"The Catcher in the Rye" opens with Holden Caulfield at Pency Prep, his high school, where he has just been kicked out for failing almost all of his classes. Holden, as a lost and frustrated teen, goes to his room for his last night before planning to run away from Pency Prep for some "alone time" before telling his parent he was kicked out of another school.…
When Holden leaves Pencey Prep and goes out into New York to live in hotels, he has several moments when he had Jane on his mind and wanted to contact her. However, each time he decides to call her, he ultimately does not do so because he is scared of what Jane would think of him now that his innocence is no longer. The most apparent example of this is when Holden got drunk at the whisky bar after he met with Carl Luce, and old school mate of his. After getting so drunk that he could barely see straight, Holden went to the phone booth to call up Jane but he decided not to and to call Sally Hayes instead. “Finally what I felt like, I felt like giving old Jane a buzz and see if she was home yet. So I paid my check and all … But when I got inside…
This passage clearly identifies Holden’s ego, where the readers can easily depict his concern about his mother spending time and money on a present, yet they were the wrong kind. The concept of his own mother buying him a gift when he is now being kicked out of school depresses him. However, he seems to contradict his own feelings because he makes it clear that he is ready to get away from school without thinking twice. This is exemplified as the id’s manifestation with the thought of knowing how disappointed his family will be known as the ego’s manifestation.…
Holden finds himself wandering aimlessly around New York, encountering different experiences that he didn’t expect. He also finds himself in a situation with a call girl who is approximately the same age as him. He starts to view her as a person, rather than a sex object. He pays for the service yet he only wants to converse with her but she leaves in frustration. She brings her pimp to physically abuse Holden. As the days go by he searches for nothing except embracing his surroundings after hearing a young boy sing lyrics “if a body catch a body coming through the rye “ and he misinterprets it to be as a signal Holden believes that to be a "catcher in the rye" means to save children from losing their innocence. He begins to perceive the world and comes back home to his younger sister back in his hometown. He meets a girl when watching the play “Romeo and Juliet” where he meets a girl Sally and after hanging out together for a moderate amount of time he impulsively asks her to elope with him to a place far away forever. She declines his offer and refuses to speak to him.…
Holden yearns to be the catcher in the rye. He pictures himself being almost like a God figure compared to all the “thousands of little kids” (173). He describes a situation where he would be their hero/savior. Holden is fixated on saving young people because he worries that they will have to suffer what he did. Holden shows a parental characteristic with wanting to be the catcher in the rye. When Holden narrates “I have to catch everybody if they start to go off the cliff-I mean if they’re running and they don't look where they’re going i have to come out of somewhere and catch them” (173) he describes the youth as naive and unaware of what they are doing. He knows that he has made mistakes in his past because he wasn't looking where he was going and wants to make it easier for others to not fall into his steps.…
“I close my eyes, and this image floats beside me.A sweaty toothed mad man with a stare that…
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.…
Holden Caufield, either mentally unstable or too morally advanced for society, misses the innocense of his childhood. Holden's mentality, although confused and seemingly unstable, show the effects of exposed innocence. He becomes frustrated that he does not belong where ever he goes. He travels away from his school with no logial direction for a more internal desire to find his place. Holden has trouble understanding why he does not fit in anywhere and implies mental deterioration from stress. Holden Caufeild struggles with the contrast of society's standards of innocence, change and affection to his own intuitive values.…
Everybody has a moment some point in their life where they feel as if they can not struggle any more. We see this in detail in The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger. Holden Caulfield, the main character, is a sixteen year old teenager who has not had the easiest life. The novel focuses on Holden’s journey from getting kicked out of private school in pennsylvania to having a wild weekend in New York City hiding from his parents, told from his room in a mental hospital near hollywood. Although it is told over the course of a couple of days, Holden is sub consciously fighting to keep his life from spiraling out of control. Towards the end of the novel, Holden is in his little sister Phoebe’s room after sneaking into his own apartment, and…
The title, The Catcher in the Rye, directly indicates the reoccurring theme of the novel, to protect the innocence of the younger generations. The novel is structured on Holden’s desire to protect all the innocent children in the world from growing up because with age comes experiences that lead to corruption and the loss of innocence.…
“The catcher in the rye” argues that children's innocence should be protected for as long as it can be. Holden wants to be the catcher in the rye, Holden sees the rye field as this gigantic field that overlooks a cliff. The rye field is a gigantic field filled with children. Holden wants to be the person who catches the children before they go over this cliff. This cliff represents the”descent into adulthood” or the loss of innocence”. Holden wants the children to retain innocence for as long as they possibly can. This explains why Holden covers up the words “f*ck you”, he’s afraid that the kids will see it and someone will explain to them what it means. This ties into why Holden can never go through with a sexual encounter, because at heart…
The novel The Catcher in the Rye takes place in New York during the 1950's. The main character is a fifteen-year-old boy Holden, he takes the reader through a story depicting the loss of innocence. Holden believes everyone is innocent, but they inevitably loose it somehow by the time they are adolescent. Holden believes innocence is lost in childhood. Holden is extremely concerned about this and believes he can stop the loss of innocence by becoming the "Catcher in the Rye."…
In J. D Salinger 's novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist, Holden, goes through many hardships in his journey to self-knowledge. In the beginning, Holden has to deal with being kicked out of school and not having any place to call home. He is also struggling with the unfortunate tragedy of the death of his beloved younger brother Allie. At the same time, Holden is trying to deal with growing up and accepting the adult world. Throughout the novel Salinger addresses the conflicts faced by a young man struggling with the trials and tribulations of growing up while also confronting personal loss and loneliness along the way.…
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger introduces a conflicted and lonesome character named Holden. Being protected is just as important to Holden as being protective over children; the title of the book is a constant reminder of Holden’s ultimate goal: being the catcher in the rye (23). The title first becomes present in the novel when Holden overhears a kid singing “Comin’ Thro’ the Rye” (62). At the moment, Holden becomes at peace, but he later becomes bothered by a dream of seeing children playing in a rye field at the edge of a cliff that they couldn't see because the rye was so tall, so he imagined himself as “the catcher,” the man who would catch the children before they fell over and lost their innocence. The cliff represents childhood,…
"Allieeeee, Allieeeee, please, don’t go, come back to me, don’t go, I’ll play with you, I promise, pleaseeeeee". I guess it’s another one of those nights. When are these goddam nightmares going to stop? I dream about Allie about twice a week and I have no idea why. It’s basically the same dream every single time, and quite honestly it’s becoming a true pain. We are both on this vomity looking colored boat, and Allie jumps into the waters and as he is being enveloped by the tides, I just scream "Allieeeee, Allieeeee, please, don’t go, come back to me, don’t go, I’ll play with you, I promise, pleaseeeeee". Like screaming is going to do any good. I can never bring myself to actually jumping in those cold waters and pulling…