Corruption in Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden views the world as an evil and corrupt place where there is no peace. His view of the world does not change much through the novel. However as the novel continues, Holden gradually comes to the realization that he is powerless to change this.

He was unscrupulous.';(Salinger 40) Holden acknowledges Jane's purity and wishes not to have to think otherwise with Stradlater. Holden feels the responsibility to defend the pure and the innocent. Besides his conflict with Stradlater, he is also involved in a physical battle with Maurice.

The Catcher in the Rye is one of J. D. Salinger's world-famous books about the disgruntled youth. Holden Caulfield is the main character and he is a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up, Holden separates the “phony” aspects of society, and the “phonies” themselves. Some of these “phony” people in his life are the headmaster whose friendliness depends on the wealth of the parents, and his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection. This book deals with the complex issues of identity, belonging, connection, and alienation. Holden senses these feelings most of the time and is guilty about many things in

In the novel The Catcher In The Rye, the protagonist Holden Caulfield views his surroundings with hypocrisy and contempt in an attempt to avoid the corruption of adulthood. Holden places himself above the crowd because he believes everyone acts phony. In the process, Caulfield reveals his true problem: his refusal to change.

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?]

Although Holden has qualms about Jane being with Stradlater, he lets go of his worries because he knows that Jane is not the type of girl to have “the time” with Stradlater.

In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye, Holden Caulfield, a seventeen-year-old boy, transitions from childhood to adulthood. The death of Holden’s little brother signifies the beginning his loss of innocence and growth of maturity. As he enters adulthood, Holden views society differently from his peers by characterizing most of his peers and adults he meets as “phonies.” Thus, Holden takes the impossible challenge of preserving the innocence in children because he wants to prevent children from experiencing the corruption in society. The Catcher In The Rye embodies Holden’s struggle to preserve the innocence of children and reveals the inevitability of and the necessity of encountering the harsh realities of life.

At first glance, Holden is trying to find closure about his short time at Pencey. He wants to let go of all his failures on his own term. Of course, the school is expelling him on their terms, but Holden wants to physically leave and say goodbye on his terms. At a deeper glance, however, Holden wants to feel some

Holden’s date with Sally Hayes exhibited his difficulty at cooperating with others. At first he gives us a dire impression of Sally, “I wasn’t too crazy about her, but I’d known her for years.” (p. 105) Later, he wants to marry Sally and says he is in love with her. The biggest mystery of all when it comes to women is with Jane Gallagher. Constantly mentioning Jane, Holden recalls playing checkers with her before he got sent to boarding school. When his roommate, Stradlater, has a date with Jane, Holden asks him a peculiar question, “Did you ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row?” (p. 42) Holden, jealous of Stradlater’s date with Jane, longs to see Jane but never has the courage to call her. Interactions with other people especially women perplex and overwhelm Holden. He therefore resorts to isolation, illustrating a characteristic of his mental state.

Holden went to a prep school, and from what I observed I could tell he didn’t like it very much. Holden thought he was going to be kicked out of Pencey Prep because of his bad grades, He was only passing English. Before the school could kick him out he decided to leave. Other reasons included his leave as well. For example, He didn’t want to be around Stradlater anymore after their major blow out fight. Holden did not have many friends at Pencey either, He was somewhat friends with Ackley, but he always made fun of his acne, that’s not being a true friend. Another reason he wanted to

Corrupting the nature of the United States, economic classes have divided the American people, ultimately hurting the country, a concept conveyed thematically in American literature. In the United States, it is quite evident that the upper class seems to have an upper hand in society. Individuals that have more money are clearly better off. Inevitably, a distrust with any actions taken in the upper class is formed. Demonstrating this belief, Salinger's Catcher In The Rye perfectly exemplifies this belief. Everyone who goes to Pencey Prep is fairly wealthy, and for this reason, it is believable that the Pencey acceptance system could be corrupt, and favorable to those who have more money. Furthermore, Pencey uses certain techniques to deceive the parents visiting Pencey into believing that they are better off than they truly are. For example, they have steak every Saturday before parents come. (Salinger, Pg 35). Revealing the unfair nature of the motivations of the upper class, Pencey is the perfect example. American writers conjecture that due to the fact that many establishments feel as if they owe something to the upper class, corruption is formed. In the United States, practically anything will be done in order to satisfy the upper class. For this reason, classism is destructive to the lower class.Sustaining the topic of corruption within the upper class due to a large separation barrier within society, Into the Wild speaks of the same ideas, but this time regarding

Holden had flunked out Pencey Prep, failing four out of his five courses, Holden was also kicked out of the other two, for reasons unknown. Holden claims his leaving of Whooton was a mutual agreement and Elkton hills, he just “quit”, although this just seemed to be his way of not taking responsibility for his failures. Although Holden appears to be rather smart, but he never actually applies himself, he just accepts the fact that he is flunking classes, such as history “It is alright with me if you flunk me, though, as I am flunking everything else except English” (Salinger PDF 7). Holden also doesn’t seem to be too concerned about his future either, as seen in conversations with Mr. Spencer and Mr. Antolini. Although Holden seems to have issues with adult figures, such as his reasoning for leaving Whooton, he doesn't exactly seem to rebel against authority per se, more like indirectly not accepting help, in a way rebelling against himself.Seen throughout the book several times is Holden debating on who to call and often deciding on to not call anyone, for one reason or

However, he admits that while the couple’s actions are “crumby” (Salinger 81) and crude, he is still aroused and “wouldn’t mind” (Salinger 81) doing it, especially to a girl he is attracted to. While Holden wants to preserve his innocence by not thinking about sex at all, he agrees that he is a “sex maniac” (Salinger 81), and is a fiend about losing his virginity. Holden even goes as far as to make rules for himself. On page 82, he recounts, “I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it-the same night, as a matter of fact” (Salinger). He is slowly losing his innocence, and while he hates to admit it, Holden’s constant thoughts about sexuality is a sign of adulthood. To him, one should only have sex with someone they truly love. Holden is almost proud of himself for having such a morally correct view of sex. This is why he is so riled when he discovers that Stradlater had sex with Jane Gallagher. Holden realized that Jane barely knew Stradlater and felt that he, if anyone, should be dating Jane. His increasing thoughts on sexuality and loss of a conventional or shielded view of sex show that his loss of innocence is apparent.

Holden’s relationship with his own dorm room members while at Pencey Prep shows how Holden recognizes people who are genuine, while ignores or de -legitimizes people he feels

Holden's phony addiction gets him into trouble at school. Holden looks for the flaws in everyone and tries to eliminate that person he sees as a threat, such as when Holden decides to face off against the phony Stradlater after Stradlater's date with Jane. Holden also thinks every teacher is a phony who pretends to be helpful to students. If Holden has trouble in school he does not seek help from his peers because he believes that they are phonies. Hence this point is tied into one of the reasons he is kicked out of Pencey, failing four out of five courses. Holden's avoidance of things phony is very strong and he has a one-track mind. It is either his way or the highway, this is another example of how Holden's phony problem hinders his chance at full maturity. Holden is so scared