“I believe that everyone else my age is an adult whereas I am merely in disguise (Margaret Atwood).” While physical maturity is inevitable, emotional maturity is not as certain. Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is a distressed teenager who has been expelled from his fair share of boarding schools. He now wanders New York, trying to find his place amongst society. Since his brother's death Holden began to discover himself stuck in a perpetual state of discontent, feeling alone in his struggle to find his place in the world. Holden is no longer a child but he still doesn't fit in amongst adults as they are corrupt in the ways they live and act. Holden wishes to remain surrounded by innocence in order to avoid the …show more content…
crushing reality of adulthood. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger uses the attitude of the narrator to illustrate how Holden’s suspended development prevents him from fully crossing the threshold into adulthood expressing Salinger's feelings about the corrupt adult world. Throughout the novel, Salinger portrays adults as corrupted in the way they are unobservant and untrustworthy towards others. Holden learns that adults never seem to take notice when people do good things, they only retain the bad. Holden is sixteen years old but he often acts young for his age, however he sometimes acts acts a lot older “but people never notice...people never notice anything (Salinger 9).” Whether he's acting older or younger Holden is never being himself. It's his inability to be true to himself that halts him from advancing in the world. To Holden, adults are far from observant, they are negligent if anything. They don't take notice of Holden when he does the right thing but they make sure to point out his flaws. Through Holden’s character Salinger expresses how adults seem to get caught up in their own world not caring about other people, excepting nothing shy of perfection. Everyone has flaws, yet are still capable of doing good things, yet in Salinger’s eyes adults never seem to take notice. Adults never seemed to trust Holden, they always saw him as a troublemaker despite his good intentions. Holden and his friend were going into town one night to get a hamburger and maybe catch a movie. When they were boarding the bus the driver made Holden throw out the snowball he was holding. “I told him I wasn’t going to chuck it at anybody, but he wouldn’t believe me. (Salinger 37).” The driver automatically assumed that Holden was going to throw the snowball even though though the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. He wasn’t the type of person to cause a scene like that, but the bus driver didn’t know that, he just expected that Holden was going to cause trouble. The bus driver had no faith in humanity, and through that Salinger insinuates that adults are untrusting. Adults seem to always see the worst in people, they often judge others based on a single action, not who they really are. Salinger views adults as corrupt people because they can no longer see the best in people. Salinger depicts the adults in the novel as being corrupted due to their lack of interest towards others and their overall distrust in humanity. Over the course of the novel, Salinger portrays the adult world as corrupt because it is every changing and destroys innocence. Holden has always been an outsider to the adult world but it has often been by choice. He admires the consistency of the museum like a child would, to him “the best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was(Salinger 121).” The adult world is ever changing, it is complicated and intricate. Adults never seem to focus on the little things the way kids do, they don't appreciate consistency but rather they see it as a weakness. To adults if something stays the same it will never get better, but Holden views consistency as a form a stabilization, not a flaw. Salinger views on the adult world are shown though Holden's admiration of the museum and how it stayed exactly like it always does, it would be the one thing in his life that would remain the same forever. Upon arrival to Phoebe’s school, Holden is greeted with profanity written across the wall which he immediately assumes was written by adults. Holden becomes disgruntled with this display of impurity and he imagines how it was written by “some perverty bum”(201). In reality, it was most likely a student who wrote it, rather than someone who snuck into the school late at night. However Holden refuses to believe that a child could ever write such an obscene phrase, to him it was none other than the work of an adult. It appalls Holden to think that there are adults out there who would willingly poison the minds of innocent children as Holden himself hasn’t adapted to this new reality. Salinger uses Holden’s shock and disappointment in the adult that tried to rip children's innocence away with profanity as a way to portray how the adult world destroys innocence. Even if the profanity was written by a child Salinger wants to show to the reader how the child must have learned those indecent words from someone. Salinger interprets the adult world as being corrupted because of its uncertainty and its disregard for innocence. Throughout the novel, Salinger illustrates how Holden views the adult world as corrupt in order to justify Salinger’s real life opinions.
Holden never seems to have a pleasant time interacting with the adults and the world they've created. Holden describes the hotel he was staying at as being "lousy with perverts (Salinger 62).” At the hotel, Holden characterizes every adult he sees as a pervert. He does not know any of them but because they are grown up he sees them strictly as perverts, despite who they truly may be. However, Holden does try to fit in amongst these alleged “perverts” but later in the novel his inability to engage with a prostitute demonstrates how despite his efforts to belong in the adult world he is still childlike. Salinger uses Holden's childlike ways along with his inability to conform to societal normalities to express how he views the adult world as something he doesn't want to fully commit to. Salinger puts Holden is suspended development in order to prove how hard it is to fully belong in the adult world, especially if its occupants are already corrupt in their own ways. Throughout the novel Holden prefers the company of children over the company of adults as he believes adults to be fake and perverted. While at Ernie’s bar one of D.B.’s old acquaintances, Lillian Simmons, strikes up a conversation with Holden. Lillian hasn’t uttered the words to Holden when he prematurely deems her “strictly a phony (Salinger 86).” Holden wants nothing to do with …show more content…
the people who inhabit the adult world. He is better at communicating with people who still retain innocence, as his advancement towards adulthood had been previously halted. Through this interaction Salinger proves just how corrupt the adult world is to Holden. Salinger illustrated how the adult world is out of out of Holden's grasp simply because he does not obtain the needed mentality adulthood possesses. Salinger gives Holden intense feelings about the “phoniness” of adults to dwell on the idea that the adult world is in fact corrupt. Salinger proves how people go around talking to others in the hopes to gain something, rarely for the benefit of others. Lillian was never interested in Holden, she just wanted to know about his brother proving adults are selfish and corrupt human beings. Holden views the adult world as corrupted to not only illustrate his suspended development but to also establish Salinger’s antipathy of everything adults stand for. Salinger expresses his feelings about the corrupt adult world through Holden’s suspended development and how it prevents him from fully crossing the threshold into adulthood.
Throughout the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, adults and the world they inhabit are portrayed as corrupt. They are unobservant, skeptical and belong to a world filled with impurities. Holden does not possess the mentality of an adult, nor the innocence of a child, he is stuck in a perpetual halt somewhere between the two. While Holden struggles to find his place in society, Salinger expresses his disdain towards the concept that is adulthood. Salinger keeps Holden in suspended development in order to oppose the idea that innocence ends when adulthood begins. Becoming an adult shouldn’t require forgetting who you once were and the morals you possessed, as “all things truly wicked start from innocence (Ernest Hemingway)”.We were all born unadulterated, it’s our surroundings that made us evil. In order to survive the innocence you have to first outlast the
ignorance.
I guess you can say he is trying to transition from adult hood but he can’t. He believes childhood is a beautiful and innocent thing where as adulthood is evil and corrupted. In the text Holden says “That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose” Pg. 204 Another reason why Holden is stuck between adult hood and childhood is because he doesn’t understand the concept of sex. He doesn’t get how two adults can have sex without loving each other. Holden tells Luce "You know what the trouble with me is? I can never get really sexy—I mean really sexy with a girl I don’t like a lot. I mean I have to like her a lot. If I don’t, I sort of lose my goddam desire for her and all.”Pg148 Luce then later says “When are you going to grow up?"Pg. 144. This is another example how Holden can’t really grow up. Mr. Antolini brings up an examples that goes “this fall I think you’re riding for – it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling."Pg. 187. This quote is illustrating that Holden doesn’t know where to go, he’s lost and confused from the transition from childhood to
Immaturity of Holden in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden, cannot accept that he must move out of childhood and into adulthood. One of Holden’s most important major problems is his lack of maturity.
Holden believes he can act like a grown up but is not ready to accept the responsibilities that come with being a grown up. After escaping the social normality happening at Pencey he runs off to New York City, on a mission to escape his responsibilities and feel like a kid again. “I don’t give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am - I really do - but people never notice it.”( Salinger 15). Holden explains he could care less, yet he then states he cares sometimes. By stating
In J.D. Sallinger's Catcher in the Rye, is based on the sullen life of Holden Caulfield, a 16-year-old teen-ager is trying to find his sense of direction. Holden, a growing adult, cannot accept the responsibilities of an adult. Eventually realizing that there is no way to avoid the adult life, he can only but accept this alternative lifestyle. What Holden describes the adult world as a sinful, corrupted life, he avoids it for three important reasons: His hatred towards phonies and liars, unable to accept adult responsibilities, and thirdly to enshrine his childhood youth.
Adolescence a period of life when a child develops from a child into an adult. It is the stage of development in which psychological changes occur and efforts towards creating an identity begin. Clearly, it is an emotionally straining and stressful period. In The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger we are introduce to an adolescence boy. From first impressions would let one to believe Holden Caulfield is just any other teenager going through a phase of rebellion. The truth of the matter is that Holden’s angst arises from a deeper problem. He detains himself from accepting adulthood and latches on to a perfection that results from child-like innocence. By gripping on to the idea of maintaining permanent innocence Holden becomes a more than a rebellious teenager, he becomes lost and further problems emerge.
Catcher in The Rye, by J.D Salinger, addresses an issue that many teenagers have spoken out against in this modern generation- displacement in society. Holden Caulfield, a young adolescent experiences this discomfiture to comply with the rules of society and intentionally tries to stop the inevitable- the loss of innocence. Innocence to Holden is simply a phrase that he is unable to conceptualize. Holden’s idea of corruption of the young, influences his point of views that often differ from his peers, causing him to feel alone and often depressed. He shows his mental instability and his inability to view the world in the same way as people in his age group, and stereotypes loss of innocence with “phoniness”. Holden’s hatred for the corruption
Part of the irony in Holden’s story is that physically, he looks mature, but mentally, he is still very much a child: “I act quite young for my age, sometimes. I was sixteen then, and I’m seventeen now … I’m six foot two and a half and I have gray hair ” (9). There is no middle ground, adolescence, for Holden. He can only be an adult, physically, or a child, mentally. Holden’s history teacher, Mr. Spencer, tries to appeal to him by using a metaphor: “Life is a game, boy.
Growing up and becoming mature can be an intimidating experience; it is difficult to let go of one’s childhood and embrace the adult world. For some people, this transition from youthfulness to maturity can be much more difficult than for others. These people often try to hold on to their childhood as long as they can. Unfortunately, life is not so simple. One cannot spend their entire life running from the responsibilities and hardships of adulthood because they will eventually have to accept the fact that they have a role in society that they must fulfill as a responsible, mature individual. The novel “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger follows the endeavours of Holden Caulfield, a sixteen-year-old teenage boy who faces a point in his life where he must make the transition from childhood to adulthood. In an attempt to retain his own childhood, he begins hoping to stop other young children from growing up and losing their innocence as well. As indicated by the title, “The Catcher in the Rye” is a book that explores a theme involving the preservation of innocence, especially of children. It is a story about a boy who is far too hesitant to grow up, and feels the need to ensure that no one else around him has to grow up either. His own fear of maturity and growing up is what leads to Holden’s desire to become a “catcher in the rye” so he can save innocent children from becoming part of the “phoniness” of the adult world.
Throughout “The Catcher in the Rye”, Holden Caufield longs for intimacy with other human beings. One of Holden’s main problems is that he sees childhood as the ideal state of being. He thinks that all adults are phonies.
Adolescence is a time of great change—you are transitioning from a child to an adult, you are becoming more independent, and you are figuring out who you are as a person. Although these changes can be exciting, the realities of adulthood and loss of innocence scares most young adolescents. Author JD Salingers ' novel, The Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951, follows a troubled teen named Holden Caufield’s the following days after being kicked out of yet another prep-school. In these few days, we see how he struggles with the fact that everyone has to grow up and that the innocence of the young cannot be protected forever. Holden feels that adults are corrupt due to the lack of their childhood innocence. Therefore, his ultimate message, or
Holden Caulfield a kid who has emotional, and social problems is having a struggle with growing up. Holden has many complications with his social abilities, and is in a very poor emotional state. He is hitting the age of maturity and he is struggling with that process. The book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, tell the story of how Holden Caulfield deals with his recent expulsion from his high school Pencey prep, and how he is struggling with growing up, and deal with mature situations. Holden struggles with growing up and fights between acting mature or acting like a child.
John McNaughton, a famous director, says, “Maturity begins to grow when you can sense your concern for others outweighing your concern for yourself.” When a person can put others well-being and needs over their own, it shows they are responsible, self-sufficient, and highly mature. However, achieving the mature “status” can be difficult for some teenagers, including Holden Caulfield, the sixteen year old protagonist of the novel “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger. Throughout the novel, it is evident that Holden detests the reality of growing up and becoming an adult because he feels adulthood depreciates the values of innocence and virtue in children. On the contrary, maturity comes easily to certain children like Jeanette Walls,
In J.D. Salinger’s coming of age novel, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, the main protagonist, feels very isolated in a world full of phonies. He views the adult world as corrupt, which makes him not want to mature. He finds very few people who aren’t phony, and they all happen to be children because he idolizes their innocence. Furthermore, his isolation leads to very little development of other characters in the story, even though they can be very important characters. Throughout the novel, Holden only occasionally addresses some characters, such as his father and Allie, who actually have large roles in his development, actions and overall themes of the novel.
Intro: It is a very common thing for teens to feel angst as they approach adulthood. In many cases adulthood means facing many challenges that have never before been present. In the controversial novel The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, the main character Holden is faced with much angst in his struggle to grow up. Holden desperately wants to protect the innocence of children so he put off the loss of his own innocence as long as possible. The novel The Catcher in the Rye shows controversy through the loss of innocence in the prostitute scene, the vulgar language scene, and the train scene.
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