Examples Of Happiness In Catcher In The Rye

Grief is difficult thing to have to go through alone. In “The Catcher In The Rye” Holden experiences many of the stages of grief after the loss of his brother. Holden’s journey through the seven stages of grief were shown over the course of a few days.

In J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden Caufield, describes in detail the parts of his life and his environment that bother him the most. He faces these problems with a kind of naivety that prevents him from fully understanding why it is that he is so depressed. His life revolves around his problems, and he seems helpless in evading them. Among others, Holden finds himself facing the issues of acceptance of death, growing up, and his own self-destructiveness.

The author J.D. Salinger was able to represent the theme: the loss of childhood innocence, by describing the internal as well as the external characteristics of the main protagonist Holden Caulfield. Holden is portrayed as innocent due to his “lousy vocabulary” and also his childish mannerisms. His constant use of the term “boy” is ironic when Holden himself is a boy at heart. While internally Holden Caulfield may appear to be naive; this representation contrasts with his external appearance. Holden is struggling internally to be himself and is clinging on to his innocence, at a time where his body is continuing to become more mature and transitioning out of adolescence. The reader is able to note his struggle because of Holden Caulfield’s

Spencer told him that. Holden’s explanation of why he is passing one class only is typical as a teenager. Salinger’s message in this quote is dedicated to teachers. Salinger wants to send a message out there to teachers that teenagers are more pressured when they receive lectures from their teachers rather than a word of advice. Teenagers suffer because of school constantly. Teenagers have a hard time processing and learning new things everyday. Teenagers are more stressed out when they have to take tests that determines the grade they get. Holden’s struggles in school demonstrates the kind of problems real teenagers are facing.

J.D Salinger expresses Holden growing up in a vivid image where people can see the clear view of Holden rising upward to be an adult. Throughout the book, Holden ostracizes himself in the society and makes him lonely. The readers can visualize Holden maturing when he realizes that not everybody is his enemy. For instance, when Holden leaves his teacher’s house in fear because the teacher was petting his head; he wondered “if just maybe [he] was wrong about thinking [the teacher] was making a flitty pass at [him]” (194). When he starts wondering if it was his own fault, it exemplifies that Holden is deeply thinking about his acts toward other people. His thinking can also relate to the last sentence “don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” (202). The last sentence is an example of Holden setting his importance on the people around him. But with all the obstacles that he goes through, he realizes that people that are involved in his life are an important factor of his life, and regrets having a live social life. This realization is an example of coming of age because we can truly see Holden’s thinking of what he thinks of a good life is which involves people around him.

In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger tells a story of a young boy, Holden, who never quite understood his stance on life. Throughout the novel, Holden struggles to adapt to the inevitable transition into adulthood, often worrying more about others than himself. In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger uses connotative diction, repetition, and specific diction to convey Holden’s struggle of accepting life changes that led him to becoming mentally unstable.            To start off, Salinger illustrates Holden’s nature by using connotative diction.

Salinger highlights the struggle after a loved one’s death through the protagonist, Holden, who accounts the memories of his brother Allie: “He used to laugh so hard at something he thought of at the dinner table that he just about fell off his chair. I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage. I don't blame them” (Salinger 38). At an adolescent age, Holden had to go through the tragedy of his brother's death, where he demonstrated strange behavior due to his emotional instability. Holden had ruined his friendship with Stradlater, who’d asked Holden to write him an English prompt where Holden wrote about Allie’s glove, but had disappointed Stradlater, thus Holden tore the paper. Holden became furious due to the connection Holden had with his brother, he portrayed the misunderstanding that society and adolescents have of one another after a

Salinger follows up Holdenís epiphany with several supporting events. Holden has a nervous breakdown because he now knows with an abrupt and sickening certainty that he is unable to stop both evil and maturation. His emotional outpouring at the merry-go-round further sustains his prior reasoning that he cannot stop maturation.

The second example J.D. Salinger uses to show that Holden’s depression is not only affecting him, but the people around him, is through Phoebe. Phoebe is Holden’s younger sister. Even though their ages are significantly different, they get along well with each other. Phoebe does very well in school and she also has other talents like dancing. She is a happy, well adjusted child. After Holden gets kicked out of Pencey as a result of his depression, Phoebe becomes angry when she guesses why he came home early. She angrily exclaims, “You did get kicked out! You did!” (165) Phoebe cares for Holden and his failure in school upsets her. This shows how his depression has a ripple effect and reaches his relationship with Phoebe.

Everybody feels depressed at some time or another in their lives.  However, it becomes a problem when depression is so much a part of a person's life that he or she can no longer experience happiness.  This happens to the young boy, Holden Caulfield in J.D Salinger's novel, The Catcher in the Rye.  Mr. Antolini accurately views the cause of Holden's depression as his lack of personal motivation, his inability to self-reflect and his stubbornness to overlook the obvious which collectively results in him giving up on life before he ever really has a chance to get it started.

Lies, failure, depression, and loneliness are only some of the aspects that Holden Caulfield goes through in the novel The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger. Salinger reflects Holden’s character through his own childhood experiences. Salinger admitted in a 1953 interview that "My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book.… [I]t was a great relief telling people about it” (Wikipedia). Thus, the book is somewhat the life story of J.D. Salinger as a reckless seventeen-year-old who lives in New York City and goes through awful hardships after his expulsion and departure from an elite prep school. Holden, the protagonist in this novel, is created as a depressed, cynical, and isolated character and he

As the novel progresses, we realize that ironically Holden's alienation becomes the source of most of his pain throughout the book. Although he never realizes the fact that his pain is being derived from his isolation and lack of human interaction, Salinger places clues in the book that tell us that it is so. With the introduction of Sally Hayes, Salinger is able to craft a relationship that effectively depicts the conflict in Holden. It is loneliness that initially propels Holden into a date with Sally. However, during the date Holden's need for isolation returns, he "didn't even know why" he "started all that stuff with her. The truth is" he "probably wouldn't have taken her even if she wanted to go." Because Sally is unable to recognize the feelings on the "phoniness" of school that he projects, he becomes frustrated and uses a rampaging monologue to upset her and drive her away. The only time in the

The feelings of anxiety and dread are formally defined as angst. Holden Caulfield brings us through his whirlwind of angst emotions. Although, when looking at Holden’s feelings compared to the denotation of the word angst, it seems that Holden’s feelings are more severe. As, we fall deeper into the novel Holden’s angst feelings continue to grow. Holden denies his angst feeling for almost the entirety of book, which causes him to surpass the angst feelings and go into almost a state of depression. His rough judgement of the people around him led him to loneliness, which made him fall deeper into the black dark hole of depression. This pit of anxiety, sadness, and depression swallowed Holden and continues to swallow millions of other people today.

The self-narration of Holden’s life is what gives the reader an insight into the way he thinks and feels. It helps you understand why Holden is the way he is. Without this explanation from him, you wouldn’t empathise with him, or like him very much at all. It’s the little stories he tells, like the story about Allies baseball mitt, “…Allie had this left-handed fielders mitt… he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink.” (Salinger, 1945-6, p.33) or about how he knows Jane Gallagher, “You were never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really were” (Salinger, 1945-6, p.72) that make you see the softer side to him.

When Salinger attended McBurney School, he tried to conform so he can fit (one way was calling himself Jerry). While at this school, he also acted in plays and wrote the school’s newspaper. This is shown through Holden as he doesn’t try to conform (which could be representing Salinger’s regret to try and conform), hates phoniness (as acting as a character [for example: in a play] is considered being phony), and likes writing (as shown in the beginning of chapter one as he tells the audience his story and how he admires his writer-brother, D.B.). Salinger himself stated, “My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book, and it was a great relief telling people about it” (interview by Shirlie Blaney).