Examples Of The Limbo In Catcher In The Rye
“The Catcher In The Rye” Essay
In the novel The Catcher In the Rye by JD Salinger, Holden does a very good job of extending the limbo between childhood and adulthood for as long as he can. As a young man, he needs to start mentally preparing himself to become an adult. He is in high school and he needs to start making some decisions for himself. There is evidence of both childhood and adulthood actions taken by Holden. However, instead Holden embodies the limbo between childhood and adulthood by respecting and trying to protect the innocence of children, and valuing that innocence over the phoniness of adults…, while still acting phony himself and doing “bold things” that only an adult would do, such as cursing, drinking at bars and calling prostitutes.
One childhood aspect of Holden staying in between childhood and adulthood is how he is always trying to protect children from bad adult things in the real world. An example of this is when he is in the museum and he sees profanity written on the wall. This graffiti offends him, and he washes it off so no children have to see bad language like that at such a young age. This shows that he really does care for children and wants to protect them as much as he can. Holden also is constantly aware of the things he says …show more content…
to Phoebe and the things he lets her do. Holden comes off as an extremely careless guy, and he is, but around children he has a totally different mindset.
Despite Holden only being a high schooler, he does some pretty crazy things that your average high schooler would not do.
Everything he does, no matter how dumb and crazy, he does with stubbornness and confidence. Some examples of this are when he just decides to leave school early and stay in New York for a little while without telling anyone. Almost nobody his age would do something like that. Also, while he was by himself in New York, he does more stupid things like order alcoholic drinks at bars and calls prostitutes to his hotel room. Although Holden can be very caring and touchy like he is about children, he can also be very reckless by doing stupid things lots of grown adults would not even
do.
Holden seems to not be able to quite decide which he wants to be, a child or an adult. As you now know, he seems to say that he respects children more, yet he doesn’t act like one at all. In fact, he is about as opposite if a child that you can get. This almost makes Holden a hypocrite, since he says he likes children but acts nothing like one. He could just be confused, since he has gotten in trouble a lot and this has caused him to be lost in the mind.
In the novel The Catcher In the Rye by JD Salinger, Holden does a very good job of extending the limbo between childhood and adulthood for as long as he can. As a young man, he needs to start mentally preparing himself to become an adult. He is in high school and he needs to start making some decisions for himself. There is evidence of both childhood and adulthood actions taken by Holden. However, instead Holden embodies the limbo between childhood and adulthood by respecting and trying to protect the innocence of children, and valuing that innocence over the phoniness of adults…, while still acting phony himself and doing “bold things” that only an adult would do, such as cursing, drinking at bars and calling prostitutes.
One childhood aspect of Holden staying in between childhood and adulthood is how he is always trying to protect children from bad adult things in the real world. An example of this is when he is in the museum and he sees profanity written on the wall. This graffiti offends him, and he washes it off so no children have to see bad language like that at such a young age. This shows that he really does care for children and wants to protect them as much as he can. Holden also is constantly aware of the things he says …show more content…
to Phoebe and the things he lets her do. Holden comes off as an extremely careless guy, and he is, but around children he has a totally different mindset.
Despite Holden only being a high schooler, he does some pretty crazy things that your average high schooler would not do.
Everything he does, no matter how dumb and crazy, he does with stubbornness and confidence. Some examples of this are when he just decides to leave school early and stay in New York for a little while without telling anyone. Almost nobody his age would do something like that. Also, while he was by himself in New York, he does more stupid things like order alcoholic drinks at bars and calls prostitutes to his hotel room. Although Holden can be very caring and touchy like he is about children, he can also be very reckless by doing stupid things lots of grown adults would not even
do.
Holden seems to not be able to quite decide which he wants to be, a child or an adult. As you now know, he seems to say that he respects children more, yet he doesn’t act like one at all. In fact, he is about as opposite if a child that you can get. This almost makes Holden a hypocrite, since he says he likes children but acts nothing like one. He could just be confused, since he has gotten in trouble a lot and this has caused him to be lost in the mind.