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It can only last a couple years. It is pure joy and happiness. Childhood comes with innocence and it vanishes as children grow up and go through new experiences. In the Catcher in the Rye, by J.D Salinger, Holden Caulfield, the main character of the novel cherishes innocence dearly. Holden in a 16 year old boy who grew up in the mid 1900s and he often complains about his problems. Holden attends a boarding school called Pencey Prep where he rooms with his friend Stradlater. As a result of poor effort and not applying himself, Holden gets kicked out of school and takes a train back to New York. Holden almost calls Jane Gallagher, a girl he has feelings for, several times, but he never completes the phone call. When he gets home, the only person …show more content…
he wants to see is his little sister Phoebe. Holden visits his sister at home and at school and at the end of the novel the go on a fun adventure to the zoo. In his novel, The Catcher in the Rye, J.D Salinger successfully argues that genuinity directly relates to innocence and phoniness develops one innocence is lost; Salinger manages to show the contrasting behaviors through the characterization of Stradlater and old Phoebe in Holden’s eyes. Holden adores his youngest sister’s pure innocence as well as her sincerity. One of Salinger’s last scenes of The Catcher in the Rye is when Holden takes Old Phoebe to the zoo. After they walk around and see some animals Holden tells Phoebe that she should go on the carrousel. Holden has nostalgic feelings when he sees his sister enjoying her time on the carrousel and proceeds to say, “It played the same song about fifty years ago when I was a kid… All the kids kept trying to grab for the golden ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the goddam horse” (Salinger 210-211). Holden’s sentimental feelings make it clear that he is jealous that Phoebe is still a little girl with no worries. The golden ring that all the kids try to grab represents the ambitiousness that children look forward to in their future. Holden thinks of his sister as a little baby because she is extrmeely innocent and can still ride the carousel and continue to go around and around her innocent stage in life. Because of her noticeable childish behaviors, Salinger conveys that truthfulness and innocence come together especially in Phoebe’s actions throughout the novel. After Holden gets kicked out of Pencey he goes back home, but he does not want his parents to see him. Holden decides to go to Phoebe’s room and he wakes her up. She immediately questions why he is home a few days early and realizes that he got kicked out. She yells at Holden and tells him that their father will “kill” him and Holden thinks to himself, “Boy she really gets something on her mind when she gets something on her mind” (166). Unlike most people, Phoebe tells Holden exactly what is going through her head. If “something is on her mind” she announces it without any regrets afterward. Most reactions would involve calming Holden, but Phoebe does the complete opposite. Her straightforward response shows that Phoebe is genuine, not fake. As the baby of the novel, Old Phoebe shows immature actions, but honest and direct opinions and reactions. On the Contrary, Holden concludes that unlike his pure and precious little sister, his roommate, Stradlater is a sophisticated teenager who appears to be misleading..
Stradlater, Holden’s roommate at Pencey is a popular and sexually active young teenager. He tells Holden and their other friend, Ackley about his exciting date planned for that night with Jane, the girl who Holden knew well. Holden secretly still has feelings for Jane and explains, “I kept thinking about Jane, and about Stradlater having a date with her and all. It made me so I nervous I nearly went crazy. I already told you what a sexy bastard stradlater was” (34). Holden is intimidated by Stradlater’s manliness because he still loves Jane. Stradlater is presented as a mature teenager who has lost his innocence completely since he has had many experiences with girls. In addition to being a teenager who has matured greatly, Stradlater is described as a character who is not always truthful about himself. Stradlater prepares for his date with Jane by going to the bathroom and shaving. Holden mentions that Stradlater walks to their bathroom shirtless because he is well built. From the outside Stradlater always seems to look his best, but Holden claims, “He always looked good when he was finished fixing himself up, but he was a secret slob anyway, if you knew him the way I did” (27). In other words, Holden declares that Stradlater is fake. By being messy and disgusting in private, but beautiful, perfect, and handsome in public, Stradlater is presented as phony. Unfortunately, being phony is associated with being mature in Holden’s mind. Holden believes that once teenagers lose their innocence they try to impress others therefore holding back their thoughts and keeping away their darkest secrets; instead, people just show the greatness in themselves which is not their true selves. Through Holden’s comments through the novel, Salinger makes a point that once teenagers lose their innocence, they immediately
transform into phony characters concealing themselves. In The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, Holden portrays his younger sister as an genuine and innocent little girl, but Stradlater as a grown up and fake teenager; the two character’s contradicting actions create two different appearances in Holden’s confused mind. Phoebe is a intelligent, but innocent young girl who Holden loves deeply. With her palpable innocence comes On the other hand, Stradlater’s many experiences with girls convey that he is a teenager who has lost his purity and innocence. With his loss of innocence comes phoniness where he hides his true self just for himself to see. Are Holden’s connections to innocence and maturity true in the real world? In modern day society, as children grow up they become more materialistic which related to being phony. Similar to Phoebe’s behavior, little children today still say what is on their mind. After all, maybe little children live a better and more open life that mature and fake adults.
Holden’s first betrayal was that of his memory and innocence by an egotistical peer. At Pencey Prep, he roomed with a student named Stradlater; the epitome of a teenage jock. Stradlater was openly very vain; as Holden stated as he watched Stradlater gaze at himself in the mirror, “he was madly in love with himself. He thought he was the handsomest guy in the Western Hemisphere” (27). Because of his inflated ego and good looks, Stradlater figured that he would steal the breath from any girl he wanted. To Holden, he admitted that the girl of the hour was a “Jean Gallagher” (31). Here was the betrayal: this “Jean” and the Jane that Holden had spent childhood summers with playing a cool game of checkers on the porch were one and the same. Holden had ...
Holden returns to school and goes to his bedroom in the dorm. In his room quietly reading, his neighbor Robert Ackley came in. Holden describes him as a pimply, insecure, annoying boy with a bad dental hygiene. When Holden’s roommate Stradlater who was “madly in love with himself” (27) arrived home after the football game, Ackley abruptly left. Stradlater tells him that he has a date with a friend of his, Jane Gallagher. Jane is someone that Holden really cares for and because he knows the way Stradlater is, Holden became worried for her. “It just drove me stark raving mad when I thought about her and Stradlater parked somewhere in that fat-assed Ed Banky’s car”. (48) Holden became depressed and lonely, so out of the blue Holden decides to pack his things and leave for New York a few days earlier. On the train to New York, Holden meets the mother of one of his schoolmates. Not wanting to tell his whole life story, he told her his name was “Rudolf Schmidt”, the name of th...
Holden, before leaving for New York, attended a boarding school named Pencey Prep. He makes it clear that he thinks everyone, teachers and students alike, is a “phony.” At one point, his roommate Stradlater goes out with a girl who ends up being Jane Gallagher, a childhood friend and crush of Holden. In his eyes, this is a betrayal. Holden is annoyed
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, is a classic novel about a sixteen-year-old boy, Holden Caulfield, who speaks of a puzzling time in his life. Holden has only a few days until his expulsion from Pency Prep School. He starts out as the type of person who can't stand "phony" people. He believes that his school and everyone in it is phony, so he leaves early. He then spends three aimless days in New York City. During this time, Holden finds out more about himself and how he relates to the world around him. He believes that he is the catcher in the rye: " I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in a big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around-nobody big, I mean-except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What have I to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff..." (173). He briefly enters what he believes is adulthood and becomes a "phony" himself. By the end of the story, Holden realizes he doesn't like the type of person he has become, so he reverts into an idealist; a negative, judgmental person.
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, a novel about the period of growth from childhood to adulthood, portrays the disappearance of childhood immaculateness. The main character of the novel is Holden Caulfield, a sixteen-year-old boy who suffers from PTSD because of the death of his younger brother, Allie. The story begins with Holden talking to, what is assumed to be, a therapist about crazy things that had happened in his life. The novel is a flashback in Holden’s perspective that takes place in approximately three days. Throughout the book Holden learns valuable lessons about growing up and moving on. J.D. Salinger uses the checkers, the profanity on the wall, and the catcher in the rye dream to depict that innocence cannot be preserved forever.
It is made evident that Holden is enamored with Jane Gallagher, and this first manifests itself when Holden talks about her to Stradlater. “I used to play checkers with her,” Holden recounts. “ ‘She’d get [her kings] all lined up in the back row. Then she’d never use them. She just liked the way they looked when they were all in the back row.’ Stradlater didn’t say anything. That kind of stuff doesn’t interest most people” (41). In a world where almost everything is so “goddam depressing,” thinking about Jane’s minor traits actually makes Holden happy, even if it is the kind of stuff that does not interest most people. It allows him to channel his childhood, where he was oblivious to the phoniness around him. However, this silly nostalgia cannot get across to Stradlater, who is more interested in Jane as a sexual being than trivialities such as her checker tactics or struggles with ballet. This physical interest eventually becomes the root of their brawl in their dorm. Although Holden’s interrogative mood agitates Stradlater, Holden is only showing his genuine care for Jane. Unlike Stradlaer, Holden has enough sense to know that Jane, being the humble, intelligent girl she is, deserves to be treated right. So, even though Holden lets his anger get the better of him and eventually start a fight, he has reason to do
Catcher in the Rye, by J.D Salinger is about a boy named Holden Caulfield who struggles with the codes of conduct his upper class lifestyle follows. For Holden, loss of innocence is not about smoking a cigarette as much as it is about his realization that the rules placed on him by society are phony. Holden distracts himself by focusing on his feelings of alienation because he does not want to face his own deep sadness over his own loss of innocence.
Ackley barges into Holden’s room and Holden thinks to himself: “He ha[s] a terrible personality. He [is] also sort of a nasty guy. I wasn’t to crazy about him, to tell you the truth” (26). The whole time Ackley is in Holden’s room, he talks about how mean, rude, dirty, etc. he is. He even tells him to his face what he thinks about him. When Stradlater comes to join them, Holden thinks to himself, “He was at least a pretty friendly guy, Stradlater. It was partly a phony kind of friendly, but at least he always said hello to Ackley and all” (34). Holden seems to have conflicted feelings about Stradlater. He thinks that he is nice although it may be phony, and that he is handsome and built, but he also thinks that he is a hot-shot, a secret slob, and thinks too highly of
Holden and his roommate Stradlater are in the bathroom, as Stradlater is preparing to go on a date. Originally, Holden assumes that Stradlater’s date is a girl named Fitzgerald, however, he is informed that there has been a change in the “arrangements” and that he is going with Jane Gallagher instead. This information takes Holden by surprise, as Jane and Holden were neighbours, thus growing very close, and the thought of Stradlater possibly using a girl he is close to for his personal gain aggravates Holden.
Childhood is an unusually hard thing to rid yourself of when it is time for you to pass into the intensified life of adults. Personally, I have yet to overcome that challenge. The Catcher in the Rye is a well developed story about a high school boy, Holden Caulfield, who is stuck between the stages of adolescence and adulthood, and is trying to discover his identity. All his life, Holden Caulfield has refused to grow up, and as the book progresses, he is on the fine line of leaving innocence and adolescence behind and passing into adulthood, but what gives him the needed shove into the realm of adulthood was getting over his brother, Allie’s death. To Holden, Allie is the main definition of innocence. Eventually Holden comes to the decision to be the catcher in the rye. After this decision he tries to follow through with his plan and ultimately decides that he can’t keep anyone from growing up. This seems to be his breaking point in the book where he finally overcomes all his negative emotions towards Allie’s death and accepts it for what it is, knowing that he has to move on.
In The Catcher in The Rye, by J.D, the main character, Holden, can be seen as a troubled teenager growing up in a less than perfect society. Throughout the novel Holden struggles with the fact that many young and innocent kids will grow up and see the world from a different perspective. He naturally becomes worried for all future generations who will one day grow, as he did, and loose their innocence. The fixation of youth and innocence can be seen in the title of the book, as well as throughout the novel.
Have you ever pondered about when growing up, where does our childlike innocence go and what happens to us to go through this process? It involves abandoning previous memories that are close to our hearts. As we can see in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, we listen to what the main character; Holden Caulfield has to say about it. Holden is an average teenager dealing with academic and life problems. He remains untouched over his expulsion from Pencey Prep; rather, he takes the opportunity to take a “vacation.” As he ventures off companionless in New York City, we are able to observe many things about him. We see that Holden habitually states that he is depressed and undoubtedly, wants to preserve the innocence of others.
Holden Caulfield, - notorious for either being kicked out of schools or as he simply describes it “quitting”- having just been kicked out of yet another school for his lack of motivation, views life through a cynical lens as he deems those different from him as “phony”. Holden justifies his annoyance towards everything as he intermittently cuts off his tale to share some random pet peeve or irrelevant story, such as when he describes his roommate Stradlater as a “secret slob” (Salinger, 35) and continues on to critique his grooming habits, in an effort to validate how “phony” things really are. However, these tactics only further show his immaturity as Holden’s judgment of being a “phony” symbolizes his fear of growing up. Moreover, Holden’s greatest defense mechanism is pushing others away, this is seen as Holden visits his history teacher, Mr. Spencer and while he tries to
Innocence lies within everyone in at least one point in their lives, but as reality consumes them, that purity begins to vanish slowly as they learn new experiences. In the coming of age novel set in the nineteen-forties, J.D Salinger writes about a sixteen-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield who stands between a road that separates childhood from adulthood and is confused about which path to take. On a three-day trip in New York away from his family and fellow peers at school, Holden encounters many situations in which lead him to think twice about who he wants to become and how he wants to guide others who are in the same situation he is in. In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D Salinger utilizes symbolism, vivid imagery, and slangy diction to expose Holden’s struggle to preserve the innocence of the people that he loves while alienating himself from the adult world he calls “phony.”
Growing up and becoming mature can be an intimidating experience; it is difficult to let go of one’s childhood and embrace the adult world. For some people, this transition from youthfulness to maturity can be much more difficult than for others. These people often try to hold on to their childhood as long as they can. Unfortunately, life is not so simple. One cannot spend their entire life running from the responsibilities and hardships of adulthood because they will eventually have to accept the fact that they have a role in society that they must fulfill as a responsible, mature individual. The novel “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger follows the endeavours of Holden Caulfield, a sixteen-year-old teenage boy who faces a point in his life where he must make the transition from childhood to adulthood. In an attempt to retain his own childhood, he begins hoping to stop other young children from growing up and losing their innocence as well. As indicated by the title, “The Catcher in the Rye” is a book that explores a theme involving the preservation of innocence, especially of children. It is a story about a boy who is far too hesitant to grow up, and feels the need to ensure that no one else around him has to grow up either. His own fear of maturity and growing up is what leads to Holden’s desire to become a “catcher in the rye” so he can save innocent children from becoming part of the “phoniness” of the adult world.