How Is Holden An Immature Man

Holden has matured in many ways throughout the novel. He had grown from an immature child who only cared about himself to a mature adult who wanted to make something of his life. In the beginning of the story we are introduced to

Every time he talks about them, it seems like he idolizes them. He constantly praises and compliments them, which shows how Holden is sort of attracted to the idea of childhood. When Holden is still at Pencey Prep, he writes an essay for his friend Stradlater (Salinger 43). In this composition, he talks about Allie almost like he was a saint. Holden says Allie is “about fifty times as intelligent” as him and “never got mad at anybody” (Salinger 38). This and his description of Phoebe the same way (Salinger 182) both illustrate Holden’s fixation on children and childhood. Over the course of the novel, Holden becomes slightly more open to the idea of both mentally and physically entering adulthood. At first, he tries to be his idealized version of an adult, by going to nightclubs and trying to talk to women. But he soon realizes that adulthood isn’t as good as it originally seemed – this is where he starts to tie adulthood with

As a neurotic person, Holden exhibits Self-Hatred for himself through his tendency to deal with problems through childish impulses. Self-Hatred occurs when one attempts to cope with their existential anxiety by allowing it to manifest into mental illnesses. Holden shows this when he allows his innocence to make adult decisions. For example, he hires a prostitute and plans to have sex with her, which is something that signifies the loss of innocence and transitions into adulthood. When she arrives, he changes his mind and asks “‘Don’t you feel like talking for a while?’” (Salinger 95). This shows that Holden is unable to make adult decisions, and instead, relies on his childish impulses. Holden’s childish impulses also lead to violent outcomes, such as with

Holden is very immature and cannot act his age for anything. In the beginning of the story, Holden was very immature and self-centered and he often did very immature things, but he wanted to be an adult. This is very contradicting considering that he is very immature. In the novel, Holden states, “Boy! I said. I also say Boy! quite a lot. Partly because I have a lousy vocabulary and partly because I act quite young for my age sometimes. I was sixteen then, and I'm seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I'm about thirteen.” (Salinger 16). This shows how Holden is very immature and needs to start acting his age and this could be dangerous to society. This is why he needs to stay inside the mental facility. In the mental facility, he will be safe and he will not cause any harm to anyone or to himself

Holden sees growing up and becoming an adult as a loss of innocence and an onslaught of changes he isn't quite ready to make. Albeit that growing up is full of change and discovering new things, it isn't necessarily a "loss of innocence". In chapter 22 of the book Holden describes his dream to be the catcher in the rye. Basically he wants to save children, who are apparently playing in a big field of rye and not paying attention to their surroundings, from falling to their demise off a cliff. The field represents childhood and untainted innocence, whereas the cliff represents the transition from childhood to adulthood. Where Holden is perched. And the descent off the cliff symbolizes entering the corrupt and crooked adult world. Thus is Holden's obsession with shielding children he encounters from phonies who represent the corrupt adult world in his eyes. However, this perception of the mature world is false. Life isn't a line that goes straight toward impure adulthood, it's more like a circle where one goes around and around in a journey to and from innocence. Which is why Holden could feel "so damn happy all of a sudden [watching] the way old Phoebe kept going around and around." (Salinger 213). He realizes that growing up isn't a direct loss of innocence and that, maybe, growing up isn't as bad as he originally

Holden has all of these traits. In the novel, nearly every time Holden gets depressed, he turns to alcohol. At Ernie’s night club he got served alcohol even though he was a minor. He even got drunk at the Wicker Bar. He used alcohol to escape the sadness in his life, which many killers were known to do as well. Holden also grew up lonely. He lost motivation to do well in school, which got him kicked out of Quincy High, losing his friends. His brother is also dead which may contribute to his feeling of loneliness. Holden always fantasizes about saving all the children from growing up, being their ‘Catcher in the Rye’. If somebody were to get in the way of his fantasy, he might have killed them. Holden is also socially awkward, loving children but hating adults, calling them ‘phonies’. He only has a few friends throughout the novel. He gets very angry with his friends, like when Stradlater goes out with Holden’s ex-girlfriend, Jane, whom he still has feelings for. This made him leave Quincy three days early while he travelled to Manhattan. “I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by.” said Holden (Page 4). Finally, Holden has some sexually stressful moments in the novel, like when he hired a hooker to come upstairs into his room. He wanted to do it, but when she got into the room, he

It is very clear that Holden is immature. One of the most obvious times that this is shown is when Holden is talking with Luce. Luce says, “ Same old Caulfield. When are you gonna grow up?” (Salinger 144).

Holden is constantly using crude phrases that would have shocked the original readers of the book. This is to represent the fact that Holden is trying to merge with the adult world and he assumes that by using more ‘adult’ language he can achieve this. The present day Holden refers to most of the people he met during the time he was in New York as ‘’Old.’’ This helps him to disassociate himself with the past and shows that he feels it is a different part of his life. So although during his ‘journey of discovery’ Holden appears not to have emotionally progressed towards adulthood, clearly he has now evolved and grown up, be it just a

Teenagers lives their life differently. However, when the time of being a adolescent arrives, they all have the same confusion and mindsets. J. D. Salinger’s novel, “The Catcher in the Rye”, is about a seventeen year old boy named Holden Caulfield, who lives his life with complexes and problems of his owns. Holden lives his life according to his favor and commit unreasonable actions. Holden has a difficult time trying to understand what being a teenager is. Holden Caulfield is a typical teenager because he expresses the problems of being a teenager.

Yet another demon that Holden avoids is the process of having to grow up. Throughout the book, he seems hesitant to develop any real ambitions or goals. He is a perpetual failure at school. He refuses to associate himself with mature ways of living, and so isolates himself from anyone his own age or older. This is all directly connected to Holden's picture-perfect image of his childhood. He sees this particular period of his life as his own personal paradise. He does not want to finalize the fact that he has to concede it's innocence in the end. Towards the end of the book, Holden shows his desire for life to remain as it was by saying, "...certain things should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone." Holden does not want to join a world of phonies and greed, a world lacking in carelessness and irresponsibility. He won't, whether consciously or not, accept the fact that he has no choice.

Holden’s immaturity causes him many problems throughout the story. Although he is physically mature, he acts more like a child. “All of a sudden I

The goal that that Holden has to try so hard to fulfil is symbolic of his need to differentiate himself from the "phonies" around him. Holden’s image of people is pretty bad because he believes no one acts how they truly feel. Growing up scares Holden because it leads to adulthood. In his eyes once he hits adulthood, it'll eventually lead into the same phoniness as the rest of the adults. His constant avoidance and dodging of people and situations causes him to become more and more distant from normal society and social stability.

Holden is attracted to the privileges that adulthood offers. Drinking, Sex, Independence and Smoking represent aspects of adulthood that Holden is not averse to and is genuinely excited by. After arriving in New York, Holden attempts to act as an adult, but his attempts fail miserably. He tries to order a scotch and soda but is carded and must settle for a coke instead. Holden is content with childhood right up until it forfeits him an opportunity to get a drink. He wants to be an adult, but also wants to be a kid. He seems excited with the freedom but fears the loss of innocence and responsibility 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

Holden handles his belief that adulthood is sardonic rather childish yet adultlike. For instance, when Holden is out with Sally he acts immature about the “phonies” around him. “At the end of the first act we went out with all the other jerks for a cigarette. What a deal that was. You never saw so many phonies in your life, everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they were” (164). Holden thinks