Holden Caulfield Failure

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Similar to Holden Caulfield, the main character in J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, I also endure the indescribable pain of growing up throughout my teenage life. My pain comes from the growing necessity to prepare for the future and the quick introduction into adulthood, similar to how Holden suffers from the uncertainty of his future and the rapidly fading safety of his childhood. Preparing for the future can be done in many ways, in my experience perhaps the most notable would be doing well in school in order to get into certain universities. When I was in elementary school or middle school, grades and report cards simply didn’t have the same impact on my future as they do now because of the lack of responsibility placed on the younger children. However as I grow older and have more expectations placed on me to excel in my classes and one day go to a prestigious college, more importance is added onto schoolwork, pressuring me into working harder for the future ahead of me. As the stakes increase, the possibility of failure increases as well which often hurts the self esteem and confidence of students like myself. I’ve take advanced classes throughout my high school experience, some of which are at the college level, and …show more content…

Holden does not do well in school because he longs for his disappearing childhood and cannot accept the fact that one day he is going to have to stop “act[ing] like [he is] about thirteen.” (Salinger, 15) Holden couldn’t handle the transition between his childhood without pain or struggle and his teenage life with the burden of responsibility, and that eventually created an uncertainty of the future which led to much suffering for

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