Catcher In The Rye Phoebe Personality Analysis

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

It causes him to be even more depressed facing this issue, but he needs to solve it. Similarly when Phoebe is on the carousel, Holden is worrying about her falling, but it causes him to recognize that “the thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring you have to let them do it, they fall off, they fall off." (211). This causes Holden to understand that this is life and he must accept everything. One might object that this does not cause Holden to mature. However, to Holden from how he despises the society and avoiding it to now being about to at least admit this issue, not avoiding it and later start to go to school. He might not fully mature, but it is a huge step for him to becoming mature. Children will grow up including Holden and follow the way life works no matter what. Hence, Phoebe induces Holden 's way of viewing the world. Hence, the relationship with Phoebe changes Holden 's perspective of the world.

Phoebe is shown to be the only character that Holden seems to truly be affectionate towards, because she is a form of innocence and does not depict the realities of the world. She allows him to be an escapist.

As Holden puts it, “People always clap for the wrong things,” (84) meaning that sometimes what seems to be worth watching is really not that great, and we’re missing the true beauty and genius when we don’t see the smaller, behind-the-scenes kinds of things. For Holden, Phoebe represents that which is honest and true. “You never saw a kid so pretty and smart in your whole life,” (67) he says about her. Even though she’s only ten, she “knows it’s a pretty good movie” (68) when you take her to one. She writes books all the time, and Holden is smitten with the funny details she puts in her stories and the movie lines she says by heart.

Pg 195 Character Phoebe tends to behave a lot older than she is for her a child her age. She knows how to cover up for people when needed such as when her parents entered her room asking if she had been smoking a cigarette. As we know, it was actually Holden who was smoking in Phoebe’s room. She then proceeds to say, “I just took one puff,” as she was trying to protect her older brother. This shows she has an understanding of what people are trying to do -Holden is trying to hide from his parents- and knows what to say in order to cover up for certain

When Holden arrives, he finds Phoebe sleeping in D.B.’s room. "Holden!" she said right away. She put her arms around my neck and all. She's very affectionate. I mean she's quite affectionate, for a child. Sometimes she's even too affectionate. I sort of gave her a kiss”(161). When Holden arrives at his home for the first time since he left Pencey, he is tightly embraced by Phoebe, who is very happy to see him. Phoebe is the only person who loves Holden unconditionally. Phoebe is able to love Holden even when he makes poor decisions. Here we see how important to she is to him and he is to her. In this situation, Phoebe is very affectionate towards Holden because they love and appreciate each other would be when she sees her child after a long time. Phoebe and Holdens conversation changes very rapidly, from catching up to a deep, confrontational conversation lead by Phoebe. "You don't like anything that's happening." It made me even more depressed when she said that. "Yes I do. Yes I

The only person that Holden really likes and can depend on is his little sister, Phoebe. He trusts her, and she is like a mother figure to him until he grows up at the end of the book. Holden doesn’t have any real friends at school because he is sarcastic and immature, so Phoebe is also his only friend. Holden is alone in the world besides his ten-year-old sister, and that also shows in his issues. Holden is immature and childish because he is afraid of growing up.

During her break in the story he describes Phoebe as exceptionally smart, very sensible( high praise as he calls almost everyone a “phony” at some point), and a great conversationalist, saying that she, “... kills everybody- everybody with any sense, anyway.”. Multiple times throughout the book Holden calls her a “little kid”, saying that when she was younger she was a “very little kid”, and he shows how he believes her to still be innocent to the world in how he reacts when he sees a “fuck you” written on a wall at her school, thinking, “I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they’d wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them- all cockeyed, naturally- what it meant, and how they’d all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple days.”, supporting my belief that some of his love and protectiveness of her stems from the fact that he wants to be a “Catcher in the Rye”, a defender of the innocent/innocence, and someone who can do something indisputably good for his whole life, never acting “phony” like he fears he would if he did other jobs. As he says to Phoebe when she asks him what he’d like to be, “I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff-

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. . .

Holden and Phoebe have many contrasting character traits that display the differences between the two characters. Holden says he’s the dumb one in the family, while he describes Phoebe as “really smart”.(Page 67) He also states that Phoebe is very neat, for a child(Page 159). Holden believes that he often acts like a 13-year-old, although he was 16 at the time(Page 9). Holden is regularly depicted as immature and depressed, while Phoebe is more mature and has a more cheerful outlook, such as when she

Holden and Phoebe share a lot of the same experiences because they are family. They both experienced the loss of their brother Allie, who died of leukemia. Holden describes Allie as the “most intelligent member of the family... also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody.” (Salinger, 38) However, Holden takes Allie’s death much harder than Phoebe does. Holden grieves and even cries over Allie, even though Allie had died a whole three years ago in the story. It is also what made Holden begin to go mad, but seems to have little effect on Phoebe all these years later. Holden even says that “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

Phoebe Caulfield: Phoebe is Holden’s ten-year-old sister. She is the childish innocence that Holden wants to be. Despite being younger, she seems more mature than Holden at times. While Holden constantly refuse to grow up, she understands the inevitable truth that people must grow up.

On the contrary, an acceptance for Holden came from Phoebe, his sister, whose innocence he admired greatly. Phoebe was the one who supported Holden when he felt rejected and depressed. Holden saw that his mission was to protect this childish innocence from the adults and their phoniness, and Phoebe listened and accepted this “crazy” idea (Salinger, 191). Phoebe agreed to get in the carousel when she and Holden both understood that she was a little old for the ride. This acceptance from Phoebe forced Holden into adulthood; she wanted him to let go of his childish dream and to be a

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.

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