Holden Vs. Holden Caulfield

Holden Caulfield is a tragic hero in his journey to defend all children from becoming adults and saving their youth and innocence, which is simply an impossible task. Arthur Miller describes a tragic hero as one who attempts “to gain his ‘rightful’ position in his society” and in doing so struggles for his dignity. Holden’s downfall happens because his tragic flaw is that he is hypocritical about himself and doesn’t understand himself.

The death of Holden’s brother Allie at a young age adds to Holden’s negativity as well as stopping Holden from accepting inevitable change. Allie dies immaturely of leukemia. “I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it” (p. 39). Holden is in the hospital because he broke his fist, and he was unable to attend Allie’s funeral. Holden has trouble accepting Allie’s death because he never said goodbye to Allie. His relationship with Allie is similar to his maturity. Just as Holden is unable to accept his brother’s death, Holden is not able to accept that

He may still be a young boy but he is very independent and basically lives on his own for the entirety of the book, but his negative outlook transforms independence into isolation. He is incredibly lonely but also pushes people away when he has a chance to get close to them. Such as his date with Sally Hayes which was going very well until he pushed her away with his harsh words, “You give me a royal pain in the ass, if you want to know the truth” (Ch. 17 pg. 173). Just because Sally wouldn’t run away with him and be independent with him he pushed her away. Holden may think he wants to be free and independent but his negative outlook just feeds his loneliness and

Let’s consider once more Holden’s view of adults and his quest. As stated before, his views of mistrust of adults derive from their lack of empathy and their cynicism. Holden's parents for example did not teach him about life but rather they sent him off to a boarding school, creating a communication barrier between them. They also seemed to get over the death of his brother much faster than Holden could. In the book, Allie died of leukemia at the age of 11, which Holden emotionally devastated, since his youngest brother and his role model passed away so quickly. As a result of Allie’s death, Holden broken the windows in the garage and hurt himself; this shows how the death affected him and was an important caused of Holden’s mental state.

Between the bars, prostitutes, and perversities that Holden encounters during his time in New York City, it swiftly becomes clear that the adult world that Holden is forced to live in is a dark, uncaring, vile place. However, the one example of all the horrors of the adult world that stands out the most is the obscene graffiti scrawled on a wall of Phoebe’s school. Continuing the theme of wanting to protect the innocence of children, Holden feels absolutely disgusted with whoever wrote it, describing the person as “some perverty bum” (Salinger, 108). Holden’s fury with the hypothetical offender even grows to the point that he wishes to murder the man. While Holden’s intentions are noble (albeit extreme), they can also be interpreted as misguided. His assumption that a homeless man with perverted intentions broke into the school is unlikely, to say the least. In fact, it’s infinitely more likely that the graffiti was left by a rude child at Phoebe’s school who has unfortunately been exposed to the adult world Holden so despises. However, Holden is completely unable to come to this conclusion. “In his world, children are innocent and adults corrupt. While this keeps everything nice and simple in Holden's mind, it also makes it impossible for him to really understand the process of growing-up” (Shmoop Editorial Team). Holden is so desperate to keep his worldview that all children are innocent that his mind completely shuts out the possibility of children who have learned of the monstrosity of the adult world, not wanting to believe that kids have snuck past him in his role as a proverbial Catcher in the Rye. Furthermore, the appearance of the salacious vandalism occurs near the end of the novel, when Holden is on the verge of a breakdown. The precise moment in the story where

The tone or attitude in which Holden speaks is based on sarcasm and rudeness which shapes him as a character. He uses sarcasm throughout the book such as on page 71. He says, “I told her, ‘you’re really lucky. You know that?’ She was a real moron. But what a dancer” (71). Here, Holden is being very sarcastic and rude with this girl which forms Holden into his character. His tone towards the world and to the people in it is just careless because he doesn’t care about being nice to anyone. He continues to act this way, even to people that matter, such as on page 13, he says, “You mean about my flunking out of Pencey and all? ‘ I said. I sort of wished he’d cover up his bumpy chest. It wasn’t such a beautiful view” (13). Mr. Spencer is one of Holden’s teachers at Pencey and he doesn’t appreciate that at all. When Mr. Spencer is being sincere towards him, all Holden can think about is the fact that Mr. Spencer’s chest is “bumpy”. This truly defines Holden as a character and what kind of person he is; a sarcastic and cynical individual, all shown through his tone of voice.

Holden experiences extreme difficulty accepting his current realities and one of the main factors causing this is the lasting negative impact his brother Allies death had on his life. Firstly, when Holden decides to leave his school, he tells readers , “I don’t care if it’s a sad goodbye or a bad goodbye, but when I leave a place, I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse” (Salinger, 4). Holden’s need for closure is evident in this quote. When Allie died, it was very unexpected and he was not prepared to let him go, resulting in his denial that his brother is actually

Holden knows the reaction his parents are going to give but does not want to be there when it happens. This proves Holden’s disconnection and lack of communication within his family, he is not the son his family intended as that was his younger brother Allie, this makes it clear for Holden to be unable to emotionally connect with his parents. Moreover, during the night of Allie’s death, Holden took affect by the news and reacted by punching all the windows in his garage causing major cuts in his hands, being rushed to the hospital, and psychoanalyzed, he argued, “I was only thirteen, and they had me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage.” (Salinger 38). Holden tells the reader what happened to him during the night of Allie’s death and how he reacted, but also hints how is parents took control of his situation. Instead of trying to connect with their son and communicate with him to handle his problems, Holden’s parents rather had him psychoanalyzed and spend money and rely on other people to fix Holden. Holden does not have a strong connection/relationship with either of his parents than other families do with each

Holden Caulfield’s family has affected is life tremendously in a physical and mental way. His family has made him take really bad decisions for himself and putting him in a crazy state of mind. The loss of Holden’s younger brother has left Holden emotionally drained. Allie, Holden’s younger brother who died of cancer, left Holden with a huge emptiness inside of him throughout the whole entire story. The type of relationship Holden had with his brother was a devoting relationship for Holden, more than any other relationship.

Holden is a mess from the moment this novel took place. He was expelled out of school, his brother has died, and he literally has no friends. There are a lot of moments throughout the story where Holden just needs to talk to someone, whether that be a prostitute, a royal pain in the ass, or just a dancing sister. The people around Holden are clearly missing the clues of his depression, even though it’s right in front of them. Whether that be because of Holden’s past, his drinking and smoking habits, or alienating himself from the people around him.

Holden Caulfield from J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is an odd character with a unique view on the world. He belongs to a wealthy family and has attended many posh schools which he has failed and been kicked out of. One of Holden’s biggest problems is not the people around him that he calls “phonies”, but his inability to accept reality. Some evidence of this is that he wants to move out west alone and without bringing anything, he does not realize that he cannot depend on his parents for his entire life, and he wants to run away with a girl and get married when they are both teenagers.

Holden has a trauma in the past, his brother died, and lack of the support of his family makes it harder for Holden to overcome this trauma. Holden says, ”I felt so depressed, you can't imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie” (Salinger 53). It shows that he couldn’t overcome this trauma, which shows up several times in the book. However, his brother died quite a while ago, and if his parents weren’t neglecting him, they would know that he couldn’t overcome this trauma. So they would guide and support Holden, but they didn’t because they neglect

Psychoanalysis would suggest that Holden lacks the maternal affection that he so desperately desires and fails to receive. Upon reviewing Holden’s behavior it appears as if he is a victim to various disorders such as Bipolar and PTSD disorder. HealthResources.info explains the differences between emotional and psychological trauma and also the possible effects in their article, “Emotional and Psychological Trauma: Causes and Effects, Symptoms and Treatment." One key factor in that causes traumatic stress is a product of, “traumatic stress in childhood that influences the brain is caused by a poor or inadequate relationship with a primary caretaker.” It is coherent that Holden’s world of pain is a result of the absence of both his mother

Holden Caulfield: An unlikely hero For me a hero is someone who inspires change, who is not afraid to sing the unsung tunes of society and most importantly, who I can identify with. This description of a hero is best suited for the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield. The book was assigned to us in high school and I immediately identified with the character because of my age. In my research I will explore why I was able to relate to this character and how it continues to influence my decisions.

Throughout the novel Holden is rejected and exploited by the society around him. As he is conflicted with himself to find a purpose in life he constantly tries to connect with a superficial society. The ongoing failure and fake personas he meets adds to his depression and cynicism. But instead of facing the problems by growing up and to move on Holden uses this negativity and isolation to protect him. Holden tries show that he is better than everybody else as this is the little stability he has left. When in reality Holden is just scared of the interaction of people because they just submerge him with complications he doesn 't know not yet how to deal with. Holden not being be able to cope with the idea of growing up adds to his loneliness which is the core of his pain. When his encounters first interaction in the novel, Holden Caulfield is an uncaring outcast who sees no motivation in life. As he says to Mr. Spencer, he feels trapped on “the other side of life” (Salinger). Holden constant attempt to fit into society is hidden because of his detachment to people. His only stability right now is to search for his own individuality and to face adulthood himself. That is why