The Importance of Honesty in The Catcher in the Rye "`I'm just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?'"( pg. 15) In The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is a sixteen year-old who is disgusted at all the phony people in the world. For example where artists sacrifice their art for fame and mothers cry fake tears in movies. The importance of not being phony and being honest is the theme that Salinger presents in this story. Holden had difficulty fitting in at school and around the real world. Holden had a tough time fitting in at his schools because he thought of almost everyone as phonies. "`It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques' (pg. 131)." He seems to have a history of expulsion and failure at various schools because of his lack of ability to cope with others. Ordinary problems of his had turned into major conflicts with other students. "I hate fist fights. I don't mind getting hit so much - although I'm not crazy about it, naturally - but what scares me most in a fist fight is the guy's face. I can't stand looking at the other guy's face, is my trouble. It wouldn't be so bad if you could both be blindfolded or something. It's a funny kind of yellowness, when you come to think of it, but it's yellowness, all right. I'm not kidding myself. (pg. 90)" Holden got into a fight with his roommate at school because he was going out with his ex-girlfriend. He's afraid that the guy is taking her from him, even though he's not with her anymore. These are problems that are normal, but Holden has trouble dealing with them. Holden's problems in the real world were too much for him, he had to make up things to make himself seem better than what he was.
Holden alienates himself by believing he is better than everybody else. Every time Holden meets or talks about someone he is judgemental. Even when he is talking about someone he spends time with, he cannot help but ridicule them, “I never even once saw him [Ackley] brush his teeth....he had a lot of pimples. Not just on his forehead or his chin, like most guys, but all over his whole face. And not only that, he had a terrible personality. He was also sort of a nasty guy. I wasn't too crazy about him, to tell you the truth.”(Salinger,14 ). Ackley is probably the closest thing to a friend Holden has. Yet he criticizes him is a very nitpicky way, convincing himself he does not like
To begin, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger is unique. The novel is written from the perspective of a teenager who lives in New York in the 1950's. From the context in the beginning and the end of the book, "I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy" (page 1), "I could probably tell you what I did after I went home, and how I got sick and all, and what school I'm supposed to go to next fall, after I get out of here, but I don't feel like it" (page 213), we can infer that Holden Caulfield, the aforementioned teenager, is in a mental hospital. However, he tells the story through flashback of a three-day period sometime before Christmas the year before. This is unusual because most novels cover much more time than three days. This is one reason why this novel is so unique. Although the novel is spread over only three days, we learn so much about the protagonist, and many other characters, because all Holden's thoughts and feelings, especially about other characters, during these three days is portrayed, nothing is left out.
I stared into his face, feeling a sense of outrage. His left eye had collapsed, a line of raw redness showing where the lid refused to close, and his gaze had lost its command. I looked from his face to the glass, thinking he's disem...
that he is trying to hide his true identity. He does not want people to know who he really is or that he was kicked out of his fourth school. Holden is always using fake names and tries speaking in a tone to persuade someone to think a cretin way. He does this when he talks to women. While he is talking to the psychiatrist he explains peoples reactions to his lies like they really believe him, when it is very possible that he is a horrible liar and they are looking at him with a “what are you talking a bout?” expression. Holden often lies to the point where he is lying to him self.
about as long as the body. Other kinds reach a total length of nine or
From the protagonists’ point of view, the adult world Holden and Franny are entering and living in is a very superficial place. Holden who is sixteen years of age is going through a time of crisis where he is almost forced to become an adult. This concept is the very thing that makes Holden afraid, causing him to misbehave at school. His latest school, Pencey Prep, expels Holden due to his failing grades. When asked for the reason of his lack of academic enthusiasm, Holden simply states that he is not interested in anything. In every school he has attended, Holden has managed to find different reasons not to care and possibly even hate the institutions.
The Overrated Catcher in the Rye The Catcher in the Rye is probably the most frequently taught book in American high schools and colleges in the second half of the twentieth century. I am not too sure, though, if the novel deserves the position it has held for so long. The book sees the narrator, Holden Caulfield, a seventeen-year-old boy from New York City, tell the story of three days in his life. The whole narrative is a kind of therapeutic coming-to-terms-with-the-past story, since Holden obviously tells it from a psychiatric institution.
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.
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 actually has to interact with another person it regularly leads to failure which is why he does not have many friends. For example, when he tries to go on a date with Sally Hayes. During this date he takes her to a show and ice skating and it goes pretty well untill Holden slips up and says something he should not have. "You give me a royal pain in the ass, if you want to know the truth,” He says while tripping over his words, “Boy, did she hit the ceiling when I said that. I know I shouldn't've said it, and I probably wouldn't've ordinarily, but she was depressing the hell out of me. Usually I never say crude things like that to girls. Boy, did she hit the ceiling. I apologized like a madman, but she wouldn't accept my apology. She was even crying.” (Salinger. 69) That ends their night and gives a good example of the pattern Holden has with most people he comes in contact with. He talks about this problem with one of his favorite teachers that he had at a past school. “Among other things you'll find that you're not the first person who has ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You Are by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right to
Whitaker, David J, Rachael King, and David Knott. "Jellyfish." Sea Science. Web. 7 Jan. 2014. .
middle of the table. My two brothers and I talked of what had happened at school that
Factors Leading to the Success of Who Wants to Be a Millionare A good quiz show benefits from great prizes which area actually worth something. The better the prizes are the more application are going to come in which would mean that more money is coming into the show, this would help to increase the standard of the show as well as making it more enjoyable to watch. Music is also essential to the success of a quiz show, it helps to put the contestants and viewers in the right state of mind and it also helps to build up the tension. Back before 1998, when ‘who wants to be a millionaire’ wasn’t shown, ‘the price is right’ use to be a great viewing and that is because it had a well-known presenter, glamorous hostesses, music, lighting and the inter active game play features of the show, all of these things helped to put, ‘the price is right’ on the map. Things have changed since then and the new era of quizzes has been ignited by ‘who wants to be a millionaire’.
Eliza and Freddy's Happy Ending- Original Writing One rainy evening in London, two gentlewomen, a mother and daughter, begin conversing with a poor flower girl while waiting for a taxi under the shelter of a portico crowded with people. Their conversation begins when Freddy, the son who is looking for the taxi, carelessly bumps into the flower girl. She attempts to get the mother to buy the flowers her son has damaged, and is successful. She then tries to sell her flowers to another gentleman, when someone in the crowd warns her that a man is taking notes on what she has been saying.