Taking a Look at Holden's Inmaturity

In a society filled with impureness, Holden Caulfield searches for purity and innocence in everyone around him. Lonely, affectionate, and judgmental, Holden is the narrator and protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye. His actions and the way he acts reveals that Holden is very lonely, and is longing for human companionship. Holden is somewhat mature above his age, but still desires pleasures like any other teenage boy. After meeting people, Holden becomes very judgemental about the way people act. Theses traits all come together at the end and put Holden into a psychiatric institution, living a few miles away from his big brother.

Literature has always relied on techniques to catch the reader’s attention and format the story, and “the Catcher in the Rye” is no exception. Salinger brought many different writing styles into his novel to make it a bestseller. With his knowledge, Salinger was able to depict the persona of Holden to the reader without directly stating his characteristics. Salinger proves Holden is a lonesome figure who wanted to fit in but struggles to be accepted. The Catcher in the Rye depicts Holden as one who struggles with his sexuality and adulthood and wants to save children from adulthood because of the difficulties that it has brought himself. Salinger greatly expresses Holden through the use of metaphor, imagery, symbolism,

Throughout the novel The Catcher in the Rye Holden sees the world as an evil and corrupt place, however it is clear that he gradually comes to the conclusion he cannot change it. The first instance demonstrating Holden’s progression is when he sees the profanity written all over Phoebe’s school. In this moment he finally understands that it is inevitable to enter adulthood and realizes the impossibility to try to rid even half of the profanity within the world if given a million years. The first majority of the novel displays Holden’s pessimistic view on everything in life and his desire to contain the innocence he has left. Holden’s evolution as a

It takes many experiences in order for an immature child to become a responsible, well-rounded adult. In J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger’s main character Holden Caulfield matures throughout the course of the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Holden is a juvenile young man. However, through his experiences, Holden is able to learn, and is finally able to become somewhat mature by the end of the novel. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s story represents a coming of age for all young adults.

From the very beginning of the novel, Holden is seen to be moody, cynical and not the typical protagonist of a coming of age novel. He believes that the adult world is full of phonies and has a certain misconception which results in him alienating himself from society as he struggles through the rocky passage from childhood to adulthood. His angry and disenchanted view of the world does not stop us from sympathising and even relating with him through the story.

First, the instance where Holden Caulfield displayed development as a character is when he fought with Stradlater. The fight with Stradlater helped to develop Holden’s very devoted idea of maintaining innocence, exemplified in the following quotation, “I told him he thought he could give the time to anybody he felt like. I told him he didn’t care if a girl kept all her kings in the back row or not” (Salinger 50). The preceding quote illustrates how Holden is not like many others, he displays how he values how Jane places her kings in checkers, as opposed to Stradlater who is only engrossed in “sexy stuff”. This proves how Holden develops through violence as it shows how keen he is on maintaining one’s innocence and how having it taken away will leave someone impure and corrupted. Furthermore, Holden accurately displays development when he tore the composition he wrote for Stradlater about his late brother Allie’s baseball mitt. The incident accomplishes Holden’s development as a character since how he fights in the face of hatred is exhibited (Stradlater’s discourteous comment) to protect the innocence of his little brother. Thus, the fight between Holden and Stradlater was a prime example, where Holden was able to illustrate his character as well as his fight to safeguard innocence within those he cares about. This, of course, is a reference to the title of the book where Holden sees himself as the catcher in the rye, someone who catches children before they fall off the cliff , a metaphor to adulthood.

Hope 's, failures, accomplishments, joy, excitement, and sadness are all feelings that Holden experiences through the novel. Feelings aid in the dictation of how we live our lives. The feelings may seem insurmountable at one point in time are actually temporary in the bigger picture. This perspective is something that Holden lacks through the course of the novel. After leaving boarding school Holden feels like his life is over he is unable to see that life could change. After Allie died Holden felt like his life was over without his brother he was lost and alone. After he felt like the people around him gave up, he felt like his life was over he had no support. Again and again, Holden 's feelings kept pointing in a negative direction. This struggle is what ultimately directs Holden 's actions and emotions. Holden is naive to the reality that emotions are like a rollercoaster there are great highs and great lows. However, at the end of the day the rollercoaster ride will finish. The underlying theme is to never give up on any of them through the highs and lows of life. You will always have things that hold you back, but at the end of the day success only comes when you are able to conquer those challenges. Catcher in the Rye is a story about a young boy who is lost in the world and has faced his fair share of challenges in his life. After getting kicked out of a boarding school and pretending to be an adult. He finds himself lost and without hope.

Although Holden Caulfield is known to be very whiny, judgmental and introverted, he has also displayed numerous good qualities and has reasons for why he acts the way he acts that help us understand the reasons for why he displays some of his negative qualities, which makes it possible for the readers to sympathise with him. Throughout the novel it is obvious that Holden has never gotten over the death of his younger brother Allie, which explains some of his negative traits, it is also apparent that Holden doesn’t fit in and is an introvert in a world that seems to be full of extroverts, and lastly most of his views on adults and the world, although somewhat extreme are also accurate. All these factors are what help us as the readers find sympathy for Holden.

Throughout time it has been discussed that Holden is a somewhat tragic character due to the fact that he himself shows many signs of being a so called phony, but he does not see it inside himself and goes on to judge and dislike other people for being the way they are. Holden is constantly making up excuses for himself as to why when he is a certain way it does not make him a hypocrite or a phony. He also referred to himself as dumb constantly and is always doing awful in school, yet while reading the book it becomes pretty obvious that he is not dumb because he uses such interaction language There has been a wide debate on the matter that is, did Salinger wrote Holden to be purposely hypocritical to himself or if Salinger himself is a hypocritical human who truly had these clouded outlooks on life and was not able to see past his own flaws . That alone makes Holden such an interesting character to discuss, is he written to be some very layered character that can be dissected 100 different ways because he was written with the intent to be that way? Or was he written to be this rebellious teenage boy who goes on this journey and his personality and inner workings are just a product of salinger himself.

Holden Caulfield plays a timeless character in the sense that his way of life is common for the American teenager, in his time as well as now. Today parents dread the terrible and confusing adolescent years of their child's life. In J.D. Salinger's book, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden is in this terrible and confusing point of his life. At this point in his life, as well as in modern teenager's lives, a transition occurs, from child to adult. Holden takes this change particularly rough and develops a typical mentality that prevents him from allowing himself to see or understand his purpose in life.

Catcher in the Rye Holden is a Typical Teenager Throughout all of Holden’s problems and circumstances, he is still considered to be a typical teenager because of his depression, language, search for independence, and obsession over sex and alcohol. Although Holden has a lot of depression issues going on throughout his life, he is still a typical boy because everyone at his age goes through many stressful situations. Many people would counter argue this because he tends to get mad over little things that happen.

Catcher in the rye is an interesting book that grabs my attention because you don't know what going to happen next. Holden is full of mystery, one minute he is all expressive about his feelings, later he gets all disrespectful and mean. He harbors hatred of the word or term “phonies” which he believes everyone is guilty of except for his dead brother Allie, phoebe and his mother. At first, when I started reading the book “catcher in the rye” I found it a bit boring but once I got to the part of the fight between him and his room buddy, I got more interested in the book because there were so many things that made it worth reading. In the process of reading, I found out that Holden is afraid of change in his life because he doesn't like it and he wants to have fun and not become an adult. This play a huge part part in the book because when all adults tries to give him advice, he didn't listen, he just ignore them which landed him into many troubles.

The major theme in the Catcher in the Rye, is innocence. Holden is conflicted with whether or not to grow up. He wants to grow up, and he thinks he should. However, he wants to live in the past, be a kid, and have fun. He continually tries to reconnect with his childhood. Holden continuously reflects on his times as a child with his dead brother Allie. He thinks about his times with the girl next door to him, and all the times he spent playing checkers with her. He thinks about his younger sister, and their times at the museum. He talks a great deal about how much he misses these times with the people who were close to him as a child. Once he sets out on his journey of discovery, his only security blanket is that reconnection to his childhood.

To begin with, in J.D Salinger’s book The Catcher in the Rye, Holden portrays as a character that has an impetuous way of living his life. Dashti, Sorour Karampour, and Ida Baizura Binti state that “Holden is not a madman; however, a sociologist that is always scrutinizing society as well as his problematic behavior making him seem like one”(qtd. in Salinger 126 ). Holden may come off as a madman because of his actions of being a hypocrite and a delinquent. Holden constantly is judging society around him ;even though, he has no say in judging others when he’s just the same way as society. Other characters in The Catcher in the Rye see Holden as a delinquent since he dropped out of school with no regret. J.D Salinger describes Holden as a problematic child that is a nuisance to society. As stated in The Catcher in the Rye “I was only

To begin with, in J.D Salinger’s book The Catcher in the Rye, is portrayed as a character that has no regrets about acting the way he does. Dashti, Sorour Karampour, and Ida Baizura Binti state that “Holden is not a madman; however, a sociologist that is always scrutinizing society as well as his problematic behavior making him seem like one”(qtd. in Salinger 126 ). Holden may come off as a madman because of actions of being a hypocrite and a delinquent. Holden is always seen judging society around him when he has no room to judge others when he’s just the same way as society. Other characters in The Catcher in the Rye see Holden as a delinquent since he dropped out of school with no regret. J.D Salinger describes Holden as a problematic child that is a nuisance to society. As stated in The Catcher in the Rye “I was only thirteen and they were going to have