Holden Caulfield is seventeen year old caucasian male from New York City who recently has flunked out of another private boarding school then ran away and spent a weekend alone in the New York City drinking heavily. Caulfield describes himself during this week as being fed up and done with all people. From a rational perspective, nothing Caulfield did or thought during this week were the actions of a lucid person. Because of Caulfield’s impulsive scattered thinking he is clearly a threat to himself. My diagnosis is that he is suffering from both an anxiety disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, luckily there are treatment steps he can take to help cope with his issue, these include medications and different types of psychological therapy.…
Mark Philips revisits Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. This novel results in inspiring him to live his life by its teachings, starting off the same age as the protagonist and ending roughly thirty years of age in the same mind track addressing both J.D. Salinger's novel and Holden to life. Mark Philips ends with a deep passion towards the book and its character Holden Caulfield.…
One controversial topic from The Catcher in the Rye is whether Holden Caulfield is the hero or anti-hero of the story. While he is the protagonist, I believe that he is the anti-hero because of his actions and examples he sets for others. His overall behavior is poor and it is not advised to follow in his footsteps: dropping out of school, underage drinking and tobacco use, starting fights, etc. While most people approve of his mindset and “bravery” to go against society, he was actually just hypocritical the entire time. For example, when Stradlater went of a date with Jane, Holden’s old friend, he became envious of Stradlater. But although he was angry with Stradlater (which he had no right to be) he acted nice towards him, when he truly…
In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, seven year old Charles Baker Harris, also known as Dill, is shipped from Meridian, Mississippi to Maycomb, Alabama to stay with his aunt, Miss Rachel. His recently-divorced mom and his step-dad pay little attention to him; they buy him toys to play with in his room, so not to bother them, and they send him off to Maycomb during the summer. In J.D. Salinger’s coming of age story, The Catcher in the Rye, protagonist Holden Caulfield comes from a very wealthy Manhattan family that sends him to different boarding schools, no matter how many times he flunks out. There are numerous similarities between Dill and Holden, namely the hardships they each face, including a great loss of innocence.…
Holden is the protagonist in the novel, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1945). Holden is a character who tries to seek for dignity, but he has some flaws holding him back. Holden is passive and unwilling to examine himself and seek his own dignity. Three reasons for his tragic flaw are: his craziness, his immaturity, and his phoniness and madman stuff.…
Holden Caulfield is a teenager who is struggling to fit into adult society. This is evident from very early on in the book when Salinger immediately characterises Holden as a very judgmental and cynical person. Examples from the very first page include when Holden refers to his brother D.B as a prostitute because he writes scripts for movies. He then continues “I there’s one thing I hate, it’s the movies. Don't even mention them to me”. He doesn’t even give his brother the benefit of the doubt over his occupation, and it is through phrases like this where Salinger creates the characterisation of Holden as a judgmental and stubborn personality. This is further continued throughout the novel where Holden continually uses the phrase “phony”, to refer to other people. He perceives the world as superficial, whereas it is his views on society that are lacking depth. This immediate characterisation of Holden by Salinger…
Holden Caulfield, the novel’s protagonist, is a pivotal character in The Catcher in the Rye. Holden is characterized as an innocent, apathetic, naive teen who is seeking knowledge of life and the meaning of becoming an adult. Holden’s struggle with seeing the genuine nature of people is something that acts as a barrier for him throughout the novel. Holden is troubled and burdened throughout the story, which causes him to have a warped view on an array of subjects. Holden passes strict judgement on everyone, as he struggles to transition from adolescence to adulthood. Holden appears to be stunned when he sees how different the life of an adult is comparison to that of children. His views on topics such as, life, his future, and sex. Holden approaches each of these subjects with strict views, and feels dejected when he realizes there are more multiple perspectives to these topics.…
In the book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the main character, Holden Caulfield, has strange tendencies that could be diagnosed as a mental disorder or multiple disorders. Thinking like a psychiatrist, this book has plenty to dissect. Reading a classic, such as Catcher, can really draw the reader into the story and make them feel like they are a part of that world. Holden Caulfield’s world has a lot going on.…
In the novella The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is a highly reliable narrator or the storyline. Holden communicates his emotions truly and leaves them embedded in the text uncensored throughout the text. For example, upon meeting two nuns in a restaurant in New York City, he genuinely states that he “enjoyed talking to them a lot… [he] meant it, too” (Salinger 112). This quote represents how Holden strongly reveals any true emotions he feels to the reader. Holden also does not cease to inform readers of certain events in the plot even if it affects the reader’s comfort depending on what is being discussed. For instance, when he recalls an interaction with Jane Gallagher after an encounter with her step-father, Holden persisted to include the various places he began to kiss Jane and even stated “it was the closest [they] ever got to necking” (Salinger 79). This blatant honesty and inclusion of details makes him a trustworthy and reliable narrator.…
Imagine having the world at your fingertips, having the opportunity to learn what you need to know, and the ability to shape your own destiny, but refusing to do so in order to avoid change because all you can think of is what is to be lost than what is to be gained. Holden Caulfield is that exact same way, he refuses change therefore refuses to progress. The Catcher in the Rye, a novel published in 1951 by J.D. Salinger, is about Holden who after being kicked out of a prep school for failing most of his classes goes to New York for a few days. Throughout his time there Holden encounters many problems as he struggles with the idea of having to grow up. In addition, Holden tries to fabricate wild escape plans in order to avoid the inevitable reality of maturing. Although The Catcher in the Rye is a very elaborate book…
Like many teenagers, Holden Caulfield is a teenager that deals with adolescent issues, and adult life. In J.D. Salinger's novel ''The Catcher in the Rye'', the main character Holden Caulfield, describes in detail the parts of his life and his environment that bother him the most. Holden is a teenager that can relate to most teenagers like us, his life revolves around problems, and he seems helpless in evading them. Holden can be characterized as a sensitive, self-conscious teenager.…
The Catcher in the Rye is a book set in the 1950’s. The time period was a highly racist time which effected the book greatly. The main protagonist is Holden Caulfield who is also the narrator of the novel. Ackley, Stradlater, and Jane Gallagher are a few of Holden’s peers. The trio and the rest of his family & peers affect him deeply. Some people believed that Holden was “his own worst enemy’.…
Protagonist Holden Caulfield faces many events that make him feel that life is just a depressing way of living. Each opportunity Holden achieves he somehow finds a way to mess it up. In Holden’s perspective life seems really unfair to him. Ever since his little brother died, life turned upside down for him. Since the day Holden left school he went through many tough events that made him go back into the past.…
In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is the narrator; throughout the story he shows to be an unreliable and reliable narrator. Caulfield is a teenage boy, who is psychologically depressed and confused. To be an unreliable narrator, the narrator must be biased, a liar, and unable to associate with other characters in the novel. These are all characteristics that prove the Holden is an unreliable narrator throughout the development of the novel.…
The German derived word, angst, traces its roots from angust or anger. Although novels of the 19th century mentioned ‘angst’, it popularized in 1942 from Sigmund Freud’s English translations where it was used to describe the psychological state of the insecure. Since then, it has developed into a derogatory reference to adolescents, who are typically insecure with strong feelings of anxiety about their life or current situation. Holden Caulfield, a fictional adolescent in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, is a character full of angst. Because of his cynical behavior and an instinct of alienation, Holden prevents himself from finding his purpose in his environment, and his angst grows with the impossible, perfect “Holden” world. However,…