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J d salinger’s holden description
Catcher in the Rye Holden relationship with Salinger
J d salinger’s holden description
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Catcher in the Rye, by J.D Salinger is about a boy named Holden Caulfield who struggles with the codes of conduct his upper class lifestyle follows. For Holden, loss of innocence is not about smoking a cigarette as much as it is about his realization that the rules placed on him by society are phony. Holden distracts himself by focusing on his feelings of alienation because he does not want to face his own deep sadness over his own loss of innocence. Holden alienates himself by believing he is better than everybody else. Every time Holden meets or talks about someone he is judgemental. Even when he is talking about someone he spends time with, he cannot help but ridicule them, “I never even once saw him [Ackley] brush his teeth....he had a lot of pimples. Not just on his forehead or his chin, like most guys, but all over his whole face. And not only that, he had a terrible personality. He was also sort of a nasty guy. I wasn't too crazy about him, to tell you the truth.”(Salinger,14 ). Ackley is probably the closest thing to a friend Holden has. Yet he criticizes him is a very nitpicky way, convincing himself he does not like …show more content…
Ackley. The only way to explain this behaviour is that Holden needs to feel superior. This sense of superiority allows Holden to repress the fact that he is no longer innocent. Holden is stuck in the liminal space between childhood and adulthood.
He is not innocent, but he is also not mature. Holden identifies with children, but they do not identify with him. “I passed by this playground and stopped and watched a couple of very tiny kids on a seesaw. One of them was sort of fat, and I put my hand on the skinny kid's end, to sort of even up the weight, but you could tell they didn't want me around, so I let them alone.”(81) In this example and others, Holden wants to be with the children, because he still sees himself as an innocent child. Although he is always reaching for a cigarette or drink, Holden has a difficult time accepting that he is no longer an innocent child. This is the foundation of Holden’s depression, which J.D salinger revales upfront. has a difficult time accepting he is no longer
innocent. In the very first sentences of Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger demonstrates that Holden actively works to repress his past. The book begins with denial and sadness. “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”(1) Holden tries to belittle the story of his past by making the audience’s interest in it seem predictable and by calling his history “kind of crap.” Just like when he talks about his friends, Holden tries to assert his superiority and to represses what hurts him most. But no matter how hard Holden tries to move past childhood, he cannot let it go. It is the very way he introduces himself to the audience. Audiences of all ages can relate to Holden’s questioning of rules placed by society. Catcher in the Rye illustrates how difficult it is to accept the move from childhood to adulthood.
Since Holden was isolated from his family, in order to not get hurt again he tries to find hypocrisy in people to stop himself from trusting others. Holden feels isolated after being sent to a boarding school that “was full of phonies” by his parents (Salinger 90). Salinger’s message to the audience with this quote is that when
The catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger is about a boy named Holden Caulfield and his struggles in one part of his life. Holden seem very normal to people around him and those he interacts with. However, Holden is showing many sighs of depression. A couple of those signs that are shown are: trouble sleeping, drinking, smoking, not eating right, and he talk about committing suicide a couple times during the book. On top of that Holden feel alienated plus the death of Holden’s brother Allie left Holden thinking he and no where to go in life.
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, is a classic novel about a sixteen-year-old boy, Holden Caulfield, who speaks of a puzzling time in his life. Holden has only a few days until his expulsion from Pency Prep School. He starts out as the type of person who can't stand "phony" people. He believes that his school and everyone in it is phony, so he leaves early. He then spends three aimless days in New York City. During this time, Holden finds out more about himself and how he relates to the world around him. He believes that he is the catcher in the rye: " I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in a big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around-nobody big, I mean-except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What have I to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff..." (173). He briefly enters what he believes is adulthood and becomes a "phony" himself. By the end of the story, Holden realizes he doesn't like the type of person he has become, so he reverts into an idealist; a negative, judgmental person.
Holden’s childhood was far from ideal, with Allie dying, his dysfunctional parents and the revelation that he had some “perverty” stuff happen to him when he was a kid. Due to this, he isn't ready to step into adulthood and leave his childhood behind. This is why Holden is mostly alienated from adults and connects more to the innocence of children like the girl at the park and his sister, Phoebe. However, Holden is disillusioned with both adulthood and childhood. He already knows how it feels to be an adult; drinking alcohol, being independent, living by himself and caring for Phoebe, but isn’t ready to immerse himself in it.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is an enthralling and captivating novel about a boy and his struggle with life. The teenage boy ,Holden, is in turmoil with school, loneliness, and finding his place in the world. The author J.D. Salinger examines the many sides of behavior and moral dilemma of many characters throughout the novel. The author develops three distinct character types for Holden the confused and struggling teenage boy, Ackley, a peculiar boy without many friends, and Phoebe, a funny and kindhearted young girl.
Throughout the whole novel Holden has always been in denial of everything. As stated by Freud, denial is the “Refusal to recognize a threatening impulse or desire” (Sigmund Freud). When he visited his ten year old sister Phoebe, she was trying to communicate with Holden but she was nervous that it would displease him. She stated “Because you don't. You don’t like schools. You don't like a million things. You don't…Why the hell do you have to say that?” I said. Boy was depressing me” (Salinger 169). Even though Holden is very fond of Phoebe he didn't bother to listen to what she had to say, this demonstrates that Holden is very in denial because he got very upset when Phoebe said that he dislikes everything. Which furthers shows how he is unable to recognize that what Phoebe is
The Catcher in the Rye is a novel by J.D. Salinger that is told from the point of view of Holden Caulfield. Holden is a young man struggling with growing up and facing the adult world. As a misunderstood teenager, Holden learns to deal with the deception of the adult world and the consequences of his choices.
When one does not stand for something, one is bound to fall for anything. Because Holden lacked paternal figures in his life or a greater influence he took the idea of innocence as his mantra. His need to find an identity led him to find a role model in children, which led him to believe permanent innocence would mean happiness and sanity. He held on to his idea and sought out to find innocence in the dimmest of places. His intoxication with this idea and his disappointing encounters with adults ensure him that nothing but corruption is found once a child grows up. He rejected the idea of adulthood and created further problems for himself. In the process of this well-intentioned plan, Holden loses the little of himself he had. He is left standing only with a hunger for innocence. Because, to him, innocence is all and love is innocence.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger is a coming-of-age novel set in New York during the 1940’s. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the story, is a detached seventeen-year old boy harboring feelings of isolation and disillusionment. He emphasizes a general dislike for society, referring to people as “phonies.” His lack of will to socialize prompts him to find nearly everything depressing. He’s alone most of the time and it’s apparent that he is very reclusive. This often leads him to pondering about his own death and other personal issues that plague him without immediate resolution. Holden possesses a strong deficit of affection – platonic and sexual – that hinders and cripples his views toward people, his attitude, and his ability to progressively solve his problems without inflicting pain on himself. The absence of significant figures in his life revert him to a childlike dependency and initiate his morbid fascination with sexuality. In this novel, Salinger uses Sunny, Sally Hayes, and Carl Luce to incorporate the hardships of discovering sexual identity and how these events affect adolescents as they try to understand their own sexuality.
Throughout the novel Holden seems to be excluded from any group. He feels alienated from the rest of society, but I believe that Holden stays bitter on purpose. He keeps a cynical, sarcastic outlook on life so as to escape his true feelings. This is not uncommon for people who have trouble accepting their problems. Many of the times that Holden criticizes people it is something he does himself. (Pg 13) “… one of the reasons I left Elkton was that I was surrounded by phonies…” Holden himself is many times what he refers to as a “phony”. He knows that he lies and pretends to like people that he would rather not be with. (Pg 125) “… I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie of course…” His bitterness is a shield against his reality, a reality he doesn’t like at all. Yet at the same time Holden really wants to communicate with people. (Pg 66) “ I damn near gave my kid sister Phoebe a buzz…” He is torn between the two ways to act and cannot reach conclusio...
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.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a vicious cycle is a repeating situation or condition in which one problem causes another problem that makes the first problem worse. Holden Caulfield, the main character of The Catcher in the Rye, by author J.D. Salinger, is stuck in a vicious cycle of self-destruction. Holden’s isolation and self-alienation creates a vicious cycle of hatred. This cycle is clearly displayed throughout the whole book and is accentuated through his interactions with strangers and those he is familiar with.
The Catcher in The Rye, written by J.D. Salinger describes the story of a teenaged boy named Holden Caulfield who is obsessed with purity and preserving innocence in society. Holden has mental issues and his family sends him to too many private schools, in which he gets kicked out of all of them. His younger brother Allie died at an extremely young age and Holden remembers experiences he had with him very vividly. Allie’s death is one major factor that contributes to Holden obsession with purity and his mental problems. Holden’s obsession for purity is clear in his admiration of innocence in children, goal to keep society pure, and attempts to prevent children from engaging in sexual intercourse.
“The notion of innocence refers to children’s simplicity, their lack of knowledge, and their purity not yet spoiled by mundane affairs. Such innocence is taken as the promise of a renewal of the world by the children” (Buhler-Niederberger). The main character of Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, faces harsh adulthood realities which compel him to protect childhood innocence. Throughout Holden’s 3-day journey in New York, he demonstrates his desire to retain childhood innocence in himself and other children. In The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger develops Holden Caulfield as a reflection to the main theme of childhood innocence through his use of characterization, stream of consciousness point
Ernest Hemingway once said, “all things truly wicked start from innocence.” In J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, it is shown that even those who are not seen as innocent, once were. The main character Holden, tries to preserve this innocence to help it sustain its purity in people he notices it in. The novel revolves around teenage boy Holden Caulfield who is troubled by the problems he sees in the adult world. He struggles with the fact that everyone must grow up at some point and tries to protect those who have yet to come into this corrupt world of adulthood. The theme protection of innocence is predominant in the novel, shown through symbols which reflect Holden’s many values and motivations such as his love for children, hatred for