Examples Of The Catcher In The Rye Rebellion
Nick Greco
English 9H
Ms. Amarianos
12/22/14
Adolescence and Holden Caulfield, the Rebellion
Introduction
Is it just me... or does every adult hate what teenagers do? Well, it hasn’t only occurred in recent days, it has dated back all the way to the 1940s and 1950s after World War II. Adolescents of the 1940s were no longer concerned with winning a war, instead they were concerned with being popular and successful in their adult lives. The Catcher in the Rye is an amazing book by J.D Salinger reflecting this idea, as said best by Forbes Magazine own Adam Golub “Perhaps one of the most important legacies of Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is the way in which it anticipated a shift in American attitudes toward adolescence” (2). Perhaps the biggest change that the Catcher in the Rye had anticipated was how Adolescents were not becoming as concerned with their finances and their portfolio, but …show more content…
more with how they were being viewed in society and how they would live their lives later on in life and who they would live it with.
Section I-1940s Adolescents
The adolescents of the 1940s were much more infatuated with one’s portfolio and how they dressed instead of more important things in life like love or family. Postwar America “appeared in stereotype as the age of conformity-smug, materialistic, complacent, a soulless era peopled by organization men and their [house]wives (Bailey 1-2)” America in the 1940s after the Second World War was filled with the “Joe Yale” types who were very materialistic and had no interests in the real things that made their world go round, such as love or personal value instead of just money. But Holden wasn’t like these other men and teenagers. He was interested in things like love. When he is talking with Stradlater about his date Jane Gallagher which he used to “know”, he says “ I used to play checkers with her all the time...Stradlater didn’t say anything. That kind of stuff doesn’t interest most people”(Salinger 36). In Holden’s mind, no one is interested in the small, immaterial things. He thinks everyone is just interested in how they look or the possessions they own. Many times when men would try and show their love to their significant other through dance, other men would “cut in” and steal their date. The process of stealing someone’s partner in a dance or routine was considered competitive for adults in the 1950s, but was considered insulting and rude for adolescents in the same time period, “The form of competitive courtship would change dramatically. By the early 1950s, “Cutting In” had almost disappeared outside the deep south… “To cut in was almost an insult” (Bailey 4). Men would only try to dance with women as a sign of success, the better looking the more triumphant the men were. But Holden is not like most men. He doesn’t do things to show off or gloat how amazing he is. He doesn’t care what people think of him! He just does what he believes is right. Adults in the 1940s and some older adolescents had viewed dancing as a form of social standing. But in later days dancing was viewed as a way to show love and passion.
Section II- How Adolescence Changed in the 1950s
One of the biggest changes seen in the 1950s was how adolescents changed in how they acted and how they were viewed. Most men and adolescents acted very blasé and cared about how they looked and what they owned during the 1940s . They would only act as if they were some sort of royalty so that everyone could see that you were extremely smart and intellectual. Holden hates these phony characters, When he is going on a date with his date Sally, he proclaims “What a deal it was. You never saw so many phonies in all your life. Everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everyone could hear and know how sharp they were”(Salinger 140). Holden believes that the only reason people are smoking are to show how much of a cultural genius they are (even though Holden smokes and drinks himself into rehab).
But this all changed during the 1950s. In the 1940s, men acted like this because they believed life was just going to go from birth to war to death.In Adam Golub’s article called American Adolescent, he talks about how, “In the 1950s, under the shadow of the Cold War, the life stage we call adolescence lasted a relatively short time”(2). Adolescence for men in the 1940s was considered only a very short period of time, leaving people to believe it wasn’t important. But in the 1950s, men started to realize how life good was and how they had more of a chance to live it to the fullest! So they started to become more interested in the non-material things in life, such as marriage and starting a family. So they began to change what they would do with their lives. They would begin to stop worrying so much about their future assets such as owning a house or their finances, and start worrying about the things that would make their lives happy, such as a wife to share it with or children to keep it going. They became more aware of their surroundings, and instead of the world being a black and white newspaper telling them what to be outside, it became a colorful novel telling them who you should be inside.
Section III- Adolescence vs. Adulthood Just like Holden, teenagers are wanted by their mother or father to have the exact same job. But adolescents like Holden wasn’t to be their own person. “Adults and youth have struggled over control of the commodities the youth use to create their distinctive cultural “styles” (Mechling 2). Adolescents want to be their own unique person, but adults want them to be exactly the same as them. Holden wants to be someone unique, he wants to be the “Catcher in the Rye” that saves kids from going into adulthood. But his father on the other hand, wants him to be the first Doctor-Lawyer to win a Nobel Peace Prize. But Holden doesn’t want to be that, he wants to be independent. Adults are always believing that their kids are little versions of them, destined to carry on their legacy whether they like it or not, But what they do not realize is that “Children and adolescents weren’t simply small versions of adults, but that they and their own peer groups had their own developmental, psychological characteristics” (Mechling 1). Children are unique human beings, not just copies of their parents that need to be raised to become the next version of themselves. Another difference that has been viewed in society since the 1940s is how Adults always are either disgusted or confused by the latest fads that teenagers get into and enjoy.
Changes in society have always been shot down by Adults of the era as “Stupid” or “unnecessary”. Some fads that were viewed as inane by Adults of the era included: Telephone Booth Stuffing, or when several college students would squeeze themselves into a telephone booth until no one else could fit inside. As well as the infamous “Panty Raid” where around 600 male students at Michigan University had bombarded into the women’s dormitory and confiscated hundreds of pairs of underwear. The acts weren’t popular to the adults at the time so they had believed that this was completely an incompetent thing to do. These adults weren’t born into this so they had to either change their ways or, as most adults do stick with what they had liked growing up such as stickball or Swing dancing, or even swallowing live goldfish which were very far off from what teenagers of the era had viewed as
“entertainment”.
Conclusion-Who wins? Adults and adolescents have always butted heads over their ideas, trying to prove themselves as the more “affluent” and “cultural” generation. But the adolescents had different views on their society than the adults. The teenagers had more concerning ideas with how they were going to live their lives later on. Not just with what, but with whom they would live it with. But the adults had unfortunately worried about how they were going to live their lives. But they did not worry about how they would make an impact on the world with change for the better, but about how they were going to financially support themselves for later in life. This change was perhaps the largest social and mental change from the 1940s to the 1950s.
Bailey, Beth, “Rebels without a cause? Teenagers in the 1950s.” History Today vol.40, February 1990, pp. 25-31, without photographs.
Golub, Adam. "American Adolescent." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 30 Jan. 2010. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.
Mechling, Jay. "Youth Culture." Encyclopedia of American Studies. : Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2010. Credo Reference. Web. 20 November 2014.
Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Little, Brown, 1951. Print.
English 9H
Ms. Amarianos
12/22/14
Adolescence and Holden Caulfield, the Rebellion
Introduction
Is it just me... or does every adult hate what teenagers do? Well, it hasn’t only occurred in recent days, it has dated back all the way to the 1940s and 1950s after World War II. Adolescents of the 1940s were no longer concerned with winning a war, instead they were concerned with being popular and successful in their adult lives. The Catcher in the Rye is an amazing book by J.D Salinger reflecting this idea, as said best by Forbes Magazine own Adam Golub “Perhaps one of the most important legacies of Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is the way in which it anticipated a shift in American attitudes toward adolescence” (2). Perhaps the biggest change that the Catcher in the Rye had anticipated was how Adolescents were not becoming as concerned with their finances and their portfolio, but …show more content…
more with how they were being viewed in society and how they would live their lives later on in life and who they would live it with.
Section I-1940s Adolescents
The adolescents of the 1940s were much more infatuated with one’s portfolio and how they dressed instead of more important things in life like love or family. Postwar America “appeared in stereotype as the age of conformity-smug, materialistic, complacent, a soulless era peopled by organization men and their [house]wives (Bailey 1-2)” America in the 1940s after the Second World War was filled with the “Joe Yale” types who were very materialistic and had no interests in the real things that made their world go round, such as love or personal value instead of just money. But Holden wasn’t like these other men and teenagers. He was interested in things like love. When he is talking with Stradlater about his date Jane Gallagher which he used to “know”, he says “ I used to play checkers with her all the time...Stradlater didn’t say anything. That kind of stuff doesn’t interest most people”(Salinger 36). In Holden’s mind, no one is interested in the small, immaterial things. He thinks everyone is just interested in how they look or the possessions they own. Many times when men would try and show their love to their significant other through dance, other men would “cut in” and steal their date. The process of stealing someone’s partner in a dance or routine was considered competitive for adults in the 1950s, but was considered insulting and rude for adolescents in the same time period, “The form of competitive courtship would change dramatically. By the early 1950s, “Cutting In” had almost disappeared outside the deep south… “To cut in was almost an insult” (Bailey 4). Men would only try to dance with women as a sign of success, the better looking the more triumphant the men were. But Holden is not like most men. He doesn’t do things to show off or gloat how amazing he is. He doesn’t care what people think of him! He just does what he believes is right. Adults in the 1940s and some older adolescents had viewed dancing as a form of social standing. But in later days dancing was viewed as a way to show love and passion.
Section II- How Adolescence Changed in the 1950s
One of the biggest changes seen in the 1950s was how adolescents changed in how they acted and how they were viewed. Most men and adolescents acted very blasé and cared about how they looked and what they owned during the 1940s . They would only act as if they were some sort of royalty so that everyone could see that you were extremely smart and intellectual. Holden hates these phony characters, When he is going on a date with his date Sally, he proclaims “What a deal it was. You never saw so many phonies in all your life. Everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everyone could hear and know how sharp they were”(Salinger 140). Holden believes that the only reason people are smoking are to show how much of a cultural genius they are (even though Holden smokes and drinks himself into rehab).
But this all changed during the 1950s. In the 1940s, men acted like this because they believed life was just going to go from birth to war to death.In Adam Golub’s article called American Adolescent, he talks about how, “In the 1950s, under the shadow of the Cold War, the life stage we call adolescence lasted a relatively short time”(2). Adolescence for men in the 1940s was considered only a very short period of time, leaving people to believe it wasn’t important. But in the 1950s, men started to realize how life good was and how they had more of a chance to live it to the fullest! So they started to become more interested in the non-material things in life, such as marriage and starting a family. So they began to change what they would do with their lives. They would begin to stop worrying so much about their future assets such as owning a house or their finances, and start worrying about the things that would make their lives happy, such as a wife to share it with or children to keep it going. They became more aware of their surroundings, and instead of the world being a black and white newspaper telling them what to be outside, it became a colorful novel telling them who you should be inside.
Section III- Adolescence vs. Adulthood Just like Holden, teenagers are wanted by their mother or father to have the exact same job. But adolescents like Holden wasn’t to be their own person. “Adults and youth have struggled over control of the commodities the youth use to create their distinctive cultural “styles” (Mechling 2). Adolescents want to be their own unique person, but adults want them to be exactly the same as them. Holden wants to be someone unique, he wants to be the “Catcher in the Rye” that saves kids from going into adulthood. But his father on the other hand, wants him to be the first Doctor-Lawyer to win a Nobel Peace Prize. But Holden doesn’t want to be that, he wants to be independent. Adults are always believing that their kids are little versions of them, destined to carry on their legacy whether they like it or not, But what they do not realize is that “Children and adolescents weren’t simply small versions of adults, but that they and their own peer groups had their own developmental, psychological characteristics” (Mechling 1). Children are unique human beings, not just copies of their parents that need to be raised to become the next version of themselves. Another difference that has been viewed in society since the 1940s is how Adults always are either disgusted or confused by the latest fads that teenagers get into and enjoy.
Changes in society have always been shot down by Adults of the era as “Stupid” or “unnecessary”. Some fads that were viewed as inane by Adults of the era included: Telephone Booth Stuffing, or when several college students would squeeze themselves into a telephone booth until no one else could fit inside. As well as the infamous “Panty Raid” where around 600 male students at Michigan University had bombarded into the women’s dormitory and confiscated hundreds of pairs of underwear. The acts weren’t popular to the adults at the time so they had believed that this was completely an incompetent thing to do. These adults weren’t born into this so they had to either change their ways or, as most adults do stick with what they had liked growing up such as stickball or Swing dancing, or even swallowing live goldfish which were very far off from what teenagers of the era had viewed as
“entertainment”.
Conclusion-Who wins? Adults and adolescents have always butted heads over their ideas, trying to prove themselves as the more “affluent” and “cultural” generation. But the adolescents had different views on their society than the adults. The teenagers had more concerning ideas with how they were going to live their lives later on. Not just with what, but with whom they would live it with. But the adults had unfortunately worried about how they were going to live their lives. But they did not worry about how they would make an impact on the world with change for the better, but about how they were going to financially support themselves for later in life. This change was perhaps the largest social and mental change from the 1940s to the 1950s.
Bailey, Beth, “Rebels without a cause? Teenagers in the 1950s.” History Today vol.40, February 1990, pp. 25-31, without photographs.
Golub, Adam. "American Adolescent." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 30 Jan. 2010. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.
Mechling, Jay. "Youth Culture." Encyclopedia of American Studies. : Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2010. Credo Reference. Web. 20 November 2014.
Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Little, Brown, 1951. Print.