Definition Of Modernism In Fiction Essay

“I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would 've, too, if I 'd been sure somebody 'd cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn 't want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory” (104). Holden is a complex character with mixed emotions about everything; many times contradicting his own thoughts and beliefs. Holden’s struggles are due to the lack of parental attention, the death of his younger brother, and his unusual relationships with other characters in the novel, “The Catcher in the Rye.”

To begin with, Holden depressive state is evident as he displays feeling of hopelessness. For example, Holden realizes that his goals for preserving the innocence of the children are unrealistic. This occurs when all the children from the carousel are in attempts to grab the ring, and Holden realizes that he cannot stop the children from their inevitable outcome. This is evident through Holden’s comment, “if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off.” (Salinger 211).Holden realizes that he is powerless towards the society around. He believes he can preserve the innocence of children, being the catcher in the rye, saving them from falling from the cliff. However, he believes that all children will eventually border to adulthood and depart from their innocence is inevitable. Holden is made to believe that all children will eventually merge towards the corrupted side of society despite his desires. Another reason for Holden’s depression is because his desire for maintaining innocence is unrealistic which bring out emotional mental trauma. Moreover, Holden falls into depression as loses trust from the people that he admires. For example, he loses his trust in Mr.Antolini, who Holden respects, was caught inappropriately touching him. This incident also causes his internal turmoil as he was confused with regards to his teacher’s intention. This is depicted when Holden states, “but what did worry me was the part about how I’d woke up and found him patting me…the more I thought about it, though the more depressed and screwed up about it I got.” (Salinger 194-195). This reveals Holden’s loss of turn resulting in emotional disturbance. This event shows Holden that the society around him is corrupt, which makes him suspect others around him. Holden’s doubt highlights his internal conflict with himself. This betrayal

Holden’s contempt for adults goes deeper than teen angst or a need to rebel. Rebellion is done out of a need for attention, however in Holden’s case he acts upon a fear and unresolved childhood trauma. Throughout the novel, we see our character Holden bouncing around denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. Holden lost his brother to leukemia; Holden was 13, while Allie was 11. Holden was left devastated. At the beginning of this book we see Holden in isolation watching the football game on his own atop a hill after a long disappointing day in New York. Holden tells us about when he found out about Allie’s death, and in a fit of rage punched the windows out of the garage of their summer home, breaking his hand with the desire to punch the car windows out. Holden was unable to reconcile the loss of Allie. He missed the funeral because of his accident and continues to not visit the grave because of his denial of the situation. Holden used bargaining when he asked Allie to catch him in his fall through depression. Holden perceived the children of the rye as falling, while he was the only one actually falling with no one to catch him. Throughout the entire novel except in short bits, Holden claims to be depressed and hates being around those with less than himself. Finally, at the end of the book, Holden reaches an acceptance that he can’t control everything and life continues. He has to let go and allow others to reach for that carousel's golden ring even if they do fall along the

First person narration is always tricky in literature. It is quite easy to get caught up in only getting one side of the story, and not consider the narrators bias in the interpretation of events. This is true of the Holden Caulfield’s narration in J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye. Holden is a judgemental, immature teenager, who often gets caught up looking at things from the point of his depression. Many elements of Holden’s life have led him to feel very disenfranchised by society, and see many of the other adults around him as “phonies”.

After Phoebe asks what he wants to be when he grows up, Holden goes into detail and illustrates, “… I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all”(Steinbeck 191). Holden values a child’s security in the highest regards and is willing to save one from hitting the bottom of a cliff. As the bottom of the cliff represents the unpleasant and demanding world of adulthood, Holden is finally separating himself from childhood and accepting that he is an adult. After Holden encourages Phoebe to enjoy the carousel, he observes, “All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the goddamn horse, but I didn’t say anything or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but its bad if you say anything to them…”(Steinbeck 232). Holden is overprotective over his younger sister Phoebe, except when she is on the carousel and he learns that she can develop her own independence. Noting that children also have risks and decisions they have to make themselves without adult interaction, like reaching for a gold ring but knowing the risk of falling. Holden can finally completely separate his adult self and his child self, and only look back with nostalgia. Earlier, Holden regards himself as “the catcher”, the savior who protects children from frightening reality of adulthood, but after seeing a lot of maturity in Phoebe he encourages her to reach for “the gold ring”, without any need for safety and

“The Catcher in the Rye is a genuine initiation tale, even though it is only the candidate undergoing the ordeal who is conscious of what his final decision means; the real evidence of the decadence of his world is that the initiators who impose the ordeals upon him are too much wrapped up in themselves even to understand the meaning of their actions. (French)”. In the book, there are many people that have affected Holden’s life so deeply and they are unaware of this fact, like Allie. Allie is what makes Holden the way he is because of him Holden has taken a likeness to contain the innocence of children for them no to go out into reality because he doesn’t want to see children’s dreams to be shattered like

The Catcher in the Rye displays many theme throughout the novel, and all of these themes can be seen through the main character Holden and his relationships with certain individuals. Themes like loss of innocence, reality vs. illusion, lack of communication and the list goes on and on. However, another big theme that is often illuminated is dealing with change, which is something Holden isn't the best at dealing with. Many of us can relate to Holden in general, but especially with this topic because it affects us all, things change but from these changes we grow and learn which holden struggles to grasp. Dealing with change is a topic see in The Catcher in the Rye, and is displayed through Allie’s Death, character development, and Phoebe growing up.

A common theme throughout American literature was the loneliness and alienation of people in society. Discrimination and hatred of others ways played a major role in the way people treated one another. The realism time period displayed an obvious separation of men and women. During the realism period, war and the cruelties of it played a major role in society, while the modernism time period displayed a major separation of whites and blacks. These feelings of alienation and loneliness are expressed into American literature today.

In the book “Catcher in the Rye” three major themes stood out for me as a reader. Holden’s pessimistic language, alienates him from the world. The speaker demonstrates separation and incongruence; “athletic [bastards] stick together,” Holden portrays a sense of animosity towards groups of people sticking together due to how he is not able to do the same this also demonstrates alienation. At the end of chapter six Holden provokes his best friend Stadler by saying “You moron,” using this absurd language demonstrated hatred and insult which was the cause estrangement. Finally Holden exhibits how he was ostracized “don’t do one damn thing…way you’re supposed to” even though he didn’t show rude language, the meaning was blunt and impolite. Holden’s alienation was thought to occur due to his brother death and the absence of his family however it portrayed that he was different and did not want to make contact with others.

In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is introduced as an extremely perplexed boy. The relationship that he holds with his parents is unstable. At many points in the novel, Holden refers the fact that he has a rocky relationship with his parents. He has been kicked out of many private schools he has attended. In the novel, he attends and lives at a school named Pencey. Holden is kicked out for having failed in some of his classes. His instability begins at this point when the reader learns that he doesn’t want to return home to his parents because he knows the fury that will rage from his parents. He has lived a misguided life by attending private schools. Instead of having parents, he has had professors guide him. Holden’s strange personality helps prove the authors assertion that he is mentally instable. Holden’s narration is very scattered. He sometimes interrupts his own conversations by going off on tangent subjects.

J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, highlights key symbols and thoughts as well as personality traits of the narrator, Holden, throughout the book. Many of Holden’s thoughts connect back to his immaturity and lack of adult behavior; however, he does become slightly more mature and realistic at the very end of the novel. Holden wants to preserve innocence in a world of corruption. While some believe that Holden regresses in the novel, he actually remains static for the majority because of his thoughts of running away, lying constantly, and desperation for innocence, but he matures at the very end by coming to terms with the fact that children must grow and lose their innocence along the way.

The Catcher in the Rye is one of few books that’s subject matter and themes have managed to stand the test of time. In the novel the main character, Holden Caulfield, faces a multitude of conflicts, while these conflicts are both external and internal, the internal conflicts are where the main themes of the novel lie. Holden’s major internal conflicts are his fear of growing up and his ignorance on his own mental health. By blaming all his troubles on phonies, he manages to completely ignore his problems causing the stack of hurdles he eventually has to face keeps growing larger and larger. Holden’s problems also stem from a much earlier event, which is the cause of his less then stellar mental state.

It is important to realize in the book, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden has experienced his fair share of trauma. From skipping school and smoking cigarettes, to sleeping with prostitutes, Holden tries to cope with his feelings of pain. His main source of coping throughout this book was his use of insults and judging others. Holden is using these to try and make himself feel like just another teenage boy, but the reality he struggles with his mental health. The author is clearly trying to help readers understand the thoughts of a depressed individual Holden experienced his fair share of traumatic events.

In J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, undergoes an immense psychological change where he transforms from youth to maturity. The major conflict in the novel which held Holden back from progressing into adulthood had to do with the death of his younger brother, Allie. The way Holden expresses himself and all of the decisions he has made can all be related back to that experience which he has never been able to cope with. As a result, Holden spends the majority of his time alone which only further hinders his ability to find comfort. Finally, his unprovoked animosity towards adults and extreme uncontrollable emotions are a testament to his immaturity. It is not until Holden is watching Phoebe at

Trauma is one of the main causes of Holden’s alienation and disillusionment. Most teenagers experience some degree alienation and disillusionment however with the death of his brother allie and a fellow classmate Holden has to undergo the five stages of grieving and this appears throughout the book. This engages the modern audience because the process grief has not changed with time, nor has the process of moving from childhood to adulthood, which confuses and alienates Holden. Salinger’s narrative treatment…this will then connect to the next paragraph.