Catcher In The Rye Quotes Analysis

He couldn’t give a single, solid answer to the question. All he said was Allie. But Allie is gone, and Holden is holding on the the past, a place where he feels, or felt, safe and wants to go back to his times with Allie, who he misses very much. This conversation with Phoebe made Holden really think about what he was been doing for the past years, pushing everyone to the side, not caring about anyone or anything; no friends, failing school, and he comes to recognize that childhood was good, not adulthood or this awful in-between that he is stuck in.

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 is perpetually forcing people to give him attention. He is incontestably a lonely kid, but instead of finding a healthy and mature way of dealing with his issues he needs to make up ridiculous plans of escape. And yet before he leaves for those ludicrous plans he must announce it to his little sister which he must have known would have caused negative accouterments. Yet, he goes and wakes her up in the middle of the night because attention is attention to him negative or positive. “That made her cry even harder. I was glad. All of a sudden I wanted her to cry till her eyes practically dropped out. I almost hated her.” (Salinger 121). This quote is said when Phoebe wants to go away with Holden, but he will not allow her. It depicts the idea that not only does Holden have zero compassion for the situation, but also the idea that Holden enjoys the idea that he is the reason for her sadness. Holden’s desire for attention is so strong that he does not care if the attention is negative or positive. In the end, he is sadistic in this moment and he does not even seem bothered by

• “Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.” (ch.2 p.5)

During the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, author J.D. Salinger brings Holden’s pessimistic, antisocial personality to life through what he says, how he says it, and through the characters he meets. Salinger bases Holden’s expressions off of the culture of the 1950’s, his own personal dialect, and the everyday occurrences of Holden’s life in mind. J.D. Salinger manipulates the diction, uses syntax to criticize others, and controls the character interaction and dialogue in order to create the protagonist, Holden Caulfield.

The relationship between Holden and Phoebe forms a major theme that the novel aims to deliver. The fact that he is having this conversation with Phoebe, a child who is anything but simple and innocent, reveals the oversimplification of his worldview. Holden himself realizes this to a degree when he acknowledges that his idea is “crazy”, yet he cannot come up with anything more pragmatic; he has trouble seeing the world in any other way. His “catcher in the rye” fantasy reflects his innocence, his belief in pure, uncorrupted youth, and his desire to protect that spirit. On the other hand, it represents his extreme disconnection from reality and his naïve view of the world. Phoebe exposes to Holden a living embodiment of childhood. And it is a scene with her where she exposes to Holden the illogical nature of his supervisory actions, indicating that his desire to preserve her innocence will only halt her own inevitable development. Phoebe is the Greek word for “protector of children” (Bloom 2009, p185). Within the novel she is Holden’s protector. She comforts him, provides him with financial security, and protects him from getting in trouble with their mother. Reiff describes this reversal of roles between Holden and Phoebe as “Now, instead of saving the world by protecting the children, Holden wants to reject the world and shut himself off from evil by becoming a ‘deaf-mute’ in the West. It is Phoebe who rescues him from this total withdrawal” (Reiff 2008, p71). Phoebe forces Holden to view her as a human—living and progressing— rather than as a forever preserved child, and it is this humanization that causes Holden to accept her eventual progression into

This quote affects Holden’s view on what he believes in catching kids from falling off a cliff, the cliff represents adulthood and reality and holden is trying to keep them in their field of innocence. Holden slowly starts to realize that he can not continue to try to keep the children in their field of innocence. A major turning point in Holden’s road to realization is seeing the “Fuck You” written in Phoebe's school and in the museum. He realizes that there will always be people ruining the places Holden views as fields of innocence and that there is nothing he can do about it. When he sees Phoebe riding on the carousel he realizes that he can’t stop Phoebe from growing up, as the carousel represented the circle of life. When he saw how mean Phoebe could be, he sees that she is in reality. He realizes that if children go into adulthood, there is nothing to stop them. You just have to let them go ahead with life. At this point when Phoebe is on the carousel, it starts to rain which symbolizes rebirth. A change in Holden’s

After about three days of drifting, Holden gets very excited fantasizing about how he will go out west and start life anew. However, before he leaves, he must say goodbye to Phoebe. This shows how Holden prioritizes Phoebe over himself, valuing her innocence. Holden writes a note telling Phoebe to meet him at the museum because he is planning to run away. Then Phoebe arrives at the museum with a suitcase and begs to run away with him. Holden responds harshly that she cannot go with him and she begins to cry. Then after a few moments Holden says, “I’m not going away anywhere. I changed my mind. So stop crying and shut up” (Salinger 207). Presumably he told Phoebe that he would not leave to make her stop crying, but he notes that Phoebe was

When his visiting Phoebe’s school he discovers crude language written on the wall. Holden immediately thinks of ‘Phoebe and all the other little kids’ and how he would hate them to see the foul words. This proves that Holden has a natural protective instinct and symbolically takes on the persona of ‘catcher in the rye’ as he wipes the words off the wall. Holden wants to shield the children from seeing the obscenities of adulthood prematurely, just as the catcher wants to protect children from falling off the ‘cliff’. At the end of the novel Holden appears to have more acceptance of the idea of growing up. As he watches Phoebe on the carousel he deduces that sometimes you ‘have to let them fall’ (referring to the children on the carousel.). Holden now understands that growing up is inevitable and fighting it is useless. However, regardless of this new found clarity, he still obsesses about living in an uncomplicated world. He delights in the fact that the carousel goes ‘round and round’ because it continues to fuel his fantasies of staying in one place forever. It would seem that even though he has made progress, Holden still struggles with letting go of the life he wishes were

This song was written from the point of view of a depressed person, rather than a crazy person. I feel that Holden would fall into the category of a depressed person rather than a crazy person. He states several times that he really is just lonely. He says, "What I really feel like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window." This may contribute to his depression. This type of depression that he has

“Catcher In The Rye”, is Holden’s dream. He stands in a field of rye, while catching children who are playing too close to a cliff. This represents his love of children’s innocence. When he sees kids who are innocent and how real it is, it makes him very happy. Little things upset him, such as bad words on a wall, because of how powerful pure innocence is to him.

One can see this because he clearly states in the dialogue that he felt like jumping out the window. Holden’s mental state of mind can literally visualizes his own suicide and how and where it would take place. This quote represents the extent of Holden’s depression and loneliness and how much of it consumes him.

This song is significant to this chapter because there are many different sides to Holden and one of them is being a little kid and this song talks about being adolescent. Holden

"I'm Just a Kid" by Simple Plan This song also reflects the theme of lonlyness in this novel. Lonliness is such a major theme throughout the book and reflects in other pieces of media, because it's so relatable and possible something everybody would face once in their lives. Everybody can find a piece of themselves in it.

Holden makes many typical teenage expressions, which makes it more difficult to take him seriously. For instance, often throughout the book he refers to himself as crazy. ( INSERT QUOTE) When he announces that he is crazy or he is going crazy, he actually means he is acting eccentrically or foolishly, but not that he is truly going insane. Likewise, when he claims or wishes he were dead, it seems originally as if he's using another conventional juvenile expression to create a deeper understanding and to intensify his emotions.