The Role Of Jane In Catcher In The Rye

Although Holden never directly interacts with Jane Gallagher during the course of the novel, the way he thinks and talks about her, as well as the way he remembers

In this excerpt Salinger was able to highlight the “loss of innocence” as Holden Caulfield struggled with the realization that his roommate Stradlater may have taken away the innocence of his long term childhood friend, Jean Gallagher. Holden is in a mindset believing that he can remain innocent indefinitely as well as allow his childhood friends, if they continue to be behave similarly to children. He is unwilling to accept the fact that he must one day reach adulthood which contradicts from Stradlater’s ideology. Stradlater is more than willing to advance into adulthood and uses women as tools to gain experience; in hopes of reaching it sooner. This is supported by Holden’s comments to Stradlater “ I told him he thought he could give the time to anybody he felt like. I told him he didn't even care if a girl kept all her kings in the back row or not, (....)"You don't even know if her first name is Jane or Jean, ya goddam moron!”, showing that Stradlater valued a woman's body rather than her name or ethics and values. Holden believed that Jean was a girl that “kept all her kings in the back row” meaning that she preferred the security of playing safe. Thus, Holden is shocked and even nervous by the possibilities that could have occurred within Ed Banky’s car making him hostile to Stradlater. He is unwilling to comprehend that Jane Gallagher, the girl who always played it safe, may have transitioned into

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

Jane Gallagher remains a constant though out the entire novel. She represents the way of life he once followed, and the track he should be on but doesn't get back to. He never calls her because he claims he isn't "in the mood" (Salinger 33). This emphasizes that Holden is trying to avoid finding his purpose, his track, because the truth, like the

Holden allows the reader to hypothesize that he is attracted to a girl named Jane Gallagher, by constantly telling of his fond memories of her, but when push comes to shove his tendency to alienation himself from society, to "protect himself from losing his innocence", takes him over. On page 116 of the novel, Holden tells the reader that after he got his sister a record he went to a phone booth and called Jane's house. But when her mother picked up the phone he hung up. Holden tells the reader that he "didn't feel like getting into a long conversation with her mother" so he hung up but in reality Holden's personal preference of alienating himself frightened him and prevented him of making any contact with Jane.

“Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love” This quote from Reinhold Niebuhr tells of a human incapability to accomplish a deed of any sort without the assistance of love. In The Catcher in the Rye; Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Little Brown and Company, 1991 and Jane

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.

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These people include Jane Gallagher, Carl Luce, his student advisor at Whooton, and Phoebe, his sister. Holden focuses a lot on Jane Gallagher in our sessions, although she is never physically present in his story. Holden's failure to contact her because of his indecisiveness to talk to her makes him more miserable about himself. His conversation with Carl Luce adds insult to injury. Holden told me how much he respected Carl Luce since he thought Luce would be able to understand him and tell him what to do. But when Holden becomes too nosy by asking Luce too many personal questions, Luce criticizes him, which makes Holden more depressed. Phoebe adds even more salt to the wound. When Holden comes back to meet his sister in hopes that someone from his family to understand him, she criticizes him for getting kicked out of school. He decides to seclude himself by moving west alone; I believe this decision was made based on the built-up depression that has been accumulating within Holden. Although the people he respects toss him away and refuse to understand him, Phoebe brings Holden back and gives him hope to

Holden's childhood friend, Jane Gallagher, also needs protection. She is vulnerable because of her childhood. "` Her mother and father were divorced. Her mother was married again to some boozehound... [He would] run around the goddamn house, naked, with Jane around and all.'" (32) Holden was afraid that Jane's stepfather abused her. "I asked her on the way, if Mr. Cudahy- that was the boozehound's name- had ever tried to get wise with her." (79) Even though Holden likes Jane, he does not try to take advantage of her because she needs the safety of their friendship. Holden is angry with Stradlater because he threatened Jane, and could have harmed her.

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.

After confronting her aunt, Jane is shipped off to Lowood School. This is a school for young, dependent girls, who are mostly orphaned from at least one parent. This school’s name also has a meaning behind it, Lowood is a place where Jane is miserable at a portion of a time therefore it symbolized a “low” period in her life.

Callie has a false notion that her life can only get worse, and this leads to her character developing a pessimistic psyche similar to Holden. Immediately, Callie shows no regard or deference for anything Stef and Lena have done for her. For instance, on her very first day of school, she escapes and goes to save Jude on her own. She also doesn’t try to have amiable interactions with most people unless it is to fulfill a specific purpose. After she got to school she begins to flirt with a guy in her class, so she could gain access to his car. Callie cannot keep up the charade and after he finds out her intent, he says “No thanks. Good Luck” (“Pilot”). Rejection is something that both Holden and Callie experience, but it is a two-way street for

However, he admits that while the couple’s actions are “crumby” (Salinger 81) and crude, he is still aroused and “wouldn’t mind” (Salinger 81) doing it, especially to a girl he is attracted to. While Holden wants to preserve his innocence by not thinking about sex at all, he agrees that he is a “sex maniac” (Salinger 81), and is a fiend about losing his virginity. Holden even goes as far as to make rules for himself. On page 82, he recounts, “I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it-the same night, as a matter of fact” (Salinger). He is slowly losing his innocence, and while he hates to admit it, Holden’s constant thoughts about sexuality is a sign of adulthood. To him, one should only have sex with someone they truly love. Holden is almost proud of himself for having such a morally correct view of sex. This is why he is so riled when he discovers that Stradlater had sex with Jane Gallagher. Holden realized that Jane barely knew Stradlater and felt that he, if anyone, should be dating Jane. His increasing thoughts on sexuality and loss of a conventional or shielded view of sex show that his loss of innocence is apparent.