s mood change when he saw Phoebe sleeping? How did Phoebe respond when Holden woke her? Why was her respond important to him?

He does not have many friends because he chooses not to make any. He also has a total lack of interest for his studies and for his school. Holden feels that school work is unnecessary and he doesn’t even try to succeed. In the beginning of our session, Holden mentions his old teacher Mr. Spencer. He then talks about a letter he wrote to Mr. Spencer and it said, “It is alright with me if you flunk me though as I am flunking everything else except English anyway. Respectfully yours, Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye).” From that point, I can already observe that he doesn’t care about any of his studies. In addition to this, Holden doesn’t seem to want to grow up. The fact that he’s failing every school he attends, drinks underage, and rebelling against every grown up, shows this detachment. Everyone just wants Holden to grow up and live a decent adult

Love also becomes an important aspect, each thrive for passion and affection from others and have someone they confide in. Holden places deep care into his younger sister Phoebe because they connect on many levels, both as childlike mind and in interest. He also longs for closure towards his deceased brother Allie. Holden worries about his parents thoughts, he respects them. He is concerned about his mother’s reaction to getting kicked out of yet another school. The only two people he feels he has truly connected with are his sister and Allie, often in times of need they are the first he contacts. Throughout his cycle of depression he talks aloud to Allie. (Quote: Holden: “I felt so depressed, you can't even imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed.”) He shows he cares about Phoebe by constantly wanting to call and chat with her; he often talks about her. On the contrary he contradicts himself by finding an excuse to not call, or to not visit. By isolating himself he also goes against himself because he

One of the few people Holden actually cares about is his sister Phoebe. Throughout his journey, he always thinks and talks about her a lot. He cares for her so much

Phoebe was mad at Holden because she couldn’t run away with him. However, she followed him to the zoo. Holden brought a carousel ticket for Phoebe and was happy first time, through the entire story, simply by watching her ride. “I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around” (213). He realizes that his action would affect his impressionable younger sister. Finally, he decided not to run away

Although he is reasonably cynical towards people who are conspicuously phony, such as Marty who overtly lies about catching a glimpse of a movie star, his negativity and scathing criticism of others often extends beyond the realm of reason. When discussing fighting, he says, “I can’t stand looking at the other guy’s face, is my trouble. It wouldn’t be so bad if you could be blindfolded or something” (117). Holden’s negativity is so extensive that it even drives him to irrationally resent the face of another man who is challenging him. This testifies to Holden’s struggle with an unusually cynical outlook. Moreover, he resists the formation of intimate relationships with others, finding flaws too great to ignore in every acquaintance. His history teacher at Pencey, Mr. Spencer, wants to understand Holden’s refusal to do schoolwork. He is sorry that he has to fail Holden and reaches out to him, trying to connect with him on a personal level and influence him for the better. However, Holden dismisses him as senile, phony and pathetic and refuses to engage Mr. Spencer. When he wakes up to Mr. Antolini creepily patting him on the forehead, Holden reveals that similar “perverty” stuff happened to him as a child several times. Thus, he clearly struggles with a natural trust deficit with everyone he meets, which explains his insecurity and the brash cynicism he utilizes to justify his alienation from others. Another example of this is Holden’s relationship with D.B. Although he suggests that they were once close, he now considers D.B. a phony because of his work in the film industry. Thus, he sabotages a potential genial relationship and justifies doing so with his prejudices against his brother’s field of work. Holden’s cynicism and alienation from others reveals emotional damage and psychological problems relating to

Phoebe’s immense pleasure when Holden wakes her up to tell her he arrived home early, ““Holden!” she said right away. She put her arms around my neck and all. She’s very affectionate.”, and her worry when she realizes he was kicked out of Pencey, ““You did. You did,” she said.

Not only does Holden feel great affection for Phoebe, Phoebe feels great affection for Holden as well. It isn't too hard to understand that she and Holden are especially close since one of their brothers is dead and the other lives miles from their home. It is also surprising on how quickly Phoebe realizes that Holden came home earlier than expected. It is obvious that Phoebe is much more mature and articulate for her age to realize something like that so quickly. It is as if she is Holden's older sister instead of the younger one.

“She was the only one, outside my family, that I ever showed Allie’s baseball mitt to, with all the poems written on it…I told her quite a lot about him” (101). Holden felt a rare connection and trust towards Jane. He remembers good memories with her to help ease the pain of losing her. Consequently, his pain catches up to him when Stradlater and Jane go on a date. “’If you didn’t go to New York, where’d ya go with her?’ I asked him, after a little while. I could hardly keep my voice from shaking all over the place. Boy was I getting nervous. I just had a feeling something had gone funny” (55). All the pain Holden has kept within seems to burst out. He starts to feel nervous and jealous and this contributes to his negative attitude. We see here that Holden truly cares for Jane and this hints that he has feelings for her. He is in a lot of pain due to losing his close friendship with Jane. Holden feels repentant yet reminiscent of the memories he once had with Jane.