Catcher in the Rye - Adulthood
Brianna Kim September 29, 2011 4A
The Change to Adulthood
People’s transition into adulthood is the moment when they are most confused about the changes in their life and the unique and very different adult world; they need people to support and guide them through the evolution. They begin to feel that they need to have a sense of identity, and the type of people they relate themselves with help them to realize where they fit in the more mature adult world. In Catcher in the Rye, a novel by J.D. Salinger, the main character Holden is experimenting with his own transition from adolescence into adulthood; his old friends and his family may no longer understand him and his thoughts about the grown-up world. In adolescence and childhood, people need many friends in their life, but as they shift into adulthood, they will need friends more than any other time in their life in order to understand and deal with the extreme and different changes they experience. In Catcher in the Rye, Holden feels that no one understands him. He is disgusted by the things that he witnesses adults do. In a hotel room he has in New York, he sees a man take out “all these women’s clothes, and put them on (61)” and he sees “a man and a woman squirting water out of their mouths at each other (62).” Holden doesn’t understand why these people are just so entertained by these unusual and frivolous acts and he even thinks that “the hotel was lousy with perverts (62).” Instead of reaching out to people who have been there for him his whole life, he goes to bars and tries to find a connection with the men and women there. Still, he cannot find anything he has in common with them, and calls them “show-offy-looking (69).” In the end, Holden finds the answers he is searching for from his ten year old sister, Phoebe. This is unusual because she has not yet reached the point where she must mature into adulthood, but Phoebe is more accepting of the change that is
The Change to Adulthood
People’s transition into adulthood is the moment when they are most confused about the changes in their life and the unique and very different adult world; they need people to support and guide them through the evolution. They begin to feel that they need to have a sense of identity, and the type of people they relate themselves with help them to realize where they fit in the more mature adult world. In Catcher in the Rye, a novel by J.D. Salinger, the main character Holden is experimenting with his own transition from adolescence into adulthood; his old friends and his family may no longer understand him and his thoughts about the grown-up world. In adolescence and childhood, people need many friends in their life, but as they shift into adulthood, they will need friends more than any other time in their life in order to understand and deal with the extreme and different changes they experience. In Catcher in the Rye, Holden feels that no one understands him. He is disgusted by the things that he witnesses adults do. In a hotel room he has in New York, he sees a man take out “all these women’s clothes, and put them on (61)” and he sees “a man and a woman squirting water out of their mouths at each other (62).” Holden doesn’t understand why these people are just so entertained by these unusual and frivolous acts and he even thinks that “the hotel was lousy with perverts (62).” Instead of reaching out to people who have been there for him his whole life, he goes to bars and tries to find a connection with the men and women there. Still, he cannot find anything he has in common with them, and calls them “show-offy-looking (69).” In the end, Holden finds the answers he is searching for from his ten year old sister, Phoebe. This is unusual because she has not yet reached the point where she must mature into adulthood, but Phoebe is more accepting of the change that is