Holden 's Influence On Holden Caulfield 's ' The Catcher 's The Rye '

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.

Holden thinks children are authentic and in order to stay authentic in a world full of phonies he seeks to preserve his childlike nature. In chapter 13, Holden talks about the concept of his virginity, he says “If you want to know the truth, I’m a virgin. I really am. I’ve had quite a few opportunities to lose my virginity and all, but I never got around to it yet. Something always happens.”(92). Holden admits he’s still a virgin and to many people losing your virginity is a step to adulthood. This is Holden’s way of trying to protect what little he has of his childhood to prevent himself from becoming an adult. That “something always happens”(92) is his own subconscious telling him to stop and to save this moment for someone who he really likes not a prostitute whom he bought. Holden even says earlier ,in the novel, “I don’t like the idea...I think if you don’t really like a girl, you shouldn’t horse around with her at all”(62). The author is trying to show how kids can avoid being an adult in the real world. Although he tries to protect his youth, Holden also likes to pretend his is an adult. He does things like being an avid smoker, constantly wanting to drink, and wanting to hookup with girls. Doing acts like these: ”After a while I sat down in a chair and smoked a couple of cigarettes.”(63), “‘Would any of you girls care to dance?’ I didn’t ask them crudely or anything. Very suave, in fact.”(70), “Boy, I sat at that goddamn bar

At his age most kids are already sexually active, making them more adult in a way. The reason for this being that they are exposed to many things that younger, and more innocent children are not. With the protection of his virginity comes his innocence. Holden’s innocence is slowly being taken away as the novel goes on. When he goes to New York he is exposed to many things that normal kids are not used to seeing. He sees prostitutes for one thing, people who are the opposite of innocent and clean. Holden also has to be around a lot of phonies who make him realize hat the world isn’t perfect and that people lie and cheat to receive what they want. This is seen with Mr. Ossenburg, who takes advantage of other people while they are mourning their loved ones. He takes their money, which is supposed to go to a grave, but just ends up keeping it and throwing the bodies in a ditch. Holden meets many more phonies, and doesn’t want other children to be exposed to their dishonest nature.

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.

One main thing Holden is interested in and he makes this clear would be sex. He harassed Luce constantly about questions to do with sex, and was aroused by the sexual behavior displayed at Edmont Hotel. Another example of how Holden gets guilty easily and feels nervous would be when he was alone with a prostitute and got flustered with her sitting on his lap. Holden was quick to

Readers can find this irritating because he has many questions about sex and he does not know how to act mature. Holden at the hotel was looking at the window across into other people windows watching what they were doing. He saw a lot of strange things going on. One thing he saw was a man and a women squirting water all over each other. Holden thought that the girl was good looking and he said " I mean that's my big trouble. In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw" (70). Holden is very immature and he is always thinking about sex. He also always is asking people about sex while talking to him and it is very immature. Later on in the story when Holden is at the bar talking with Carl Luce, Carl says " Not so loud Caulfield. If you can't manage to keep your voice down, let's drop the whole ---" (162). This is not the first time that he has been asked to be quiet by Carl. Holden is acting very immature because he is yelling instead of talking to Carl at the bar and he is the only one doing that. This is very immature to do because he is at a place with all adults that are sitting and talking while he is yelling. Both quotes clearly show that Holden is immature and he does not act his age. Readers can see another reason why Holden is irritating in the

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.

Everyone in the society can have some influences in any way, negatively or positively. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden encounters many people throughout his journey. These relationships he has influence his view of the world, allowing him to mature from someone who dislikes the shallow cruel world to understanding this is how life is. This development is shown through "phonies" he meets throughout the novel, his brother Allie, and his sister Phoebe.

The Catcher in the Rye displays many theme throughout the novel, and all of these themes can be seen through the main character Holden and his relationships with certain individuals. Themes like loss of innocence, reality vs. illusion, lack of communication and the list goes on and on. However, another big theme that is often illuminated is dealing with change, which is something Holden isn't the best at dealing with. Many of us can relate to Holden in general, but especially with this topic because it affects us all, things change but from these changes we grow and learn which holden struggles to grasp. Dealing with change is a topic see in The Catcher in the Rye, and is displayed through Allie’s Death, character development, and Phoebe growing up.

Ill mannered – The reason why Holden is ill-mannered is because of how he constantly talks bad behind other peoples’ backs, usually for no apparent reason. Holden does it only for his enjoyment. After reading several of Holden’s rude statements, it is revealed that he is always judgmental and spends most of his time pointing out the negatives and never looks at the positive side of the people he meets. The ironic part is that Holden’s opinions about others are a contradiction as his personality throughout the novel actually fits with those terms he uses because Holden has no signs of respect for others.

George Bernard Shaw once said that, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” In J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher and The Rye, Holden’s fear of change shows us that change, although difficult, is inevitable as one matures from a child to an adult. We see how Holden is overwhelmed with change which makes him enjoy things that stay the same. When Holden is able to look back at this experiences, he matures and is able to grow.

Title In The Catcher in The Rye, the reader is introduced to Holden Caulfield, a seemingly dashing yet recalcitrant teenaged boy who goes on an interesting journey in New York City after being dismissed from his elite boarding school. However, Holden’s actions do have some purpose. He does not like the society that he lives in and believes it to be phony. He wants a life without phoniness, because he believes that phonies cause most of the problems in the world, which is why he isolates himself.

However, he admits that while the couple’s actions are “crumby” (Salinger 81) and crude, he is still aroused and “wouldn’t mind” (Salinger 81) doing it, especially to a girl he is attracted to. While Holden wants to preserve his innocence by not thinking about sex at all, he agrees that he is a “sex maniac” (Salinger 81), and is a fiend about losing his virginity. Holden even goes as far as to make rules for himself. On page 82, he recounts, “I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it-the same night, as a matter of fact” (Salinger). He is slowly losing his innocence, and while he hates to admit it, Holden’s constant thoughts about sexuality is a sign of adulthood. To him, one should only have sex with someone they truly love. Holden is almost proud of himself for having such a morally correct view of sex. This is why he is so riled when he discovers that Stradlater had sex with Jane Gallagher. Holden realized that Jane barely knew Stradlater and felt that he, if anyone, should be dating Jane. His increasing thoughts on sexuality and loss of a conventional or shielded view of sex show that his loss of innocence is apparent.

In the novel Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the protagonist Holden Caulifield views the world as an evil corrupt place where there is no peace. Holden has a phony phobia that restricts him from becoming a fully matured adult. In Holden's attempted journey in becoming a fully matured adult, he encounters many scenarios involving friendship, personal opinions, and his love of children. His journey is an unpleasant and difficult one with many lessons learned along the way; including the realization that he is powerless to change the world.

“Do…[not] let your struggle[s] define your identity” (unknown). In other words, this quote says that you should not let your struggles dictate your life. The Catcher In The Rye, a meaningful novel written by J.D Salinger, demonstrates this quote with the use of a protagonist, Holden Caulfield, who is extremely difficult to understand. Salinger uses vague writing to portray Holden as someone who does not fit into society's expectations. After the death of Holden's brother Allie, Holden goes into a downward spiral of depression and tries to venture into adulthood faster then he should have. The first time the reader interacts with Holden is when he is at, Pencey, a private school which he is failing all of his classes. As a result, Holden got kicked out of Pencey. To beat the letter, that the school sent home, Holden left Pencey early and headed into New York City. From there Holden spends his days in New York City reminiscing and interacting with some interesting characters. Based on the reading one can say that Salinger's main message in The Catcher In The Rye is to illustrate the struggle of identity crisis in adolescents. Salinger does this using Holden’s sexual confusion and the use of turning an everyday item into a piece of symbolic literature.