The protagonist of my story, the catcher in the rye is Holden Caulfield. Holden is 16 years old as the central story begins, tall at 6 feet 2 ½ inches, partially gray-haired, and extremely skinny. He is out of shape because he smokes too much and his general health is poor. He is alternately depressed, confused, angry, resentful, thoughtful, kind, and horny. For me Holden is hard to relate to, he’s been kicked out of schools, smokes, and is older than me. Although I do relate to him because Holden is trying to grasp at maturity. As a teenager, I feel that this kind of behaviour and attitude is still relevant. Holden is a gripping character because he lives life care free and without consequences and I like reading about it. Holden has some good traits along with many bad, …show more content…
I can only kind of relate to his laziness which I sometimes find in myself. Holden is on a journey to adulthood. With many bumps along the way including failing grades and childish behaviour. Holden has many conflicts, his major internal conflict revolves around his inability to deal with the death of his younger brother Allie. Holden looked up to Allie, and when he died, Holden was sorry that his parents lost their better son. Holden's parents never got him any counselling or professional help, so Holden's feelings of loss and inadequacy eat at him from the inside. Because he is dealing with this internal conflict, Holden lashes out at others causing external conflicts. For example, Holden gets into a fight with his roommate Stradlater because Stradlater does not respect Holden's memories of Allie which Holden wrote about in the composition he did for Stradlater. Holden does not try to understand anyone else, and this causes external conflicts in his
Holden struggles with himself mightily and cannot fulfill his responsibilities. One of Holden’s struggles is that he has a bad attitude towards everyone. For example, at the school he goes to, he hates his roommates and his teachers. In addition to not liking anyone, Holden
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.
Imagine if your best friend or someone close to you suddenly dies of a fatal disease. The death of this person would physically and mentally inflict trauma. All though the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is a grieving seventeen year old because he endures a traumatic experience at the age of 13. His 11 year old brother, Allie, dies of leukemia, and this affects Holden throughout the novel. It causes him to yearn for his innocence and childhood back because he wants to return to the stage in his life when there are no worries. He realizes that it is not realistic to become a child again, and he begins to accept the fact that he must grow up and set an example for his sister, Phoebe. Growing up with the loss of a close brother, Holden wants to be a protector of all innocence, and later in the novel, he begins to notice he must find a solution to his traumatic experiences in order to become successful in his lifetime.
Holden’s childhood was far from ideal, with Allie dying, his dysfunctional parents and the revelation that he had some “perverty” stuff happen to him when he was a kid. Due to this, he isn't ready to step into adulthood and leave his childhood behind. This is why Holden is mostly alienated from adults and connects more to the innocence of children like the girl at the park and his sister, Phoebe. However, Holden is disillusioned with both adulthood and childhood. He already knows how it feels to be an adult; drinking alcohol, being independent, living by himself and caring for Phoebe, but isn’t ready to immerse himself in it.
Holden’s apparent desire to be separated from the majority of his family and friends appears to have been triggered by the death of his younger brother Allie. From Allie’s there has been a downward spiral in Holden’s relationships, as he begins to avoid contact with others and isolate himself more. The reason I believe this is because we can see how immense his anger is after Allie’s death, ‘I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist’. The death of Allie has become like an awakening to Holden, and has alerted him how precious childhood innocence is, when Holden comes to this realisation he convinces himself to do everything within his power to protect the innocence of himself and those around him, to protect them from what he sees as a false adult world. Although Holden clearly fails to protect himself, as he falls into all sorts of situations which hardly boasts of innocence and virt... ...
...her. Other than his sister, Phoebe, Allie was the only person that really connected with Holden. Holden feels as though he has no one anymore, and he can never find joy in activities he now does by himself. His anxiety and depression go hand-in-hand and share many of the same symptoms. Holden is not a normal teenager who experiences stress and depression from tests and friendships, but a teenager who needs help coping with the stress and depression from the death of a loved one.
Symptomatic of those affected by mental illness, Holden lacks the ability to have solid relationships with others. He has attended numerous boarding schools and seldom lives at home. This has created a distant relationship between him and his parents. Holden never explicitly reveals whether or not he wishes to have a closer bond with his parents, but it is implied. He sneaks into his house while on his New York excursion to visit his younger sister Phoebe. As he is about to leave his parents’ house, “all of a sudden, [he starts] to cry. [He] couldn’t help it” (Salinger 179). His abrupt outburst of emotion indicates his need to have his parents’ help. He realizes that when he leaves, it may be his last time in the house, so he is not able to control holding in his emotions any longer. Holden also does not maintain a good relationship with his brother, D.B. He cannot stand that D.B. is “out in Hollywood… being a prostitute” (Salinger 2). Holden refers to him as a prostitute because he believes that D.B. is wasting his creative talents on screenwriting, a field that does not allow one to exercise his or her creativity. This causes the relationship that the two have to be frail. Holden’s relationship with his family is not ideal, and results from his mental
Holden Caulfield can be analyzed through his thoughts, actions and circumstances which surround his everyday life. Holden acts like a careless teenager. Holden has been to several prep-schools, all of which he got kicked out of for failing classes. After being kicked out of the latest, Pency Prep, he went off to New York on his own. Holden seems to have a motivation problem which apparently affects his reasoning. The basis of his reasoning comes from his thoughts. Holden thinks the world is full of a bunch of phonies. All his toughs about people he meets are negative. The only good thoughts he has are about his sister Phoebe and his dead brother Alley. Holden, perhaps, wishes that everyone, including himself, should be like his brother and sister. That is to be intelligent, real and loving. Holden’s problem is with his heart. It was broken when his brother died. Now Holden goes around the world as his fake self, wearing his mask. Holden is looking for love, peace and understanding. He is scared to love because he is afraid he might lose it like he did with his brother. That is the reason for Holden's love of the museum, he feels safe because it never changes it always stays the same. Holden is troubled with the pain of death, it effects every aspect of his life causing him to not care about the future, himself or anyone, except Phoebe and Alley.
Holden is intelligent and sensitive, but his thoughts and feelings are full of cynicism and negativity. He sounds bored and tired with almost everybody and everything. Holden constantly focuses on the hypocrisy and social rules of the world around him, and judges them to be oppressive and phony. Holden uses his cynicism and negativity to distance himself from almost everyone. However, Holden has good memories and thoughts about his younger sister, Phoebe, and of his younger brother Allie, who died a couple of years ago.
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 negative light that Holden views the world under is a key contribution to his unhappiness. He is unable to see even a glint of sincerity in people’s actions which allows him to experience feelings of severe despondency and dejection. “People never give your message to anybody,” (pg. 166) shows how Holden no longer feels let down by people but instead expects the worst from them instead. He struggles to find genuinity in people’s actions, and in turn feels “lousy and depressed,” by nearly everything. Holden is constantly seen bringing down the adult world. It is shown he has an inner conflict between his adult and child self, leading him to feeling lost and without a place. He is disgusted by the adult world describing it as a place filled with “phonies” but, views adolescence as a source of happiness. He shows a direct fear of change by stating, “The best thing...was that everything always stayed right where it was.” (pg. 135). As Holden is being pushed out of his childhood and into an area where he feels out of place, it is only inevitable that this would be a source of his depression. Both of these internal conflicts add to Holden Caulfield’s
Holden is going through a stage of depression and denial, as a result of the internal and external conflicts he faces. In the past, Holden struggles to accept his problems and therefore battles against himself and his thoughts. For example, the incident with Sunny shows us how the voices in his head constantly fight between the adult life and the teenage life. As a result of these conflicts, Holden struggles to grasp his purpose with his life. On the contrary, Asher Lev experiences similar internal conflicts against him and his beliefs that cause help him to understand his true identity. Throughout the novel, Asher struggles to be true himself and stay true to who is supposed to be. This conflict against himself helps him to realize his identity is as the son of his parents and the son of “the Master of the Universe and the Other Side”(Potok 348). Asher is put to the test against his own mind and in the end learns how to overcome his internal conflict. Both Holden and Asher experience internal conflicts, but each conflict left a different effect on each of their
Mr. Antolini?s theory as to what is wrong with Holden is right on, it?s just too bad he was unable to get through to Holden. Due to the fact that Holden has already given up on himself and is unwilling to apply the valuable advice he has been given. He has lost the substantial ability to find happiness in life and therefore can?t find the energy to motivate himself in anything he does. It?s a tragedy that someone as bright as Holden Caulfield is unable to find the strength within himself to persevere in a world of insanity.
In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger develops Holden Caulfield as a morally ambiguous character. Throughout the book, Salinger speaks as Holden and introduces him as a callous and subjective individual. However, the author permits the reader to be within Holden’s mind, giving the audience an alternative perspective of Holden’s true character. Without the obscurity of Holden’s personality, the work would lack a crucial element. As the protagonist, Holden serves as an equivocal adolescent that is relatable for the reader.
One reason is that Holden drinks and smokes at a young age. However, he gets past this because of his height and his gray hair. Another reason is that he does not care about his education. Even after failing school after school he still does not care whatsoever. He also said that he does not have much concern for his future either. In addition, Holden tries to flirt and date with older women that he does not know. Furthermore, Holden likes runs away from all his problems instead of facing them. For example, instead of telling the truth about his grades at Pency to his parents, he decides to stay on the run until he runs out of money and gets sick. Lastly, Holden repeatedly lies a lot throughout the book such as his name or even where he is going. In conclusion, I am certain that Holden is a problem