"The Catcher in the Rye" opens with Holden Caulfield at Pency Prep, his high school, where he has just been kicked out for failing almost all of his classes. Holden, as a lost and frustrated teen, goes to his room for his last night before planning to run away from Pency Prep for some "alone time" before telling his parent he was kicked out of another school.…
J.D. Salinger’s book, The Catcher in the Rye, constantly gets debated on whether high school English classes need to read it. Despite the crude language and R-rated stories, every high schooler needs to read this book. After the book gets dissected, the deeper meanings of the story come about and show the importance for reading the book.…
What he fails to accept is that these are simply basic human personality traits, human nature (this is why his ideals are impossible), and that even he often behaves in a manner that he would describe as “phony”.…
In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger portrays the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, from two very different sides. On one hand, Holden is passionate about the protection of innocence, and he attempts to shelter all kids, especially his younger sister Phoebe, from any knowledge which might compromise their innocence. On the other hand, Holden is repeatedly revealed to be experienced and knowledgeable in society. He constantly swears, drinks, and smokes, sharply criticizes everyone he sees, and generally does not conform to society. Because Holden lost his own innocence so early in his life, he becomes fascinated with the idea of guarding it in others. Salinger shows Holden protecting the innocence of people many times throughout the novel. Some examples include Holden’s anxiety about Jane, Holden’s protection of Phoebe, and Holden’s general frustration…
“I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It’s awful.” This quote comes from Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the award winning novel, The Catcher in the Rye. Many people claim to relate to Holden Caulfield because of how genuine he is with the reader. In spite of that, critics have continuously challenged the notion that Holden was a reliable narrator. Throughout the story Holden Caulfield demonstrates that he is not a reliable character because he is quick to lie, is hypocritical, and is mentally unstable.…
Similar observations are made by academic writer and author Sarah Graham in her book entitled Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. In this book, Graham addresses a variety of reading techniques, themes, and comparisons/contrasts in regards to Salinger’s most popular novel, but she specifically addresses the main theme of Holden’s attempt to escape the phony 1950’s materialistic focused society surrounding him. Graham begins her take on this theme of escaping society with a chapter on Holden’s rebellion: “Developing the theme of rebellion, Holden’s visit to Mr. Spencer confirms that he is opposed to the conventional ideas that school and society encourage in order to promote stability” (34). During this visit to Mr. Spencer’s house that Graham…
In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, by: JD Salinger, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is a seventeen year old boy telling a story of around last Christmas when he spent his weekend in New York. Holden is a very opinionated character. He is a character that has been related to by teenagers over the last 60 years. Holden learns throughout the book that childhood innocence can not be protected forever. Everybody needs to grow up at one time or another. This is a great lesson to be learned by readers. At some point in every successful person’s life they realized that the needed to mature and become a responsible, functioning adult. Holden Caulfield is a character that is unique in many ways; he also has many weaknesses,…
Holden Caulfield, portrayed in the J.D. Salinger novel Catcher in the Rye as an adolescent struggling to find his own identity, possesses many characteristics that easily link him to the typical teenager living today. The fact that the book was written many years ago clearly exemplifies the timeless nature of this work. Holden's actions are those that any teenager can clearly relate with. The desire for independence, the sexually related encounters, and the questioning of ones religion are issues that almost all teens have had or will have to deal with in their adolescent years. The novel and its main character's experiences can easily be related to and will forever link Holden with every member of society, because everyone in the world was or will be a teen sometime in their life.…
“Good people... are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure”. This quote from William Saroyan means that wise people acquire their insight from experiences, especially unsuccessful ones. I agree with the quote and the idea of people being knowledgeable because of the hardships and journeys they had endured. The two novels Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger both support the idea of gaining wisdom through experience.…
The main purpose of J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is to epitomize the importance of adolescence and illustrate the benefits of a social lifestyle. Salinger achieves this meaning in multiple ways. Primarily, he uses Holden, Catcher’s protagonist, as an example of a teenager who has failed to develop during the quintessential period of youth. Additionally, by characterizing him in this manner, Salinger utilizes Holden’s desire to act both older and younger than his age to convey the dangers that come with poor decision making, as well as their consequences. Lastly, he uses the characters of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Antolini to act as voices of reason to Holden, while also showing Holden’s missed opportunities in life when he does…
Three seconds remain in the tied basketball game. The point guard shoots and scores right before the buzzer sounds off. I bet for a long time, that player worked hard in the gym to practice and perfect his shooting for game time situations like that. It just goes to show that nothing great can ever be achieved without hard work. Holden Caulfield from The Catcher In The Rye, however, does not quite understand this saying. In the story, Holden does not apply himself to his education at Pencey Prep, which results in his expulsion from school. Throughout the story, Holden, as well as a few other characters, represent the terms expressed in Freud’s Theory of Personality known as the id, superego, and ego.…
Imagine what it feels like to be a teenager. Is a teenager considerate and open minded? The novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger talks about a teenager named Holden Caulfield who tells his story about a school named Pency Prep in Pennsylvania, away from his sister and parents. Throughout most of this book, Holden explains his inner thoughts regarding everyone he knows, and most of them are judgmental. Holden is considered to be a typical American teenager in this novel. First of all, teenagers like to express their thoughts. In Sylvia Plath’s article “Sylvia Plath at Seventeen”, she begins saying,“As of today I have decided to keep a diary again―just a place where I can write my thoughts and opinions when I have a moment. Somehow I…
In the novel The Catcher and the Rye by J.D Salinger, Holden expresses his hate for the idea of growing up and becoming an adult, as he sees the majority of adults as phonies. Along with that, he regards the process as taking away your innocence and freedom. With his view of adulthood, he hates the idea of children having to go through what he did and losing their innocence. He often praises children, placing them as superior to adults.…
I understand you have many things to consider at your point in life, but you are over thinking many things. In you conversation with Sally you mention the word “phony” often when you describe most of the people you have met. You said: "I hate living in New York and all. Taxicabs, Madison Avenue buses, with the drivers and all always yelling at you to get out at the rear door, and being introduced to phony guys that call the Lunts angels, and going up and down in elevators when you just want to go outside..."(pg 130) This type of thinking is just meaningless, your critiquing people and things without finding an answer to how to feel better. You are isolating yourself from many others by thinking you are the only one that…
J.D. Salinger explores the difficulties associated with the passage from youth to adulthood in his novel, The Catcher in the Rye. The author especially highlights the importance people staying connected to others in order to make a mentally healthy and successful life transition. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in the novel, is desperately clinging to his youth. Holden is obsessed with the phony nature of adults and judges the people around him based upon their degree of insincerity, two-facedness, and pretension. Holden is equally preoccupied with preserving childhood innocence. He is unable to sacrifice his purity in order to gain adult privileges. In fact, Holden is so disillusioned about adulthood that he eventually cuts off all ties in his life that could possibly help him through the transition of adolescence. Thus, the author, through Holden, explores the difficulties of this stage of life and how easy it is to stray from “the path” without “a village” to support this journey.…