The Catcher in the Rye: Influences in Holden's Life

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

The irony of Holden detesting phoniness and adulthood is that he acts so much like an adult with his curiosity and experience with alcohol and sex that he misses his own opposition. Holden hates the responsibility, morality, and accountability of being an adult and embraces childhood. This contradicts everything that he desires and to want to take part in. This causes his own corruption and enables a failure to relate to himself.

showed off because it seemed so fake and unnatural every time they would do so.

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.

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

Holden is the biggest hater of phonies, and at the same time, he is the biggest phony in the novel. In this novel, being phony is somewhat equivalent to being an adult. Holden wants to be seen like an adult. For this reason, he smokes and drinks heavily, and goes as far as being involved with prostitution. For people like Stradlater and adults, these are rather normal from their perspective. However, for Holden, they become paradoxes, as he absolutely loathes phoniness. Nearly all aspects of society, including movies, matinees, people’s behaviors, and even simple social interactions like conversations, are criticized by Holden for being phony. For example, during his date with Sally, Sally’s conversation with a guy they met at the matinee “killed [Holden]…it was the phoniest conversation you ever heard in your life” (Salinger 127). In a hope to make Sally understand his views on phonies, Holden says, “‘Take cars,’… ‘I don’t even like old cars. I mean they don’t even interest me. I’d rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God’s sake’” (Salinger 130). Then again, Holden becomes the phoniest person shortly after. He asks Carl Luce,

Many Americans think that people who are different than them in some way or another are inferior. Holden embodies this need for judgement with his feeling that all adults or other adult-like students are “phonies.” He thinks that because they are different than him, they are less than him. Holden rarely sees an adult that he does not think of as a phony, “It was very phony- I mean him being such a big snob and all” (Ch.12 pg. 110). Even though Holden admits that this piano player is very talented and humble he thinks that he is still a phony. This gives good insight into how Holden sees people around him. Like many people in America, Holden jumps to conclusions and judges people who are different than

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

In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger tells a story of a young boy, Holden, who never quite understood his stance on life. Throughout the novel, Holden struggles to adapt to the inevitable transition into adulthood, often worrying more about others than himself. In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger uses connotative diction, repetition, and specific diction to convey Holden’s struggle of accepting life changes that led him to becoming mentally unstable.            To start off, Salinger illustrates Holden’s nature by using connotative diction.

However, as the novel nears the end, Holden experiences his pivotal moment and takes on a different perspective of life. Rather than just going through with his plan of isolating himself from the superficial society, Holden decides to stay and face it, with its adulthood and phoniness. Seeing Phoebe attempt to grab the gold ring along with other kids, Holden thinks to himself, “I was... afraid she’d fall off... but I didn’t say anything or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it... If they fall off, they fall off” (211). Holden reaches the conclusion that he can’t be a catcher. He can only watch the children and in no way can he avert them from committing their own wrongdoings; he is not able to save them from shedding their innocence as they grow older and they will eventually. Releasing himself from the task, “[Holden] felt so damn happy” (213). A burden has lifted as he liberates himself from such a responsibility. He doesn’t have to carry the weight of executing the responsibility he shackled himself with, one that greatly affected him mentally. He knows that he does not have to keep up this pretense anymore.

     Although Holden is extremely cynical and struggles with relationships, he is not all bad. Inside he is moral and generous. He was very charitable when he gave a considerable donation of twenty dollars to the nuns. Holden has a strange way of loving people.

    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.

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.

The most noticeable of Holden's "peculiarities" is how extremely judgmental he is of almost everything and everybody, in other words he is very cynical. A cynic is routinely disappointed when others don’t live up to their constructed image and, as a result, often doubts people’s motives, and genuineness. Holden applies his often cynical and pessimistic reasoning to almost everything. He judges and criticizes people who are boring, people who are money-driven, and, above all, people who are “phony.”

“I don’t like any shows very much, if you want to know the truth. They’re not as bad as movies, but they’re certainly nothing to rave about. In the first place, I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do. Some of the good ones do, in a very slight way, but not in a way that’s fun to watch. And if any actor’s good, you can always tell he knows he’s good, and that spoils it…If an actor acts it out, I hardly listen. I keep worrying about whether he’s going to do something phony every minute.” He finds the theater phony because instead of demonstrating reality as it is, the emphasis is placed on polishing it theatrically. Holden feels anger towards his brother because “he’s out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute.” He considered that D.B. was selling himself to Hollywood, which is why he called D.B. a prostitute. He considers the movies phony and hates them so much that “… I don’t think I could ever do it with somebody that sits in a stupid movie all day long” when Sunny the prostitute was in his room. When he dances with Bernice Crabs/Krebs, he considers her a moron partially because she was on the lookout for actors at the bar because she had seen an actor the previous night. Also, it depressed him that they were planning on waking up early the next day to see the first show at Radio City Music Hall. Holden’s criticism towards the phony things in society is the most important part of his personality because it shows that