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Importance of Human Relations
Essay on importance of human relationships
Importance of Human Relations
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Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger uses symbols to give meaning to Holden’s journey through New York City and explain the inner turmoil that drives his mental collapse. For example, Salinger uses the Holden’s preoccupation with the ducks to exemplify his resistance to adapting, especially to his imminent adulthood. Throughout the novel, he asks several people throughout the book where the ducks in Central Park go during the winter. None of them are sure, and this increases Holden’s feeling of panic. He wants reassurance that he will be able to transition without becoming superficial like many of the adults he sees around him, and that he will be okay in the end. However, he is incapable of admitting his need so few people attempt to help him. Upon leaving Pencey Prep, he finds that he had no real connection to the world. Due to this, he reaches out to anyone he can think of, except the people who can help.
Holden’s questions about the ducks are posed to two cab drivers. The first has no answer, whereas the second provides more insight into why Holden wants to know at all. The first cab driver was annoyed and asked “What’re you trying to do Bud?... Kid me? (60). The cab driver doesn’t really understand what or why he’s asking. All this does for Holden is confirm the uncertainty of his future and further embed his foreboding about growing into an adult.
Conversely, the second cab driver completely understands the underlying meaning of Holden’s question and has much the same fear. Holden asks the same question. “Well you know the ducks that swim around in it (the lagoon)?...Do you happen to know where they go in the wintertime, by any chance?” Horwitz the Cab Driver responds with surprising emotion.. “How the hell s...
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...re, Holden sits down and begin to envisage his death. He thinks about how it would affect his family, and that is the only thing he is holding on to. “Anyway, I kept worrying that I was getting pneumonia, with all of those hunks of ice in my hair, and that I was going to die. I felt sorry as hell for my mother and father.” As a result of Salinger’s use of the ducks as a motif, Holden’s meltdown is comprehensible. Finally, the reader sees Holden forced to acknowledge that he has to become an adult, just as the ducks cannot stay in the pond during the winter. His mental breakdown is in part caused by his realization that he cannot be a fish, suspended in time until everything is better.. He at this point is forced to acknowledge that he is not suspended in time, but is progressing, little as he likes it. This moment by the pond is almost the cornerstone of the novel.
Holden Caulfield alienates himself from the rest of society to hopefully escape the means of growing up shown by his dialogue and behaviour. Holden doesn’t want to grow up because he doesn’t want to have to accept the responsibilities that come with it. Holden is constantly getting kicked out of different schools, “They kicked me out… on account that… I was not applying myself and all.” (pg. 3) Not only was Holden not applying himself at school slowing down the process of him growing up, he also kept his mindset young by wondering where the ducks go in winter. “You know those ducks on that lagoon… do you happen to know where they go… when it gets frozen over?” (pg. 54) Holden has a close connection to the ducks as to him it is a change that isn’t permanent as they leave in the Winter and come back in the spring, he asks where they go to see if he can make this un-permanent connection to changes such as growing up in his own life. Holden would love to live in a world where everything is time is practically frozen and nothing ...
At several points during the course of the novel, Holden asks as to what happens to the ducks who are normally on a pond in Central Park, when winter comes and the water freezes. On page 60, Holden asks, "You know those ducks in that lagoon right near Central Park South? That little lake? By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over?
This book is a good book. "What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 1
Do you ever wish you could return to the early time of your existence where the innocence and purity of childhood enveloped you on a day-to-day basis? These were the times when committing wrong doings were not only met with meager consequences, but also expected of you by the parental guardians or guides in your life. In "The Catcher in the Rye" , written by J.D. Salinger, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, expresses his yearning for this feeling continuously throughout this detailed depiction of a struggling young man who craves nothing more than to make the dream he has given his entire being to, into a reality he can physically experience. A simpler way to help readers understand his complex idea is to compare his dream to the dreams of the fabled "Fountain of Youth" that countless stories are written about. Instead of the physical attributes that staying young would give an individual, the mental ideals of innocence and purity are the cause of Holden's tireless pursuit and inability to interact and function in every facet of society. The tragedies and socially awkward life that Salinger's character endures would be extremely damaging to most any human being's, already precariously balanced, mental health. The symptoms of popular health disorders such as bipolar disorder, anti-social disorder, and anxiety disorders are expressed prominently by Holden Caulfield throughout the entire novel.
Catcher in the Rye is one of the most famous books in American literature. Written by J. D. Salinger, it captures the epitome of adolescence through Salinger’s infamous anti-hero, Holden Caulfield. Holden Caulfield learns about himself and his negative tendencies, and realizes that if he does not do something to change his perspective, he may end up like his acquaintance James Castle whom he met at Elkton Hills. Holden tries to find help to mend his outlook on life through Mr. Antolini so he does not end up like James, who did not want to face the problems he created for himself. This is proven by the similarities between James Castle and Holden, Mr. Antolini’s willingness to try and help Holden, and Holden’s future being forecasted by James.
Holden Caulfield, the narrator of The Catcher in the Rye, is a troubled man who does not have everything going right for him. He shows obvious signs of depression and a few symptoms of an anxiety disorder. Throughout the book he keeps thinking about his brother Allie, who passed away. The only reasonable explanation for his mental illnesses is that he misses Allie, and he does not know how to function normally again. Everything he does reminds him of Allie in some sort of way. Mental illness is very common in someone who is suffering from the loss of a love one, but it is in no way a normal act of a teenager.
...ing stays frozen and everyone belongs in society. Therefore, during the winter time, the ducks are isolated as once, but they still belong together. Holden is isolated from the people around him and he is more protected within himself. Holden doesn’t know how he is going to make it through his own winter, just like he doesn’t where the ducks will end up during winter.
Holden cannot accept the loss of innocence as a step into the growing up process. The ones that he loves most, are those who are younger to him, they are innocent, and untouched by society’s truths. Holden says, “…I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around-nobody big. I mean – except me.
Holden is a pessimistic, remote, and miserable character and he expresses this attitude through dialogue, tone, and diction. Throughout the book he has remained to be a liar, a failure, a loner, and lastly, a suicidal guy who feels like he has no purpose in life. Perhaps Salinger expressed his perceptions and emotions of his teen years in this book and it was a form of conveying his deep inner feelings of his childhood. Readers can see this clearly shown in The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger.
In chapter 2 of The Catcher in the Rye Holden ponders while conversing with his teacher “where the ducks go when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over.” Holden views himself as one of the ducks that are forced to adapt
Holden wants to be independent but he wonders if it is really the best thing to do. He is too emotionally unstable to address his own issues so he projects them onto the ducks, do they take care of themselves and fly away? Or do they allow themselves to be saved by the truck? The cab driver answers his question by bringing up the fish in the lagoon. He says that the fish do not go anywhere and that they just open their pores so nature can provide for them.
The novel The Catcher in the Rye follows Holden Caulfield for a weekend. The story begins in Agerstown, PA at Pencey Prep school with Holden standing on top of the Thomson Hill on his way to Mr. Spencer’s, his history teacher, to say good bye because Holden was expelled for not following rules. On his way to Spencer’s, Holden “felt like [he] was sort of disappearing”. (Salinger 5) The sense of symbolism with the word “disappearing” is that he feels alone and almost invisible. When Mr. Spencer starts to read Holden’s failed paper, Holden starts to daydream about “wondering where ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over” (13) in Central Park in New York. The symbolic significance in this comment is that Holden is frozen in adolescence.
Books that have shaped America are slowly starting to disappear. Many of the previous social norms have fallen out of fashion, and because of this reason numerous books are beginning to become banned. Blasphemy, racism, sex, and violence are all ethical reasons for books to be censored.
One final illustration of Holden’s misconception of death is evident in Chapter 12, on pages 81-82. In this instance Holden once again poses the question of what happens to the ducks in the lake in Central Park during the winter. This driver, Horowitz, responds much more climactically than the anonymous driver in Chapter 9. , and he provides a ardent series of remarks. Horowitz changes the subject of the conversation from ducks to fish, because he can cope with them. Horowitz is also a believer of the rightness of things. His departing comment: "Listen,…if you was a fish, Mother Nature’d take care of you, wouldn’t she?
One morning when he was walking up Fifth Avenue he starts to feel as he will not make it to the other side of the street. “I thought I’d just go down, down, down…….”. He then starts talking to Allie and ask him to protect him from going down and disappear. He thanks Allie when he reaches the other side of the street safely. By this time it is quite clear that Holden does not think clearly anymore and is emotionally in a very deep and dark place. He decides to just say goodbye to Phoebe and hitchhike to a sunny and pretty place where nobody knows him. He will also pretend that he cannot hear or speak and he will marry a deaf-mute woman as well. “If we had any children, we’d hide them somewhere”, thus protect them and their innocence from the evil world and the cruelty of adulthood. The Asian Social Science Journal did an analysis on the adolescent problems in The Catcher in the Rye and their conclusion is as follows: “Holden 's enemy is the adult world and the cruelty and artificiality. I see this to be Holden physically at war with the adult world. He is the protector and even the leader of the army of the youth, fighting to preserve their