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The catcher in the rye symbolism essay
The catcher in the rye symbolism essay
The catcher in the rye symbolism essay
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The Catcher in The Rye Argumentative Essay In the book, The Catcher in The Rye, Holden is portrayed as a misfit who doesn’t want to be introduced to the horrors of the adult world. He fails all of his classes except for English at Pencey and is being kicked out of the school. He then decides to lay low in New York City while his parents digest him being kicked out . In addition, he experiences many adventures and learns about himself along the way. Holden refuses responsibilities and avoids the consequences of his actions, his problems, and remains like this throughout the whole book. Holden is often not thinking about the consequences of his actions throughout the book. During the story, Holden asks Sally Hayes if she wants to run away with him and live in a cabin for the rest of their lives. Sally replies …show more content…
with this, “Because you can’t, that’s all. In the first place, we’re both practically children. And did you ever stop to think what you’d do if you didn’t get a job when your money ran out?”(132) This quote shows how Holden isn’t thinking about his actions and where they could lead him later on in his life. He only thinks in the present moment and doesn’t realize how irrational and irresponsible he is being. Holden avoids his problems, instead of facing them when they arise.
An example of this is when Holden flashes back to Allie’s death and the garage windows. Holden says, “They were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage. I don’t blame them. I really don’t. I broke all the windows with my goddam fist, just for the hell of it.”(39) This demonstrates how instead of talking about his grief over Allie, Holden became so overwhelmed that he turned to violence and pain. He has refused to accept the fact that Allie is dead and doesn’t handle it peacefully. Another example is when Holden leaves Pencey early and decides to go to a hotel instead of going home to face his parents: “I figured my parents wouldn’t get old Thurmer letter saying I’d got the ax till maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. I didn’t want to go home or anything till they got it and thoroughly digested it and all. I didn’t want to be around when they first got it.” (51) This quote shows how Holden is avoiding facing his parents because he knows what they will do to him when they find out. He doesn’t want to face his problems or the consequences that will
ensue. In conclusion, Holden stays the same way throughout most of the book. He avoids responsibilities and the consequences for his actions. Although, at the end of the story he goes and faces his parents, his whole journey was irresponsible and childish. He shuts out his problems and replaces them with reckless actions, that end up making him even more depressed and lost as the story goes on.
Holden is an outlier of society, and tries to hide his own weaknesses with his angry thoughts. It is also implied that Holden is enrolled in an institution as he talks about doctor appointments towards the beginning of the book.
Holden also has a negative perspective of life that makes things seem worse than they really are. In addition to Holden’s problems he is unable to accept the death of his brother at a young age. Holden’s immaturity, negative mentality, and inability to face reality hold him back from moving into adulthood. Holden’s immaturity causes him many problems throughout the story. Although he is physically mature, he acts more like a child.
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.
Holden wants to shelter children from the adult world (Chen). In Chapter 16, the catcher in the rye finally appears. This is also a symbol for what Holden would like to be when he grows older. He pictures a group of many kids playing in a field of rye, where it is his job to catch them from falling off the cliff. This shows Holden’s love for childhood and his need to preserve it in any way he can. According to Alsen, “The way Holden explains why he wants to be the catcher in the rye shows the kindness and unselfishness of his character. However, the surreal nature of the metaphor also reveals his unwillingness to face the real life choices he needs to make now that he is approaching adulthood.” By the end of the book, Holden realizes in order for kids to grow, there can’t be protection from all of potential harm. “He therefore gives up his dream of being the catcher in the rye and is ready to make a realistic choice of what he wants to do with his life” (Alsen). Holden’s dream world, that doesn’t involve change, is unrealistic. He is terrified by the unpredictable changes of the adult world, but there is no way for Holden to avoid the experiences and changes that the
In the novel The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger,Holden the main character tries to take on adult and mature situations but finds himself in reality not getting very far. Holden Caulfield who goes to Pencey has failed four out of five classes and gets the notice that he is being expelled from the school. He leaves the school and goes out and tries to adventure into the real world. Holden takes on many challenges and obstacles throughout the book . Although Holden wants to be independent many people perceive Holden in numerous different ways to his actions and feelings. Faith and Stradlater both perceive Holden as irritating, when in reality he tries to distract himself from being depressed. For example when Holden was in the phone
In the Catcher in the Rye, Holden is an immature boy. Holden’s immaturity cause him many problem throughout the book. He is physically mature but not emotionally mature. He acts like a child. “All of a sudden I started to cry. I’d give anything if I hadn’t, but I did” (p. 103). Holden shows his emotional unstableness.
...t in school and doesn’t even care if he is flunking his classes. Although Holden himself does not mention it, he believes he has no future. Due to him failing all his classes and getting kicked out of school, we can see that Holden doesn’t want a future and doesn’t want to form friendships in school, therefore he detaches himself from school and society.
In Catcher in the Rye, Holden is shown as a character who can’t seem to make up his mind about anything. He lies, he never acts his age, and he does not talk about his emotions. It is difficult to trust a person like Holden, and he does not show of as an admirable person. It may have been Allie’s death that changed him, or maybe he has always been like this. Either way, Holden will one day have to wake up from his depressive state and get the help that he needs to become a happy and fully functional human
The Catcher in the Rye clearly states that Holden is an individual trapped within a heartless world. He is victimized on the other side of the world but he tries to get in the world which he feels that he does not belong in. Holden wears a red hunting hat as a symbol to show that he is a rebel against the law. By criticizing others, that is the way Holden hides away from his fears. “Pencey was full of crooks. A few guys came from wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has - I'm not kidding.” In his mind, the adult world’s is full of phoniness. He imagines that childhood is life while adulthood is death. When Phoebe (his younger sister) asks Holden what he wants to be when he grows up, Holden thinks about it and 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 m...
Holden tries to preserve his own innocence, and the innocence of others by not letting go of childhood memories and through his desire to suspend time. Holden views the adult world as corrupt and full of phonies. He admires childhood because of how it is free of corruption, and untouched by the adult world. IN order to preserve his own innocence Holden often attaches himself to childhood memories. The Museum of NAtural History is one of Holden’s favourite places . He mentions that his grade one teacher Miss. Aigletinger used to take his class there every saturday. While writing about the museum he says, “The best thing, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was” (121). This shows how Holden wants to preserve his innocence because he expresses how he likes how everything stayed the
J.D. Salinger, in his novel The Catcher in the Rye, shows that often times when an individual faces problems in their life they will try to find a means to escape, instead of solving them. 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.
He cannot control or protect anyone, or himself, from the future. Holden’s last two sentences of the novel really capture the entire journey he has gone through: “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody” (214). This is Holden getting over everything that has happened to him. He understands that he can overcome what has happened from him in order to learn from his past and move forward to the future.
In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden’s vision of nature of childhood and adulthood are not as separate as Holden believes them to be. Holden tries to battle through the pressures of adulthood while staying in his childish frame of mind. He feels that if he acts childish, he can go back to that. He also feels the need to be an adult and do his own thing. Holden is at war with himself trying to see what he really is- a child or an adult. Although, Holden thinks he is being an adult by drinking and smoking, he is actually becoming more childish.
Holden Caulfield conveys his melancholy, sarcasm, and seclusion greatly through his dialogue; his vocabulary constantly consists of depression and loneliness. He expresses such agony all throughout the dialogue of the book. An example of this would be when Holden quotes, “When I finally got down off the radiator and went out to the hat-check room, I was crying and all. I don’t know why, but I was. I guess it was because I was feeling so damn depressed and lonesome” (153). In this quote, Holden is expressing his confusion and unhappiness but mostly is just confused to why he is unhappy. He feels a severe amount of misery that devours him, all of which is shown greatly in all of his dialogue. He, at one point in the novel, feels like committing suicide because he cannot handle the pressure. He says that “I stayed in the bathroom for about an hour, taking a bath and all. Then I got back in bed. It took me quite a while to get to sleep- I...
“He just got a jaguar” Holden which is the author by “The Catcher in the Rye” talks about his brother that stays in hollywood. His brother was currently making a lot of dough (money) but has a hard working job. He used to be a writer and made a good book according to Holden called “The secret goldfish”. So Holden starts to show the reader what was going on in his life and actually being specific about it. First of all, the meaning of this story is, the transition between childhood/teenagers into adulthood.