Summary Of Holden's Conversation With Horowitz

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 this passage of the book, Holden is thinking scientifically. This supports the fact that he is smart after all, even though he his failing most of his classes. Often times, a teenager wants something so bad, they come up with crazy and somewhat stupid ideas and plans to help them obtain that something. Maybe this is because he does not want to try or maybe he wants to fit in with others who would not accept him if he was smart. In this metaphor, he is comparing himself the ducks in Central Park when the lagoon freezes over. What Holden is really saying is the fact that he would not know where to go if he stays living in a place full of phonies and rude people. The ducks cannot swim in ice and he will not stay in a school full of fakes.

In J. D Salinger 's novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist, Holden, goes through many hardships in his journey to self-knowledge. In the beginning, Holden has to deal with being kicked out of school and not having any place to call home. He is also struggling with the unfortunate tragedy of the death of his beloved younger brother Allie. At the same time, Holden is trying to deal with growing up and accepting the adult world. Throughout the novel Salinger addresses the conflicts faced by a young man struggling with the trials and tribulations of growing up while also confronting personal loss and loneliness along the way.

Holden’s need to save others from a loss of innocence also manifests itself as a compulsion to shield children from obscenities. Upon arriving at Phoebe’s school to deliver a note, he notices that someone has written an obscenity on the wall: “Somebody had written ‘Fuck you’ on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it … and then finally some dirt kid would tell them - all cockeyed, naturally - what it meant … I kept wanting to kill whoever’d written it” (201). Holden reacts with an unexpected level of hatred for whomever had written it.

Some children act like adults, and some adults act like children. This ambiguity is manifested in The Catcher in the Rye, which is a realistic fiction novel by J.D. Salinger. The main character, Holden Caulfield, is a 16-year-old boy who has flunked out of multiple schools. He gets expelled from his latest school, Pencey Prep, a few days before the term ends (Salinger 6). So he decides to spend the rest of the days in New York – he doesn’t want his parents to know he got expelled, and figures he’ll just come home when he would have if he didn’t get kicked out. Holden knows his parents will be really angry with him if they find out (Salinger 11). He figures that spending time in New York is the perfect opportunity for him to act like an adult. Holden realizes that he sometimes acts like he was “only about twelve” (Salinger 12). But his perception of

On the very first page of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield says “I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty rundown and had to come here and take it easy.” Opening the story this way tells me that at the end of the book something will happen to him that will force him to be hospitalized. I wonder what will happen and why he will be admitted. Because of this when I was reading the book I watched for symptoms and continued making

1.Holden vs Self, Holden is in conflict with himself, being extremely angry and depressed, with the death of his little brother hanging over him, he wishes that he was the one who died, not his little brother, and he feels responsibility.

Holden’s opinion of childhood and adulthood changes throughout the story as he takes on different experiences. He is so obsessed with finding out where the ducks go in winter, and he thinks they will freeze over, he talks to Horowitz, and truly believes what happens to the ducks will happen to him. Horowitz tells Holden, “ Their bodies take in nutrients and all, that's their nature for Chrissake.” He tells this to Holden because he wants him to understand that's how fish survive naturally and he can do those same. Holden associates the ducks with his school, because he is kicked out just like the ducks are kicked out of their pond when winter comes along. he even go searching for them in Central Park and as he walks along the pond, he gets scared he's going to die. Even though Horowitz tells him to trust mother nature, Holden is not ready to believe

“’Like hell it (red hunting hat) is.’ I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. ‘This is a people shooting hat,’ I said. ‘I shoot people in the hat’” (Salinger 22).

In The Catcher in The Rye Holden Caulfield retells the experiences he had while he was unknowingly on a quest. In the end, Holden failed his original quest, but ended up discovering something about himself and the world.

     Throughout “The Catcher in the Rye”, Holden Caufield longs for intimacy with other human beings. One of Holden’s main problems is that he sees childhood as the ideal state of being. He thinks that all adults are phonies.

    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.

talks about it and before we find out he is a virgin we might consider

I think that Holden will go down and say "hello" to Jane because he shows a lot of interest in her. Holden can't stop talking about her while he is having a conversation with Stradlater, after he found out that Jane is Stradlater's date. He remembers a lot of details and information about her. For instance: He knows that she's a dancer, and that she used to practice about two hours a day but she was worried that it'll make her legs thick. He also recalls that he used to play checkers with her and that she would just leave the kings in the back row since she liked the way they looked. It's clear to me that those details seem very important to Holden, However, to Stradlater or to any other person those details seem unimportant and insignificant.

The ducks are first brought to the reader’s attention while Holden is visiting his teacher, Mr. Spencer, regarding his removal from Pencey. While conversing with Mr. Spencer, however, Holden’s mind drifts elsewhere. His mind drifts back to New York as he wonders to himself if the lagoon in Central Park is frozen over, and if so, where do the ducks go? A direct parallel can be drawn from the ducks in the lagoon to Holden’s present situation. He is mandated to leave Pencey, but has no idea where he belongs after leaving. Just like the ducks in the lagoon, “Holden is essentially homeless, frozen out” (Trowbridge par. 1). Holden’s life has not been filled with an abundance of stability and now what little he had is gone, albeit due to faults of his own, and he sees an unsure and hazy future. Holden inquires about the state of the ducks to the driver of the first cab he catches in New York, and the driver believes that he is kidding. Later on, he asks another cab driver if somebody came around “in a truck or something to take them away” or if they flew away “by themselves” (Salinger 81-82). Knowing what happens to these ducks, knowing that they are safe and secure even though the lagoon is frozen would provide Holden with a sense of comfort about his current state of affairs. What seems to be a ridiculous and meaningless question to the