People change, you can’t ask people not to. Change is a part of the book The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist and narrator of the novel longs for intimacy with other human beings. Throughout the book, Holden hesitates between wanting relationships and rejecting relationships. In the book Holden has different types of relationships and these relationships affect and change his character throughout the story. In this essay I am going to discuss how two of Holden's loved ones changed his character.
The Catcher in the Rye takes place in the 1950’s in New York. Holden Caulfield is a confused, judgemental and a somewhat lonely adolescent boy. He decides to leave school four days before Christmas break starts.
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There are many reasons for him to feel like this. First off, he lost his little brother Allie - whom he felt very connected to - to leukemia at a very young age. Also, one of his school mates committed suicide, which has had a big impact of course. And it seems that Holden does not have any close friends what makes him feel lonely. All these things combined could be the reason for him to fail almost all of his classes. Except for English, which he loves. And eventually the combination of his grades and his behavior led to him being kicked out of Pencey Prep, the school he went to. At one point he even talks about that it would not matter if he died. In the beginning he said: ‘I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was …show more content…
Holden is devastated by Allie’s death and carries around a baseball glove on which Allie used to write poems in green ink. Because Allie died so young, Holden thought that his innocence was taken away from him. I do not think Allie influenced Holden in a good way, because in reaction to his death Holden felt it was his responsibility to protect the innocence of all children. And this is not a healthy feeling, a boy of Holden’s age should not feel responsible for the innocence of children, he should have been able to accept that everyone is going to be an
The carousel and gold ring finally allow Holden to accept change as a natural part of life and that it is necessary for one to grow as a person. Holden buys a ticket for Phoebe, his kid sister, to ride the carousel but refuses her offer to go on as well. Instead, he sits and watches: “ I went over and sat down on this bench and she went and got on the carousel” (211). By doing this, Holden chooses to no longer be a child. He starts to accept that he needs to start maturing and watches Pheobe, like the other adults are watching their children. This is a step in the right direction for Holden as up until this point in the novel, he has refused to change because of his fear. While Holden watches Phoebe ride the carousel, he watches her reach for the gold ring. As she reaches, Holden thinks to
In the book Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger writes about a boy named Holden who tells a story about his life from a mental hospital. Holden's story begins after his classes at Pencey Prep school in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. Not being a very good student, Holden has failed out of three schools and Pencey Prep will be his fourth. Holden wants to find a way to say good bye to Pencey and remembers the time he was playing football with his friends late at night. Through Holden's time at Pencey, he has become acquaintances with Ackley his unhygienic dorm neighbor and Stradlater Holden's popular roommate. Throughout the book, Holden thinks about Jane, a girl he has spent a lot of time with in the past and has flashbacks about her, but never talks
The Catcher in the Rye was about Holden, who admires in children attributes that he struggles to find in adults to talk to him and he is undergoing treatment in a mental hospital. Holden Caulfield,who is 16 year old teenager went to three schools, but fails four of his five subjects only passed English he also struggles with the fact that everyone has to grow up. In the novel, Holden tells the reader through a few days of his life, in which he flaunts his hostile environments. Throughout the book,
Throughout the book The catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield takes a journey through his life. On the outside of this young teenage boy it may seem like he has it together, but the inside of him is a full-hearted child. Holden has troubles with his inability to not try and save every innocent life he passes all the while he’s trying to force childhood and his actions back on himself. The sudden death of his brother Allie makes him go through this transition where he needs to grow up and face reality, but he instead chooses to hide behind the thoughts of a child. Although some may think that Holden has grown up because of the change he shows from the beginning to the end of the novel and the fact that reality might have hit him, that is not the case.
“The way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth”. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger tells about how this main character Holden Caulfield and his experiences with others that are around him and how is his living by himself in New York after he got expelled from Pencey Prep. Basically Salinger is trying to write what’s in a teenagers mind and how they are experiencing about the world around them. Holden is mostly driven to women and sometimes is confused when he had sex.
Why would anyone be afraid of growing up? Wouldn’t you want to grow up and see what the world has in store for you? Not Holden Caulfield, from the The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger. In fact, that's holdens biggest fear. He is so consumed in the image the world has on how to grow up and what happens after, he doesnt get to live his life to it’s full potential. He thinks adults get caught up in paying bills and their jobs and your set to a routine you can't get out of. However, Holden does show hope of growing up.
In the Book The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield takes on the role of caretaker to whomever he meets, as many good hearted people do, but who is there to take care of him? Holden is telling his story as a flashback as he is currently in a mental health facility suffering from a nervous breakdown. At first Holden is an annoying person whose thoughts are all over the place, and are hard to follow. Shortly through the book I not only found him comical, but quite relatable. I empathize with Holden as he continuously finds the good in people and tries to protect them from the harshness of reality. Holden is a brilliant boy who is much wiser than his young age of 16, although he is 17 when he is telling the story. I believe that if his parents had been there for him more often, he wouldn’t be in a facility at all. Although his parents are still possibly in mourning, they themselves and the rest of the adults in this book let Holden down.
“She wouldn’t move any of her kings. What she’d do, when she’d get a king, she wouldn’t move it. She’d just leave it in the back row…” (Salinger 36). Even though this is one of the few hundred thousand sentences in the novel, Catcher in the Rye, it has a huge underlying message.
Growing up can be scary for anyone. Some kids handle it better than others. Holden Caulfield, the main character in J.D salinger’s book The Catcher in the Rye has a difficult time handling responsibilities and adult situations. Holden is afraid to grow up because he does not want to abandon his childish ways and start handling responsibilities as an adult. He is also a troubled 16 year old kid who tries to escape his problems instead of solving them.
In the previous chapters, some of Holden’s behaviors and the things that Holden mentioned are immature. In a way that, he wishes to stay as a child because he had a lousy childhood. Just like when he reads, he likes to read some part in novels over and over again. Holden must have likes the part and he doesn’t want it to end hence, he rereads it. Everything that Holden brought up in the first two chapters are negative.
J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye is the chronicle of a young man's metamorphosis from immaturity to unsure manhood. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, is a sixteen-year old boy who leaves the prep school he has been expelled from to escape the frightening reality of dealing with his parents. However, during his visit to New York City he is faced with the harsh reality that he cannot continue to hold onto his childhood. Holden is an extremely complex character and it is only by examining each layer of him that the reader is able to understand his painful metamorphosis.
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.
The author has put in plenty of themes, messages, ideas, issues, and motifs. The character, Holden Caulfield is alienated from society, is experiencing the painfulness of growing up, thinks that the adult world is full of phoniness, and is sick of hearing about the American Dream from his teachers. JD Salinger has created a book that has raised plenty of questions and controversy towards the readers. The Catcher in the Rye shows how a teenage mind works. JD Salinger has used a stream of consciousness writing style where the character (Holden Caulfield) talks in first person as he presents his thoughts and feelings to the readers. The setting has taken place in the early fifties and the book uses a lot of profane words. The New York
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
The novel ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D Salinger is a coming-of-age story. It follows the short tale of Holden Caulfield, a sixteen year old boy, who throughout his experiences in the novel, changes and becomes more mature and independent. The story essentially has two Holden Caulfields, the one telling the story, and the one that the story is being told about. This essay will look at the differences and similarities between the two Holden’s’.