Holden Rejection

Both novels embody the adolescent runaways as narrators, both stating problems of their times. Holden is extremely critical, in contrast to Huck, who was more descriptive than hypercritical. For instance, Holden appears to have negative observations for everyone; labeling his older brother as a “prostitute” for moving to Hollywood, or his teachers who act different, as hypocrites or “phony” in class. His ability to make judgments allows him to see beyond the superficiality and the “phoniness” of almost everyone he meets. In contrast to Holden, Huckleberry is less prejudiced and more critical on his own behavior. Holden’s gift for telling stories and his wish for adventure makes him similar to Huck and reminds us that despite their growing and their scrutiny of society, both are still young storytellers with puerile

Literature has always relied on techniques to catch the reader’s attention and format the story, and “the Catcher in the Rye” is no exception. Salinger brought many different writing styles into his novel to make it a bestseller. With his knowledge, Salinger was able to depict the persona of Holden to the reader without directly stating his characteristics. Salinger proves Holden is a lonesome figure who wanted to fit in but struggles to be accepted. The Catcher in the Rye depicts Holden as one who struggles with his sexuality and adulthood and wants to save children from adulthood because of the difficulties that it has brought himself. Salinger greatly expresses Holden through the use of metaphor, imagery, symbolism,

1) Page 1: Salinger hasn’t even finished the first sentence and he’s already characterizing Holden Caulfield as isolated from his family, a bit self-absorbed, smart and informal with his narrative style.

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.

Despite his longing for acceptance, “His efforts to connect with any stereotypical kid his age result in abject failure“(Privitera 204). Salinger thoroughly emphasizes this through Holden’s relationships with Stradlater and Ackley, with both of whom he has a strenuous and artificial relationship, demonstrated by his internal, flippant commentaries on his peers as he discusses them in the book (Salinger 31-40). Holden’s peers ostracize him due to his more introspective and introverted nature, as seen in Stradlater’s angry response to Holden’s reflective response to this writing assignment, saying that he doesn’t “do one damn thing the way [he’s] supposed to”(Salinger 47). These difficulties stem not from deficiencies of his peers, but rather a problem of Holden’s refusal to accept anything different from what he expects, making excuses about his reasons throughout the book to cover his actions. His rationalization of his internal wants and desires impedes any proper connection he could possibly make with his peers. He, “Subconsciously longs to be accepted yet feels he cannot make the connection”(Privitera 205).

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.

Holden’s interactions with Sally Hayes and the nuns challenges Holden’s way of thinking because his corrupt way of thinking will prevent him from functioning very well in life especially with his negative outlook on life and others. Holden got lucky that he happened to know English literature so he could relate with the

"You did. You did,"..."Daddy'll kill you!"(Salinger 165). Holden is at a hotel and he was offered to get a prostitute so he pays for one and gets into a real weird situation with her which leads him into an even more horrible situation , but Holden isn't too good with situations like that so he lies to the prostitute so they won't have to have sex "The thing is, I had an operation very recently."..."On my wuddayacallit--my clavichord."(Salinger 96). When holden gets into bad situations he acts weird and lies to cover himself up.

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

Salinger’s method of implementing the story’s progression based on Holden’s mental state while showing Holden’s irrational and unpredictable response to the world really makes the readers curious about what’s going to happen next; thus, making the book very interesting to read. In Chapter 7, Holden had his first emotional breakdown in the book: “When I was all ready to go, when I had my bags and all, I stood for a while next to the stairs and took a last look down the damn corridor. I was sort of crying.” (Salinger, 52). Holden left his dormitory because of his emotional state of mind. Before his departure, in Chapter 6, Holden got beaten up by his roommate, Stradlater. Stradlater had avoided telling Holden whether he had sexual intercourse with the girl Holden liked. Holden tackled Stradlater first, and then he got punched down to the ground by Stradlater twice with his nose bleeding. Holden messed up his relationship with his roommate, so he went to his Ackley’s dorm to get comfort. However, when Ackley fell asleep, Holden suddenly woke him up, and he basically insulted Ackley’s religion; Holden was being very sarcastic. Ackley was very offended and mad. They both were, so Holden left Ackley’s room in anger. The constant worsening of Holden’s emotional state of mind is what drove him crying and yelling in the dorm’s corridor before leaving Pency Prep. There are many other examples of the author using Holden’s crumbling mental state to unfold his story like when Carl Luce ditched Holden in Chapter 19, leaving Holden to get drunk and depressed in the bar by himself in Chapter 20. Salinger’s intention is for readers to be able to understand Holden’s behavior, or even consider his behavior normal because they know what happened before and the inner thoughts that drive Holden’s

The first sign of Holden’s isolation was when he was at Pencey’s last football game, “The game with Saxon Hill was supposed to be a very big deal... I was standing way the hell up on the top of Thomsen Hill” (2). Immediately Salinger makes it apparent to the reader that Holden isolates himself from the rest of his school.

Although there are essentially two Holdens, there are still traits that remain the same. Throughout the story, Holden feels the need to explain and justify himself, as though people don’t believe him. Holden tells the story

Perhaps the most important difference between Huckleberry and Holden is that Huckleberry is caring, whereas Holden can easily be described as callous. Huckleberry saves Jim many times throughout the novel, and in one case even stops to help random strangers in a

the language of Holden Caulfield,the book's sixteen-year-old narrator,struck the ear of the contemporaryreader as an accurate rendering of the informal speech of an intelligent, educated, Northeastern American adolescent.2 In addition to commentingon its authenticity, critics have often remarked 'daring,' 'obscene,' 'blasphemous' features of Holden's lan-uneasily-the Another commonly noted feature of the book's language has been its guage. comic effect. And yet there has never been an extensive investigation of the language itself. That is what this paper proposes to do. Even though Holden's language is authentic teenage speech, recording it was certainly not the major intention of Salinger. He was faced with the artistic task of creating an individual character, not with the linguistic task of reproducingthe exact speech of teenagers in general: Yet Holden had to speak a recognizableteenage language, and at the same time had to be identifiable as an individual.This difficult task Salinger achieved by giving Holden an extremely trite and typical teenage speech, overlaid with strong personal idiosyncrasies. There are two major speech habits which are Holden's own, which are endlessly