Holden Caulfield's Adulthood

Holden has matured in many ways throughout the novel. He had grown from an immature child who only cared about himself to a mature adult who wanted to make something of his life. In the beginning of the story we are introduced to

Have you ever struggled with the thought of growing up, well Holden has the same problem. The Catcher in the Rye is a book based on the life of a teenage boy who is a very troubled individual. Holden refuses to grow up, and he struggles with the thought of losing his innocence. The way he chooses to deal with this is very strange. Holden is a very immature boy. He got kicked out of the high school he was attending. Since he got kicked out, he is now scared to go home and have his parents find out. He is also very immature in the way he lies about anything and everything he can. I think he is a compulsive liar and he lies for his own amusement. Something that you will notice about Holden is, he criticizes everyone he sees. He makes fun of people

Holden is very immature and cannot act his age for anything. In the beginning of the story, Holden was very immature and self-centered and he often did very immature things, but he wanted to be an adult. This is very contradicting considering that he is very immature. In the novel, Holden states, “Boy! I said. I also say Boy! quite a lot. Partly because I have a lousy vocabulary and partly because I act quite young for my age sometimes. I was sixteen then, and I'm seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I'm about thirteen.” (Salinger 16). This shows how Holden is very immature and needs to start acting his age and this could be dangerous to society. This is why he needs to stay inside the mental facility. In the mental facility, he will be safe and he will not cause any harm to anyone or to himself

Holden can’t take on these changes, so he now believes adults are living their fantasy lives. Holden views adults as phonies, because he views grownups as phonies. Throughout this story, Holden deals with some personal problems and deals with them like a child, which shows Holden’s immaturity. He’s always trying to hold on to everything else but the fact that he’s growing up. Holden thinks adults are no longer innocent and lost their youth, which changes the way he discerns his sister because he doesn’t want her to grow up either.

Holden sees growing up and becoming an adult as a loss of innocence and an onslaught of changes he isn't quite ready to make. Albeit that growing up is full of change and discovering new things, it isn't necessarily a "loss of innocence". In chapter 22 of the book Holden describes his dream to be the catcher in the rye. Basically he wants to save children, who are apparently playing in a big field of rye and not paying attention to their surroundings, from falling to their demise off a cliff. The field represents childhood and untainted innocence, whereas the cliff represents the transition from childhood to adulthood. Where Holden is perched. And the descent off the cliff symbolizes entering the corrupt and crooked adult world. Thus is Holden's obsession with shielding children he encounters from phonies who represent the corrupt adult world in his eyes. However, this perception of the mature world is false. Life isn't a line that goes straight toward impure adulthood, it's more like a circle where one goes around and around in a journey to and from innocence. Which is why Holden could feel "so damn happy all of a sudden [watching] the way old Phoebe kept going around and around." (Salinger 213). He realizes that growing up isn't a direct loss of innocence and that, maybe, growing up isn't as bad as he originally

Holden would dress in atypical clothes and would flunk out of all his classes in hopes to get the attention he lacked from his parents. His desperation for attention ultimately causes him to be seen as an outsider, and isolates him from his community. He tells his professor, Mr. Spencer, that he feels as if he is “trapped on the other side of life” and how he is trying to fit into a world where he doesn’t belong in. In my opinion, Holden’s alienation is also caused by his fear of becoming an adult. However, instead of admitting to his fear, Holden denounces it by stating adulthood is phony and fake. In the novel, he portrays childhood as a time of innocence, learning, and happiness; while adult hood is denoted as a dark, phony, and unhappy time. He constantly is criticizing adults of being “phony”, when in reality he is the phony one. Holden uses phoniness to represent all of the bad things in the world and uses it as a reason to isolate himself from the world to deal with his loneliness. Holden also isolates himself due to his craving for stability. Holden’s life had been constantly changing; changing boarding schools,

Holden himself doesn't want to grow up. He thinks that adults are phonies and there is no trust in the grown up world. Holden is nervous to grow up and wants to protect his own innocence. He is still a virgin. Towards the end of the novel, he realizes that since he is the only one in his life saving peoples' innocence, then there is nobody to save his.

Holden could not really accept the truth about growing up; death for the most part. After already facing his younger brothers Allies death, he is unwilling to see other children grow up, and become closer to their fate. Holden Caulfield is the only character in the novel that is affected by the pain of growing up. Holden resents the thought of growing up and struggles to deal with the fact that it is a process that everyone goes through. Holden shares with us about his thoughts about the natural history; Holden expresses how much he desires the museum. He uses the museum as an example of fear of change. He talks about visiting it as a child. Holden expresses that he does not know how to deal with the upsetting truth of having to grow up and changing his perspectives on life. “Sex is something I just don't understand. I swear to god I don’t”.(PG.56) Holden says this because sex is apart of growing up into the adulthoods world and reaching a growth of maturity, but he is afraid to grow up. Holden feels like he going to be like Ms. Spencer; a phony and a liar. He is stuck between both worlds, adulthood and childhood. He sees the adulthoods world as a phony and a fake, but he also see the childhoods world as a innocent and honest living. He wants to live a simple

Holden demonstrated the struggles of growing-up by his unrealistic views of child innocence, but with the help of his sister, Phoebe and Mr. Antolini he comes to terms with becoming an adult and

But was it what he wanted? Inside, Holden was conflicted with the reality of becoming an adult. He wanted to protect himself and all children from the harsh reality that was adulthood. But ultimately it was an impossible task. Throughout the book, Holden was pushing aside the fact that he couldn’t preserve innocence, that kids eventually have to grow up.

Throughout the story Holden emphasizes his love for childhood innocence. In a passage he says “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the golden ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything.” (Salinger 211) This immediately points to his affinity for innocence and not having the limits of being and adult. The

Holden fears adulthood because it brings responsibilities and trouble. He believes all adults possess an aurora of "phoniness." His disgust of everyone around him reveals his fear of growing up. Holden exhibits insecurity, so to make himself feel better, he exercises the power to condemn people for the way they behave. Holden

Yet another demon that Holden avoids is the process of having to grow up. Throughout the book, he seems hesitant to develop any real ambitions or goals. He is a perpetual failure at school. He refuses to associate himself with mature ways of living, and so isolates himself from anyone his own age or older. This is all directly connected to Holden's picture-perfect image of his childhood. He sees this particular period of his life as his own personal paradise. He does not want to finalize the fact that he has to concede it's innocence in the end. Towards the end of the book, Holden shows his desire for life to remain as it was by saying, "...certain things should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone." Holden does not want to join a world of phonies and greed, a world lacking in carelessness and irresponsibility. He won't, whether consciously or not, accept the fact that he has no choice.

Holden is unable to accept realities of life because of his negative personality. He claims that many people are phony and that they try to do things to make them look better than they are. Holden also thinks of many things as depressing. “It was really nice sightseeing, if you know what I mean. In a way, it was sort of depressing, too, because you kept wondering what the hell would happen to all of them” (p. 123). Holden always finds a down side to a situation. He fails to recognize the good sides of life, and this prevents him from seeing advantages in adulthood that are not present in his life.

Holden is attracted to the privileges that adulthood offers. Drinking, Sex, Independence and Smoking represent aspects of adulthood that Holden is not averse to and is genuinely excited by. After arriving in New York, Holden attempts to act as an adult, but his attempts fail miserably. He tries to order a scotch and soda but is carded and must settle for a coke instead. Holden is content with childhood right up until it forfeits him an opportunity to get a drink. He wants to be an adult, but also wants to be a kid. He seems excited with the freedom but fears the loss of innocence and responsibility that