Preview

Examples Of Adulthood In Catcher In The Rye

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
210 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Examples Of Adulthood In Catcher In The Rye
Ignoring Adulthood The book The Catcher In the Rye by J.D. Salinger depicts Holden’s struggle with becoming an adult. Holden uses childish memories as an escape from the pessimistic world that he believes he is in. One example is his description of the snow outside. “It looked pretty as hell, and we all started throwing snowballs and horsing around all over the place. It was very childish, but everybody was really enjoying themselves” (40). This snow scene represents the more youthful side of Holden. He comes back from this juvenile experience to a more mature situation. Holden continues to ignore his views of adulthood by blaming Stradlater for the mistreatment of Jane. He foolishly tries to punch Stradlater, which leads to him getting hit

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Catcher In The Rye Summary

    • 1259 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In his room he interrogates his roommate, Stradlater, about one of Holden's old friends, Jane. Stradlater just got back from a date with Jane and Holden was worried sick. "I'm thinking now of when Stradlater got back from his date with Jane. I mean I cant remember exactly what I was doing... I probably still looking out the window, but I swear I cant remember. I was so damn…

    • 1259 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When someone is young, they tend to have innocence about them. As children grow up, they no longer possess this natural innocence. Exposure to all of the hatred in the world causes this loss. Holden Caulfield realizes this simple fact, as he himself grows up, and has a difficult time with the change. He experiences problems with communication as well as his school work. A common theme used throughout The Catcher in the Rye has to do with contradictions Holden makes. In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, first person point of view is used to highlight contradictions Holden makes throughout the novel.…

    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden Caulfield's Change

    • 344 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The novel “The Catcher in the Rye”, by J.D. Salinger, details the story of 17 year-old Holden Caulfield. Holden is stuck between childhood and adulthood, and his outlook on life makes his transition even more difficult. By the end, Holden begins the process of change and starts to show some maturity, but still has not fully transitioned into adulthood.…

    • 344 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Growing up is generally not considered easy or desirable. In J.D Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is a sixteen year old boy on the precipice of adulthood. He is resisting growing up despite the allure of sex and alcohol, but he despises the thought of entering a phony world. For Holden, his life is stuck in a never ending cycle of misery, alcohol, and a desire to hold on to his childhood innocence. His own life up to this point has been very rough - his beloved younger brother Allie died of pneumonia, a classmate jumped out of a window, and he has gotten kicked out of yet another school. He yearns to be a protector of childhood innocence. It is only after beginning to accepting change, relinquish his protective instincts,…

    • 1254 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden believed he could help kids, saving them form losing their innocence. He wanted to be the “catcher in the rye.” But he now knows he can’t, kids have to grow up. We all grow up and there is nothing we can do about it. He finally accepts that, he come face to face with himself. Holden is growing up. He accepts the hard cold truth about adulthood. Eventually kids will learn they have to grow up and they will finally acknowledge it just like Holden did. For once Holden is happy, before he was unstable but he has an emotional release. The carousel shows adulthood, you have to let them make mistakes to…

    • 452 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, has a rather pessimistic view of adulthood and characterizes adults as phoney. In the novel, Salinger criticizes teenagers’ obsession of protecting their youth through the use of symbolism, thereby demonstrating that adulthood is inevitable, and fearing it is ultimately self-destructive.…

    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    ”(266). This is A metaphor, showing how this has affected holden. So we know that holden loves kids and anything thing that has youth involved in it. Since Allie died when he was ten years old, maybe that's why Holden likes youth so much. Because Holden’s best years were in his youth with his brother.…

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Every teenager and every person experiences the stress and challenge of growing up. The main character in the novel, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, experiences challenges with feeling alone and growing up. Holden is sometimes in denial of growing up because he doesn’t want to feel alone or lost in the world. In the novel “The Catcher in the Rye”, J.D. Salinger challenges the nature of growing up through symbolism, point of view, and characterization.…

    • 810 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden is still trying to get a grip at maturity as he is regardless a rebellious teenager, just as shown though our adolescents today. This kind of behavior and attitude grasps onto most high schoolers as they are trying to grow up faster. Most are missing what’s behind them and aren’t realizing what they have left. “Sometimes I act a lot older than I am--I really do--but people never notice it. People never notice anything” (Salinger 22). Holden has been trying to get away from the life he has, and wants to be grown up for all the freedom they are allowed to have. There comes a point in everyone's life where they just become…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden Caulfield, a cynical and paradoxical teenager not ready to embrace adulthood goes on a journey to explore the phoniness of the adult world. J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye published in 1951 reflects on Holden as a child as well as an adult. His neglection of adulthood and his blindness on the innocence of youth presents a great challenge in his life. The bulk of the novel displays Holden, a 16 year old teenager who just flunked out of Pencey Prep fleeing to his hometown, New York City in hope of staying at a hotel for a few days before revealing his expulsion to his parents. Throughout his stay, Holden has unusual encounters with past colleagues, his former neighbor, his sister Phoebe, and his old teachers. From these encounters, Holden acquires different perspectives on life and adulthood.…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Her childish innocence brings joy to Holden since it serves as a stark contrast to his dreary and depressing worldview. He is interested in preserving innocence and keeping childhood last forever, as seen in his desire to be the “catcher in the rye” figure, “[catching] everybody if they start to go over the cliff…[coming] out from somewhere and [catching] them” (Salinger 173). When he meets up with Phoebe once again towards the end of the novel, he is shocked to find her maturing with a desire to run off west with him. When Holden refuses to let her go with him in a last-ditch attempt to save her innocence, she “took off [his] red hunting hat…and practically chucked it right in [his] face” (Salinger 207). Holden is devastated by this act and does everything he can to soothe her, such as tricking her into following him to the zoo. Phoebe eventually takes a ride on the carousel like she used to when she was younger, and Holden sits on a bench marveling at her enjoyment. He sees her as “[looking] so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all” (Salinger 213). It fills him with joy to see Phoebe reveling in happiness and innocence like she used to when she and Holden were younger. The happy emotions Holden feels during this experience differ from the depression and sadness that he dealt with through a large portion of the novel in that he is finally celebrating the innocence that he has been striving to…

    • 1222 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The genuine joy Holden gets from watching Phoebe is a striking image of his fantasies of innocence and his collapsing psyche. For a moment Holden sees the joy that he envisions all the children of his rye field are like. Within Phoebe’s happiness Holden is transfixed and distraught, because the sudden realization that he is transitioning to a world he does not feel equipped for triggers the end of his ambivalence. As the carousel spins so does Holden’s reality, he loses sense of even further sense of himself. The Catcher in the Rye is a bildungsroman, but it is unique in how Holden not only resists growing up, but also he ends the novel more unstable and lost than he started off as. A quest or journey is supposed to lead to a literal or metaphorical…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Salinger’s novel, Catcher in the Rye, is one of the most striking examples of “coming of age” literature written to date. The struggle that comes with the process of growing up is one that everyone faces, and it is often one of the most trying times in a person’s entire life. One must begin to take on the many responsibilities that come with adulthood, and it can seem difficult to do so without losing the innocence and wonder that is so profound in childhood. Holden fears this change very much, but fighting it head on results in only physical and mental exhaustion. Holden comes to understand that growing up is not such a death sentence, and that if you go through with the right attitude, there is nothing to fear. In the words of C.S Lewis: “Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” Holden comes to understand that magic age lasts your entire life, and as long as one remembers that, one will be as innocent as the day they were…

    • 1677 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    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.…

    • 1530 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    No matter how much a person strives to remain young and innocent, eventually all children grow up and innocence fades. In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the main character, Holden, values innocence and does not believe that children should lose it as they become adults. The early death of his younger brother, Allie, causes Holden’s constant need to prevent the loss of innocence in the people he cares about most and in himself.…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays