Holden Caulfield's Journey

Holden does not understand his own feelings. In the story you can tell he is very confused and lost. Holden is very lonesome and does not only not understand his own feelings or other people's feelings. Holden tries to portray himself as someone he is not. One example is when Holden is at the nightclub while there he tries to portray himself as sophisticated and lied about who he knows. “The only way I could even half enjoy myself dragging her around was if I amused myself a little. So I told her I just saw Gary Cooper, the movie star, on the other side of the floor.” This is an example of Holden not understanding his feelings because he does not want to grow up and hates adults in a way, but tries to fit in with adults and be like adults. Another example is when Holden constantly talks about his brother Allie. “Every time I'd get to the end of a block I'd make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I'd say to him, "Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Please, Allie." This is an example of Holden not understanding his feelings because Allie is dead and it seems as though Holden cannot accept that he is dead.

Throughout the novel Holden was experienced anger. For example, this is evident when at Holden was so mad with Stradlater because Holden wrote for him and Stradlater complains that it's not about a room or a house or something like he said.

Until this point in the book, his view had been set in stone with the many examples he presented for the reader. Nonetheless, after this quote, he presents to us the towering reason for his own phoniness, the fact that he is not fully sane. This changes everything for the reader because it shows that everything he has said in the book could have been a lie to cover up a secret. On top of this epiphany, he also states that he lied about loving Sally in the very same quote. This lie is another prime example of Holden being a phony and not being truthful.

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

After Phoebe tries getting Holden to figure out the movie that she saw with one of her friends, Holden says, ” I don’t know-Listen. Didn’t they say what time they’d--”. This quote shows that Holden does not care about what Phoebe has to say about the movie that she saw. Also, in Chapter 3, page 21, Holden says, “What I did was, I pulled the old peak of my hunting hat around to the front, then pulled it way down over my eyes.” This shows Holden is a different and playful person when his hat is involved. Holden switches his whole mood and begins joking around with Ackley, even though he just said a lot of bad things about him. Holden says in Chapter 3, that he and Ackley are the only two guys not at the football game. This shows that Holden and Ackley are similar, because the both are not liked very much because of their horrible personality, lack of communication, and their dislike in being around other people. In Ackley especially, readers can see how people treat him and how he treats himself, by not taking care of his

Holden takes Phoebe to the carousel, and after she rides it, she comes back to him. It’s beginning to rain when Phoebe gives Holden his hunting hat. “Then what she did– it damn near killed me– she reached in my coat pocket and took out my red hunting hat and put it on my head... My hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way; but I got soaked anyway. I didn't care, though... I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth. I don't know why.” (212-213) Before this point in the book, Holden is only doing things that he thinks will make Phoebe happy. When Holden gives Phoebe the hunting hat, it’s because he knows she “likes those kind of crazy hats” (180) but also because she is important to him. To Holden, the hunting hat is a form of protection (“my hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection” [213]) so when he gives her the hat he is protecting her. When Phoebe puts the hat on him, Holden feels genuinely happy for one of the first times in the book. Holden realizes that Phoebe wants to protect him and that she loves him for who he is, and it makes him feel like a better person than he has been. He says, “I felt so damn happy... I don’t know why,” which shows that Holden isn’t accustomed to feeling this way. The only time Holden really feels happy is when he is wearing his hunting hat or he is with

As a result Holden kept his feelings inside until he went "crazy" and ended up in a hospital. Another example is when Holden talks to the nuns. He meets the nuns after he has breakfast on the second day, he's in New York. Holden helps the nuns with their bags and then realizes that they are collecting money for the Salvation Army, so Holden gives them $10. Then they begin talking and eventually end up on

Phoebe was mad at Holden because she couldn’t run away with him. However, she followed him to the zoo. Holden brought a carousel ticket for Phoebe and was happy first time, through the entire story, simply by watching her ride. “I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around” (213). He realizes that his action would affect his impressionable younger sister. Finally, he decided not to run away

This is an obvious lie because Holden constantly thinks about Jane throughout the book. He does this because he’s scared of his true feelings. While lying is something Holden outright does to others, he unknowingly does it to himself. This shows that most of Holden's troubles throughout the book can be self-inflicted. Holden also downplays his feelings by saying, “I have a lousy vocabulary and partly because I act quite young for my age sometimes.

In this moment a few different things have occurred. First, Holden has come to realize fleeing from his problems won’t solve them. Second, he has shown kindness to his sister after he had been cruel to her a few moments before. Most importantly,

Holden Caulfield is a very, very troubled young boy in a grown up filled world. In J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher In The Rye, 16 year old Holden Caulfield is stuck in a rut. He has been expelled from numerous schools, including his current one, Pencey Prep. Holden has been a troubled kid since the death of his older brother, Allie. Allie has played a big role in Holden’s life, and was completely traumatized by his death. Along with those family struggles relating to Allie’s death, Holden has a hard time accepting his adulthood. He wrestles with mental illness and growing up with all of those “phonies”. Even more so, he struggles with the idea of the person he is going to grow into. The environment of The

Holden told me to how he reacted after the death, “I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddamn windows with my fist, just for the hell of it.” (pg. 21 pdf) He was 13 when this death occurred and he mentioned that his parents were going to get him psychoanalyzed because of what he did. After breaking all the windows in the garage, he tried to break the windows on the station wagon with his already broken hand. This shows how sad and down he got about his brother Allie dying. Everything in life was going well for Holden, family wise, and then a death happened to someone who Holden enjoyed a lot. Another girl Holden talked about in our session is Sally Hayes. The night before Holden makes a date with Sally, he has a prostitute named Sally come to his room. He just left Pencey, so to me, this is his way of letting out some sadness and anger. Holden says he didn’t do anything with her because he wasn’t in the mood anymore. This shows that some depression is coming into his activity level. Holden told me about what him and Sally did on their date. They first went to a show called The Lunts. During the show, Holden said Sally saw a boy she knew named George and he went to Andover. “I sort of hated ofl Sally by the time we got in the cab, after listening to that phony Andover Bastard for about ten hours.” (pg. 69 pdf) Holden told me. He went on to say that they went ice skating at Radio City. After ice skating, Holden explains how he wanted to run away with Sally. She kept saying no because they were still children. He told me that he told her “You give me a royal pain in the ass, if you want to know the truth.” (pg. 72 pdf) At this point, both of them hated each other. Holden said he apologized over and over to her but he ended up just leaving her at the rink. This shows how he can’t keep their relationship in a good place and his mood changed out

Making these types of mistakes are ongoing for Holden, as he keeps clinging onto people, but not communicating his feelings. It was in the beginning of the book when Holden spoke so kindly of Jane, talking about the good ol’ days when they played checkers, and she would leave her kings in the back row. He spoke so kindly of her, but never to her face. He knows he should have, but he never had the guts to. It was because of these ongoing thoughts, that kept him from maturing. He just needed to develop the power to persevere.

As the novel progresses, it becomes difficult to relate to Holden Caulfield as he shows irrational thinking, terrible ways of coping with stress, and a negative attitude. Holden was absolutely irritated with Sally Hayes as she does not agree with his plan to run away and begin a new life. Rather than Holden expressing his feelings with Sally in a considerate way, Holden irrationally lets out his emotions which made her cry. With this in mind, Holden says “I know I shouldn’t’ve said it, and I probably wouldn’t’ve ordinarily, but she was depressing the hell out of me” (Salinger 149). Holden acknowledges the fact that this was certainly not the proper approach to his situation. In contrast to

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