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.…
In J.D Salinger’s book The Catcher in the Rye, the protaginist Holden Caulfied, struggles with life, one of the factors being his unstable state of mind due to the death of his brother. After his brothers death his perspective on life was shaken, culminating to his use of anger and trivial decisions to mask his emotions. We see his rapid choice of judgment evidently when he destroyed his parents garage windows. Holden holds his brother dear to his heart, because of his authenticity and humbleness; traits that arent seen anywhere else in his life.…
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,…
The world of childhood is sheltered from the corrupt adult world and maturation is a sometimes difficult pathway between the two. The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger, is a fictional novel seen through the eyes of sixteen year old Holden Caulfield after he is expelled from Pencey Prep. Holden leaves Pencey two days early to explore New York City before he has to return home. On his excursion, he meets prostitutes, nuns, his old girlfriend, and his sister Phoebe, while traveling around the city contemplating life and his future. Through the varying behaviors of Holden Caulfield, his maturity is shown to be stuck in a limbo between his imminent departure from the childhood world and his fear to move into the world of adults. Holden finds sexual activity intriguing in some situations, but also perverse and immoral. When Holden comes home,…
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.…
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 novel “The Catcher in the Rye”, J.D. Salinger challenges the nature of growing up through symbolism, point of view, and characterization. Holden, throughout the novel, expresses his loneliness and the difficulty of growing up because, like most teenagers, Holden is stressed out and depressed because of the expectations he has for himself…
Holden vainly seeks for innocence in society only developing anger and depression as a result. Holden acts disturbingly at the thought of Jane, his childhood friend, having a casual encounter with his room…
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…
Holden Caulfield, portrayed in the J.D. Salinger novel Catcher in the Rye as an adolescent struggling to find his own identity, possesses many characteristics that easily link him to the typical teenager living today. The fact that the book was written many years ago clearly exemplifies the timeless nature of this work. Holden's actions are those that any teenager can clearly relate with. The desire for independence, the sexually related encounters, and the questioning of ones religion are issues that almost all teens have had or will have to deal with in their adolescent years. The novel and its main character's experiences can easily be related to and will forever link Holden with every member of society, because everyone in the world was or will be a teen sometime in their life.…
In Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is introduced to the readers as a troubled young who desperately wants to protect his youthful innocence. Because Holden constantly faces harsh realities of adulthood and world, he is even more compelled to protect innocence. He wants to protect not only his, but also those around him. Holden feels that childhood is something to be saved and kept, instead of learning the truth of adulthood since the adult world is an impure place that corrupt kids and ruin their perfect perception of the world.…
The inevitable transition from childhood to adulthood is a journey that tests a teenager to their capacities. Most adults cherish childhood innocence. Parents teach their children that the world is a perfect, Utopian place. When children grow up, they realize this theory is nothing but a false, sugarcoated take on the realities of life. The protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, suffers with his transition from childhood to adulthood. His teenage years prove are one of the most challenging moments in his life. In J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger uses symbols and details to convey that preserving one's sense of childhood is crucial as children mature into adulthood.…
Life is one of the hardest thing to change in the world, In JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, trying to change his life through series of emotional events, but fail to became a successful man as stay with his characteristics from the beginning of the novel. Novel itself uses Holden as an example of how growing up is a difficult situation. Many people in real life after life experience became more of an successful person then they are. In the novel, Holden been through series of events about growing up as an adult, but turns out he didn't learn from these experiences, in fact his thoughts still remains childish and violent. Throughout the novel, Holden imagines himself protecting Jane, killing people, see women as phony,…
This is caused because of such a big trauma that happened in his life with his brother. Holden wants to live in the past and not move forward with his life because he feels guilty. Holden illustrates pain and suffering through his brother’s death because he can not accept the truth that he died from Leukemia. Allie’s death causes Holden to live in the past, this is shown in the quote, “[T]hey all came when Allie died, the whole goddam stupid bunch of them… I wasn’t there; I was still in the hospital” (155). Allies death has been holding Holden back because he does not want to let Allie go. Holden still talks about Allie as if he is still in the physical world. Holden struggles to let go and move on with his life because he did not make it to his funeral and have the opportunity to say goodbye. Holden has no desire to commit to anything and actually try to do well in school. Holden is convinced that every school is full of phonies and keeps getting kicked out. When Holden is speaking with Mr. Spencer, Holden says, “[T]his is about the forth school I’ve gone to” (9). This proves that Holden does not want to have an education if he keeps getting kicked out of the schools. Holden getting kicked out of the schools shows that he isn’t adult enough to handle anything in life. Holden decides that he is ready to have sex because he thinks he is a…
The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D Salinger is a coming of age story. It is a story narrated by the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, who is a sixteen year old boy, but has a mind of a ten year old innocent kid. In the beginning he thinks of innocence as important, but later he realizes that growing up cannot be stopped. He wanders around the New York City by himself and gains experience of life that teaches him to become mature. This book is clearly written to show the theme of coming of age because it shows many symbols of coming of age, it shows the changes of young adults in modern life, and it creates an image of Holden growing up.…