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Catcher in the rye and its relevance today
Catcher in the rye and its relevance today
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Literature and films often show the good aspects of life, but rarely present the struggles or hardships. In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger displays the obstacles and hindrances Holden Caulfield endures on his treacherous journey through New York City. Throughout the novel, Holden struggles emotionally as an outsider, gradually becoming more unstable as time passes on. He’s an outsider at school and in society so he doesn’t have many friends. In his eyes, everyone is letting him down, which causes him to think very low of himself. Earlier in his life, he had a brother named Allie, but he died due to his leukemia. The collateral damage from that caused him to break emotionally. The night of Allie’s death, he slept in the garage …show more content…
When at his lowest moments, he will drink to fill his loneliness, usually to a point of being really drunk. He decides to call Sally while really drunk and wasn’t feeling too great since he was “still holding onto” his “guts” (167). Slowly as time passes on he begins to feel sicker and sicker while roaming the streets in the winter. Holden begins to think he’s going to “get pneumonia and die” because of the cold weather (171). Along with the cold weather, there were “hunks of ice” in his hair (171). After seeing his sister Phoebe, he goes to stay with his teacher, Mr. Antolini. It was difficult for Holden to really understand and remember what Mr. Antolini was saying because he was still “feeling sort of dizzy” and had a “helluva headache” (202). It was manageable enough to still stay conscious and awake because the feeling would come and go ever so often. Later, waking up to his teacher petting him, he franticly leaves and sleeps the rest of the night at the station until people start coming to the station in the morning. Holden reads a magazine causing him to think he was going to get cancer because of the things he reads. Although physically he wasn’t well, he began to get better mentally once he was with Phoebe at the
The reason Holden has a hard time talking to people about his feelings is because in the time period he lives in people have a stereotypical image of not sharing emotional feelings with others. Losing his brother, Holden has to adjust to keep his composure without having the direct outlet of Allie to comfort
Holden feels as if he is stuck in his 13 year old self. Although he is aging he isn’t necessarily maturing the way his classmates and other people are around him. This is due to the fact that he never received closure when Allie died. When he starts picturing his own funeral because he might get pneumonia and die, he remembers D.B. telling him about his brother's funeral. He stated, “I wasn’t there. I was still in the hospital. I had to go to the hospital and all after I hurt my hand” (Salinger 171). Since he never attended the funeral he never got to say his final goodbyes to the one person he truly loved. Holden feels as if he can’t connect with anyone else in the world like he did with Allie. If he did then he would most likely push them away, so he wouldn’t have to experience the trauma of loss again, because it greatly impacted his life the first time. The trauma Holden experienced when he was younger resulted in him not being able to form stronger relationships with people which made him more depressed and
The origins of Holden’s disillusionment and the reason that it all started is the death of his younger brother which he was very fond of and admired, Allie, three years ago. The death of Allie is very significant in Holden’s mind since it is an event which he remembers quite clearly at multiple occasions during the book. For example, when Holden is writing a descriptive composition for his roommate Stradlater, he decides to write about Allie’s baseball mitt since it is the only thing on his mind. “My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder’s mitt. He was
Events in Holden's life lead him to become depressed. Holden's depression centers on Allie. The manner that Holden sees himself and how he sees others leads him to be expelled from school. The speaker expresses, "One thing about packing depressed me a little," (51). Holden expresses these feelings when he packs his bags after being notified that he is expelled. Holden leaves school and heads for New York City, where he finds himself to be more lonely and depressed than ever. He is all alone and he laments, " What I really felt like doing was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out of the window," (104). Holden says this while he is all alone in his motel room. He is too ashamed of himself to return home, he knows that his mother will be upset and his father will be angry with him. He also adds that " I wasn’t feeling sleepy or anything, but I was feeling sort of lousy. Depressed and all, I almost wished I was dead," (90). Holden states this during one of the first nights that he is staying in New York. Holden expresses many thoughts of depression.
There are very few life changing events that, in an instant, completely alter the way one sees the world. However, the death of a family member is one such event. Family has often been called the backbone of healthy development and growth. Therefore, when this process is disrupted it can cause significant psychological problems. In The Catcher in The Rye, Allie's death caused Holden to develop a fear of abandonment and forced him to become protective of himself.
more mature for his age then he should have been. This is the basis of
Immediately after Allie’s death, Holden changes immensely. His very first act after Allie died was smashing all his garage windows with his fist. Following this aggressive act, he becomes a recluse and judges every person he crosses to- I assume- Allie, because of how much he still reminded Holden of innocence, and will for the rest of his life. Cynthia Barron states, “Holden is sixteen… in a unique position, caught in the limbo between childhood and adulthood. Thus faced with their inability to adapt to an adult world that is hypocritical and corrupt, both boys seek a return to the realm of childhood” (Barron). In my personal opinion, i believe that he ...
The Catcher in the Rye has been described, analyzed, rebuffed, and critiqued over the years. Each writer expresses a different point of view: It is a story reflecting teen-ager's talk--thoughts-emotions--actions; or angst. I believe it is an adult's reflection of his own unresolved grief and bereavements. That adult is the author, J.D. Salinger. He uses his main character, Holden, as the voice to vent the psychological misery he will not expose -or admit to.
However, his feelings suggest that the true reason for his depression is his loss of Innocence. When he was 13 years old, he lost his little brother Allie to leukemia. Allie meant a lot to Holden. He even becomes a symbol in the book. Allie is the one who keeps Holden from falling of the cliff, he’s the reason that he hasn’t lost his innocence yet. “Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down, and nobody'd ever see me again. Boy, did it scare me. You can't imagine. I started sweating like a bastard—my whole shirt and underwear and everything. Then I started doing something else. Every time I'd get to the end of a block I'd make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I'd say to him, "Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Please, Allie." And then when I'd reach the other side of the street without disappearing, I'd thank him.” (Sallinger) In this part, Allie plays the role as the Catcher in the Rye and keeps Holden from falling of the cliff. This is why i believe that Holden wants to become a “ Catcher in the Rye”. He wants to help people like Allie has helped him. He feels that it's what he’d meant to do with his
The Catcher in the Rye Holden Gets Influenced Everyone gets influenced by someone, even heroes do. The Catcher in the Rye, a novel written by J. D. Salinger, talks about Holden Caulfield, a 16 year old boy that is trying to live through his problems. Holden tries to learn from his experiences as well as from the ones of others. He goes through many hard times, but he always takes them as a chance to imagine how it could have ended if he had done something about them or what cold had happened if he was not so “yellow”.
The protagonist, Holden Caulfield, interacts with many people throughout J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, but probably none have as much impact on him as certain members of his immediate family. The ways Holden acts around or reacts to the various members of his family give the reader a direct view of Holden's philosophy surrounding each member.
In Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Holden is an unreliable narrator who, through his digressions, illustrates himself and his personality. In these digressions, Holden reveals many of his characteristics that readers would otherwise never know. In one digression about an old roommate of his, Holden talks about how his roommate, Dick Slagle, has cheap-looking suitcases which he always hides under the bed instead of putting them on the rack next to Holden’s. Holden initially believes that the reason Dick hides his suitcases is because he feels ashamed that they are cheaper than Holden’s and he does not want anyone to see them. He even says, “I kept wanting to throw mine out or something, or even trade with him (Salinger 121).” This illustrates
Lies, failure, depression, and loneliness are only some of the aspects that Holden Caulfield goes through in the novel The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger. Salinger reflects Holden’s character through his own childhood experiences. Salinger admitted in a 1953 interview that "My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book.… [I]t was a great relief telling people about it” (Wikipedia). Thus, the book is somewhat the life story of J.D. Salinger as a reckless seventeen-year-old who lives in New York City and goes through awful hardships after his expulsion and departure from an elite prep school. Holden, the protagonist in this novel, is created as a depressed, cynical, and isolated character and he expresses this attitude through his dialogue, tone, and diction.
Holden Caulfield, from J.D Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye starts off the story in a mental hospital, reminiscing on his 48-hour journey around the busy streets of New York searching for his identity. Holden's life turned into havoc a few years before, making him unwilling to accept responsibility and face society. Holden distracts himself with alcohol, cigarettes, prostitutes, and grief for his lost brother. He loses sight of his morals and responsibilities like attending school and interacting with the real world. Holden sees that adults are greedy and selfish therefore forcing himself to be alienated from a world that does not care about his existence. Despite the bitter things that he does to prevent
Nearing the end of The Catcher in the Rye, we as the audience read of Holden’s dream to be The Catcher in the Rye. With these dreams, J. D. Salinger is able to clearly depict Holden’s disillusionments of his longing for innocence to be protected forever. Describing his dreams, Holden states that he keeps picturing a bunch of little kids in a field of rye, and when they come too close to the edge where he would be standing, he would have to catch them. One can say that the kids playing in the field represent childhood, and the field itself represents innocence; therefore, one can conclude that Holden’s wanting to catch the kids when they fall symbolizes him wanting to keep children innocent and shelter them from growing up (Beidler). In reality,