Tius McKenna Ms Sutter English 24 November 2015 the Lonely in the Dark Throughout the Catcher in the Rye Holden makes many phone calls; through the course of the novel he is very isolated and lonely. These are linked by an inescapable fact: the way Holden tries to communicate with the outside world is his phone calls. The way he tries to and eventually breaks his lonesomeness is through these, where he can communicate with others; he does not succeed until he finally meets someone, the phone calls having been proven inadequate. Immediately in the beginning of the novel, even before Holden leaves Pencey Prep. he clues us into his loneliness saying “-- it was the Saturday of the football game. -- I remember around three o'clock that afternoon I was standing way the hell up on top of Thomsen Hill.” Even on the second page he already demonstrates his loneliness by “standing way the hell up on top of Thomsen Hill”, while “the two teams [were] bashing each other all over the place”, instead of going down and joining in in the festivities (Salinger 2). …show more content…
Later he starts to try to escape his loneliness by “The first thing [he] did when [he] got off at Penn Station, [he] went into this phone booth.
[He] felt like giving somebody a buzz -- but as soon as [he] was inside, [he] couldn't think of anybody to call up. My brother D.B. was in Hollywood. My kid sister Phoebe -- was out. Then [he] thought of giving Jane Gallagher's mother a buzz --. Then [he] thought of calling -- Sally Hayes. -- [and] -- Carl Luce.” There is nobody there he can call to discuss his feelings with, and “So [he] ended up not calling anybody. [he] came out of the booth, after about twenty minutes or so.” At this point he is really starting to show his loneliness, with almost no-one he considers calling, and he can’t escape it because nobody of those few are available
(59). In the next chapter he is still struggling to escape the loneliness, “While [he] was changing my shirt, I damn near gave my kid sister Phoebe a buzz, though. I certainly felt like talking to her on the phone.” He really starts to want to talk to “Somebody with sense and all,” someone that “[he] certainly wouldn't have minded shooting the crap with -- for a while”. At this point he begins on a positive path towards breaking out of his loneliness, with the only person he really feels closest to and trusts, Phoebe (66). But still later in the book “When [he] finally [gets] down off the radiator and [goes] out to the hat-check room, [he] [is] crying and all -- [he] [guesses] it was because [he] [is] feeling so damn depressed and lonesome.” By this point in the book phone calls have not been able to alleviate his loneliness, and he realises he will have to do more than phone calls to break the depression (153). In the end he visits Phoebe, and reconnects with the only person he can. His loneliness and depression is finally broken when he sees her with “this big suitcase with her” (205). He realises his want to escape was just his want to connect with others, and the only one that could provide him with that was Phoebe. Even though he spends the entire book trying to escape his loneliness, and he spends a lot of that time trying to rid it through phone calls, it takes much more than simple phone calls to break the hold that depression had on him; it takes a reconnection to the world through a fragile point especially set for him.
There is one universal truth that will exist through out all of time and space that affects all that live to experience it. That truth is known as grief. We all experience grief, and for Holden Caulfield, grief is a major aspect of his life, the force that drives him to do everything he does in the novel, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. There are seven stages to this emotion known as grief: denial, depression, anger, bargaining, guilt, reconstruction, and finally, acceptance. There are many parts in the novel that could have influenced Holden’s grief, but the main one that most people who read the novel have figured it out was the death of his little brother Allie. The root to Holden’s grief lies with his brother which cause Holden’s to act and change the way he does in the novel.
A theme throughout Catcher in the rye is Holden continuously writing about how mad or frustrated he is, and that is largely down to how much he isolates himself from society.
Vin Diesel once said, “It's insecurity that is always chasing you and standing in the way of your dreams.” In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden struggles with insecurity and accepting his personality and intellect. We get glimpses of these very traits Holden is insecure about through his observations of certain people he looks up to, namely his brother Allie and his old friend Mr. Antolini. It can’t be a coincidence that the people he admires happen to have certain ideal traits on which Holden expresses self-doubt. Salinger uses the description of characters that Holden holds in high regard to represent key traits that Holden is insecure about within himself.
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.
“All I know is, I sort of miss everybody I told you about. [….] Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody” (Salinger 277). Holden Caulfield comes in contact with many females throughout the novel. Some of them are for better, and some cause him to be more depressed. Holden is currently in a mental institution. He is telling a psychoanalyst everything that has happened to him a few weeks before last Christmas. In J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye the author demonstrates how two characters can help Holden hold his sanity or can make his whole world fall apart through the use of Sally and Phoebe to show that relationships can be difficult and confusing or the exact opposite.
In the first chapter Holden explains how Holden went to many schools and flunked out of Pencey Prep. I believed that this is because he lacked interest in his school or he had no motivation. In the book, he states “What I really felt like though, was committing suicide I felt like jumping out the window” (Chapter 14). Instead of facing his problems head on, he finds an alternative which is death. Not only does he feel this way in the middle of the book, but he talks about the thought of death. On page 48 he says, “I got up and went over and looked out the window. I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was
Holden's loneliness showed again which came from him pushing away people in the past because of the lack communication he has with people. His loneliness was showing when he asked her, a girl he apparently does not like, to run away with him to Vermont. (Insert quote about him asking her to run away) Holden's lack of friends in the past then him, all of a sudden asking Sally to run away with him shows that Holden really just wants someone he can connect
In J.D. Salinger’s controversial 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, the main character is Holden Caulfield. When the story begins Holden at age sixteen, due to his poor grades is kicked out of Pencey Prep, a boys’ school in Pennsylvania. This being the third school he has been expelled from, he is in no hurry to face his parents. Holden travels to New York for several days to cope with his disappointments. As James Lundquist explains, “Holden is so full of despair and loneliness that he is literally nauseated most of the time.” In this novel, Holden, a lonely and confused teenager, attempts to find love and direction in his life. Holden’s story is realistic because many adolescent’s face similar challenges.
To Holden, everyone is either corny of phony. He uses these terms to describe what a person is if they do not act naturally and follow other people?s manners and grace. Holden dislikes phonies and thinks of them as people who try to be something they are not. He loathes people who showed off because it seems unnatural every time they do not act like themselves. Holden does not allow himself to have friendship because of his dull attitude. In the beginning of the book, the reader knows that Holden is lonely when he separates himself from the rest of the Pencey students by watching the football game from Thomsen Hill and not the grand stands. Holden is not a very sociable person partly because he finds himself better than many others. He dislikes his roommate because of his generic leather luggage. His next door roommate Ackley does not seem to want a friendship with him either. Holden finds Ackely?s zit crusted face ridiculous and doesn?t want him in his room at first. This shows the reader that Holden is a lonely person because he chooses to be lonely and does not want anything to do with people who do not fit into his perception of normal.
From the first moment Holden Caulfield speaks in The Catcher in the Rye, he makes his personality obvious. While he is witty, passionate and honest, he is also troubled and lonely. Holden longs to find his place in the world and connect with other people. Ironically, however, his search for belonging leaves him more confused than ever. Consequently, he develops a psychological condition that can easily be considered a result of his fear and critique of growing up.
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...
In the very beginning of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden is standing alone on a hill watching the Pency football game. “Practically the whole school except [him] was there” (Salinger 2). He chooses to stand by himself instead of joining the rest of the school. After leaving Pencey Prep, the first thing he does when he gets off the train, he goes to the phone booth. However, once he reaches the phone booth, he could not think of anyone to call. His “brother D. B. was in Hollywood. [His] kid sister Phoebe goes to bed around nine o’clock”, he “thought of giving Jane Gallagher’s mother a buzz”, he “thought of calling this girl. . . Sally Hayes” and he “thought of calling up this guy that went to the Wooton School. . . Carl Luce” (Salinger 59). He ends up not calling anyone from his list. Even though he could of called any of these people, he chooses to stay alienated from everyone. Salinger was also a person who deviated himself from the world. After readers became really interested in The Catcher in the Rye, when a copy was found with a murder, Salinger removed himself from society and lived as a recluse in New Hampshire (Teicholz). He continued to write, but said he would only publish them after his death. He did not want to be bothered with questions and did not want people to get into his life. Therefore, Holden and Salinger both alienate themselves to get away from
He wrote to his parents with tales of misfortune and pleas for money. He spoke to his girlfriend, Lynn Collin, who turned out be fabrication. In September 1976 , he returned to his parents' house because he didn't have any friends. Shortly after Holden gets off the Penn Station, He feels like calling someone, but he couldn't think of anybody to call. " ...,but as soon as I was inside, I couldn't think of anyone to call up ....So I ended up not calling anybody. I came out of the booth , after about twenty minutes or so... " ( Salinger, Pg 59). This quote shows the similarity between Holden and John Hinckley. They both didn't have anyone to talk to. Holden and Hinckley desperately wanted someone to be there for them, but they couldn’t talk to anyone they
Loneliness is something that is recurring throughout the novel and in some ways, Holden’s loneliness is a manifestation of the alienation he feels from the people around him. Throughout the novel, Holden is separated from those around him and is constantly in search for a way to fit into a world which he feels that he doesn’t belong. A large portion of the novel focuses on Holden’s ongoing quest for some form of companionship. This results in him moving from one meaningless relationship to another which only serves to increase his loneliness. Holden uses this alienation from the world around him as a defence chemical mechanism in order guild to protect himself. He finds interacting with other people confusing and overwhelming, so by alienating himself from people he does not have to face up to this. Mr Antolini, “He was about the best teacher I ever had..He was a pretty young guy, not much older than my brother D.B., and you could kid around with him without losing respect for him.”This is how Holden describes Mr Antolini before the night when he sleeps over at the Antolini’s. In the middle of the night Holden wakes up finding Mr Antolini patting him on the head. Holden finds this very awkward and quickly
Once Holden decides he is leaving Pencey, he started displaying early symptoms of depression. According to Mental Health America, teens may display signs of depression through participating in substance abuse, lack of sleep, withdrawing from people and missing school. In chapter 20 Holden drowns himself in booze after his naive confrontation with Carl Luce. “Boy, I sat at that goddamn bar till around one o’clock or so, getting drunk as a bastard,” (Salinger 150). Caulfield spends most nights getting drunk or smoking cigarettes. Initially, Holden repeals his relationships from Pencey Prep. “All of a sudden, I decided what I’d really do, I’d get the hell out of Pencey...It made me too sad and lonesome,” (Salinger 51). Evacuating his school was