The end of young adulthood is one of the most difficult and confusing times of a person’s life. People begin to leave and change, and one has to decide to move on from being a child and become an adult. This was the dilemma that was faced by Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye. Holden is a teenager who can not seem to let go of his childhood past and is not quite ready to let go of his innocence yet. However, from all of the influences around him like all of his friends moving on, he is feeling the pressure that society is demanding him to move on. Throughout the novel, Holden tries to come to terms with this idea of “coming of age.” As his friends begin to grow up and leave, and as he is thrown from school to school after each of the …show more content…
previous rejects him, Holden reaches out multiple times in order to feel acceptance. Some of these attempts are met with positivity, but many times they are not. One of the first scenes that is seen in The Catcher in the Rye is Holden traveling to the home of a professor to say goodbye. Holden calls the professor “Old Spencer,” an almost affectionate term to show that Holden is fond of the professor. Holden thinks it is only right to say goodbye to his professor and even apologize that he is failing the class. The expectation that Holden has is that the professor will show him some compassion and acceptance as he departs from the school. This is not what happens. Instead, Holden ends up receiving a lecture about just how awful he is in the class, and the professor emphasizes just how amazed he is at Holden’s lack of effort. Instead of receiving the warm acceptance and farewell from the teacher that he had hoped for, Holden gets rejected and turned away with the professor’s parting words of “Good Luck!” Much later on in the novel, Holden impulsively meets with a prostitute at the hotel he is staying at. He was pushed into accepting the prostitute by the elevator man, but also he may have decided to accept it because he was feeling lonely wanted to feel something with someone. However, once the prostitute actually arrives at his apartment, Holden is not in the mood to do anything. He would rather just talk with the girl and even tells her that he’ll pay for her time anyways. Holden was feeling lonely and really just wanted to have someone to be with and talk to, but this just made the prostitute annoyed. Eventually, Holden is rejected by this person too, and as she leaves, she demands more than what he was told to pay. Since Holden refuses, the prostitutes boss ends up beating him severely and taking the money anyway. Holden’s childishness is seen, however, when he refuses the 5 extra dollars as he pretends to be shot. Left alone, bloodied, and in pain, Holden ends up being worse off than when he started, all because he wanted someone to talk to and be accepted by. After all of these very negative experiences with wanting to be accepted by people that he meets, Holden finds a positive response from a group of two nuns he comes across.
Holden strikes up a friendly conversation with these nuns, unlike conversations with any other characters, about Romeo and Juliet, since English is his best subject. Instead of facing rejection like almost all of his other attempts, Holden actually has a conversation with the nuns and even gives them a donation of ten dollars. In response to this, the nun calls him a “very sweet boy,” signifying some acceptance. Even when the nuns have to go, one of the says “I have enjoyed talking to you so much,” and Holden even admits that he enjoyed talking to the nuns as well. Holden was sorry that he did not give more money to the nuns, even though he needed money for a date, because he enjoyed their company so much. When the nuns left, Holden accidentally blew cigarette smoke in their face, but instead of being bitter and mean, the nuns were polite and kind to him when he apologized. This shows that the nuns did accept him in a way, and this overall had a positive effect back on Holden. That effect is seen when his little sister Phoebe asks Holden what he likes in the world, all he can think of is the …show more content…
nuns. As Holden experiences the difficulties of the transition to adulthood, he tries to find acceptance in how he is through other people, but usually to a negative end.
In an attempt to give a simple, kind, farewell gesture to his history professor, Holden hoped to be given affection, understanding, and acceptance but is instead harshly ridiculed for his abhorrent performance in the class. Holden is completely rejected and even left with the parting words of “Good Luck,” just to metaphorically twist the knife. After Holden has run away, he tries to find acceptance and comfort in a prostitute and even ends up just wanting to talk. However, even though he is paying her for her time, Holden is rejected by the prostitute and beaten severely for not giving her more money. Finally, Holden comes across two nuns that actually show him some acceptance. They enter into a friendly conversation with him, which has rarely been seen in other characters, and even at the end tell him how much they enjoyed talking. This final even had a positive effect on holden that is later seen when his sister asks him what he likes and all he can think of are the nuns. Acceptance is hard to find when the whole world seems to be changing around someone, and as Holden learns this, he also learns that he needs to move forward and let go of the innocence that he holds onto. Once he does that, acceptance becomes no longer
important.
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 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.
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.
Holden's idealism is first brought forth when he describes his life at Pency Prep. It is full of phonies, morons and bastards. His roommate, Stradlater, " was at least a pretty friendly guy, It was partly a phony kind of friendly..." (26) and his other roommate, Ackley is "a very nosy bastard" (33). Holden can't stand to be around either one of them for a very long time. Later, he gets into a fight with Stradlater over his date with Jane. Holden is upset because he thinks that Stradlater "gave her the time" and that he doesn't care about her; 'the reason he didn't care was because he was a goddam stupid moron. All morons hate it when you call them a moron' (44). Holden not only sees his roommates as phonies and bastards, but he also sees his headmaster at Pency Prep as a "phony slob" (3). This type of person is exactly what Holden doesn't want to be. He strives to be a mature adult; caring, compassionate, and sensitive.
Holden experiences both alienation and disillusionment when meeting with people like Sally Hayes, Sunny and Ackley. Holden is so desperate to have human connection yet, when he starts to talk to them, he experiences them as ‘phonies’. This makes him more depressed, continuing his downward spiral. Holden is caught in a trap of his own making.
Holden Caulfield, portrayed in the J.D. Salinger novel Catcher in the Rye as an adolescent struggling to find his own identity, possesses many characteristics that easily link him to the typical teenager living today. The fact that the book was written many years ago clearly exemplifies the timeless nature of this work. Holden's actions are those that any teenager can clearly relate with. The desire for independence, the sexually related encounters, and the questioning of ones religion are issues that almost all teens have had or will have to deal with in their adolescent years. The novel and its main character's experiences can easily be related to and will forever link Holden with every member of society, because everyone in the world was or will be a teen sometime in their life.
In J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is seen by some critics a a drop out student destined for failure in life, but I see him as a symbol of an adolescent who struggles to adapt to the reality of adulthood.
Growing up is not easy. The desire to slow down or stop the process is not unusual for adolescents. Resisting adulthood causes those who try to run away from it to eventually come to terms with the reality of life: everyone has to grow up, and fighting against it makes it much harder to accept in the end. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield often tries to resist the process of maturity in an effort to avoid the complicated life he might face as an adult, making him an unusual protagonist for a bildungsroman; this struggle, however, opens Holden’s eyes to the reality and inevitability of growing up, helping him realize that innocence does not last forever.
Another part where Phoebe shows her influence on Holden is when Holden states, “… the kids were trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the horse. The thing… is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it…if they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them.” Holden feels that by letting Phoebe ride alone, he will make good for her, something that his parents did not give him. At the same time, Holden reveals his feelings towards his Allie, who he loves and takes care of.
When he realizes he is safe with his family, his actions start to shift to one of a caring and loving individual. Holden has come a long way from his school. He met with total strangers, had his money stolen from him, and sat in a room wondering if he should live. Now he decided that he should go back to his home and see his younger sister and on his way home he stops at a record store, thinking of old Phoebe, and buys her her favorite record: Little Shirley Beans. He was walking through the central park when “[He] dropped old Phoebe’s record. [He] damn near cried.” (Salinger 111) Throughout the novel Holden has been a really self centered person but when it came to his sister’s gift being destroyed he was heart broken. When the shock of the gift being broken was gone he realized that the gift he knew she wanted the most was gone he started to cry. Not only had his actions changed, his emotional state changed as well. Holden really cared about making her happy and he wanted to try and keep that brotherly bond together. Holden showed he changed through his actions when he spent his own money and went out of his way to deliver something to her that he knew she would really
It takes many experiences in order for an immature child to become a responsible, well-rounded adult. In J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger’s main character Holden Caulfield matures throughout the course of the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Holden is a juvenile young man. However, through his experiences, Holden is able to learn, and is finally able to become somewhat mature by the end of the novel. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s story represents a coming of age for all young adults.
He complains about his school, saying that it is just like any other school and uses language that makes him sound very obnoxious. Holden seems to focus on girls quite a bit, just like any other teenage boy. He seems to focus on one girl in particular, a girl named Jane. We soon learn that Holden’s personality is not your average personality. Holden does seem to have some friends but he does not fall into many peer groups with the type of personality he has. Holden isn’t able to read social cues like most teenagers learn to do. For this reason, he seems to play around a lot in the wrong situations. Even his friends have matured enough to recognise that Holden needs to ‘grow up’. Holden’s resistance to emerging adulthood is the cause of many of the problems he is faced with during the
When Holden internally reflects on the nuns whilst they are eating their simple meals of toast and coffee, he “could tell, for one thing, that they never went anywhere swanky for lunch. It made [him] so damn sad…” (62). Although these nuns are without money, their happiness is portrayed in the pure simplicity of their lifestyle. The sadness Holden feels towards the nuns’ simple lifestyle while at the same time yearning for it, shows how complexity is embedded deep inside of him. Holden is very wealthy and presumably has always had the luxury to go to fancy restaurants for lunch, yet because of the value placed on his materialistic experiences, he never had the luxury to explore himself to find inner peace and acceptance. While Holden’s mind is a rich jumble of unclear ideas and unconnected connectedness, the nun’s minds are clear and they know what they are living for; they have a clear purpose. Holden’s extreme interest to talk to these nuns about life, and the flow of the interaction they have with each other, shows how Holden is eager to find any insight or clarity on the truths of the
As a kid we dream about how our lives will be when we grow up, then when we grow up all we want is to be young again, whether we like it or not growing is inevitable . The novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is about Holden, a junior in high school that values innocence and staying young but has to accept that one day he has to become an adult. Holden gets kicked out of his current high school and decides to get away and venture on his own to clear his mind from everything happening. During this time Holden faces situations that test his maturity and he is confronted with adulthood, when he feels that he is not ready for it. As James Bryan mentions, Holden is not able to return to childhood but is afraid of what reality has to offer.
A coming of age novel is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "the attainment of prominence, respectability, recognition, or maturity” (Merriam-Webster 2014). Throughout many novels, the main character evolves into a more mature and understanding person, and the end of the novel is victorious for overcoming their problems. However, this is not the case in the novel The Catcher in the Rye. Throughout the novel, the main character, Holden Caulfield, evolves into a mature and understanding adult who realizes nothing can be prevented from changing. Holden doesn’t want to grow up, as he fears he will not be innocent, and instead become phony. However, while walking through the Museum of Natural History, Holden realizes
Holden doesn’t like the complexity of life and relationships. This is why he distances himself from his family and friends. After Holden is expelled from his school, he tries to stay away from his parents for fear of their reaction, even though learning of his expulsion is inevitable. He visits his sister Phoebe in their home multiple times throughout the novel because due to her young age, his sister and his relationship is simple. "For instance, within Holden, the desire to reject others conflicts with the desire to be accepted by others: he doesn't want to lend Stradlater his coat, but his overt actions belie this covert, warring want: he despises Ackley, but he invites him to see a movie; he hates movies, believing them to foster phoniness in society” (Mitchell). Holden struggles to “catch” others because he believes he is not accepted by others.