Being a teenager is definitely not easy. Many teens experience stress, confusion, uncertainty, alienation, and even anxiety. Although the few years of being a teen is said to be peak of an individual's life, it can sometimes also be the most chaotic and confusing. The novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger can be easily compared to the film Juno, by Jason Reitman because both pieces focus on the growth and maturity of the protagonist during their youth. Holden Caulfield is so angry at the world because of his brother Allie's death, and is completely crushed and lost. Juno experiences similar confusion because she questions love and relationships during her unplanned pregnancy. Ultimately, the confusion they experience contributes …show more content…
Teenagers often lose their faith quickly enough to develop a shattered belief. In both the film and book the protagonists experience a loss of belief in humanity. Juno is abandoned by her mother at a very young age. This leads to the loss of a motherly figure and love only a mother can offer. When her mom leaves, it probably makes Juno feel as if she is not “good enough”. This feeling can cause confusion and sadness. Juno’s mom sends a cactus every year as a gift, and clearly Juno does not appreciate them. In the movie Juno says, “This cactus-gram stings worse than your abandonment.” This quote shows that Juno is scarred by her mom's abandonment. Juno is also crushed when Mark decides to leave Vanessa. She envisions this perfect family for her soon to be born baby, and trusts that Mark and Vanessa will be perfect parents. However when mark tells Juno that he is leaving, she becomes angry, frustrated, and of course confused. She does not understand why Mark is leaving, and how two people can fall out of love. When Juno says “I just need to know if it's possible that two people can stay happy together forever”, she is questioning her dad about love because she no longer knows what true love is. All of Juno’s confusion causes her to lose faith in humanity. A quote to prove that she has lost her faith, is when she says “I’m just like losing my faith with humanity.” However Juno is not the only one who has lost their faith …show more content…
Much of the time teens deal with confusion, stress, or pressure, which can affect their maturity. Both Juno and Holden go to the wrong people for guidance. Juno turns to her friend Leah for some advice when she finds out she is pregnant. Leah is not the best person for proper guidance, and neither is Mark. Mark is supposed to be the adoptive father of her baby, however Juno forms a friendship with him. She somewhat sees Mark as a fatherly or parental figure, but Juno visits mark often, which is very immature of her. Holden also can't seem to find the right guidance to his confusion. He talks to Phoebe his sister, Mr Antolini, Sally and many others while he is in New York. Although Mr Antolini gives Holden some good advice, Holden is still very cautious and holds back from getting the help he needs for his anger and confusion. Holden is coping with the death of his brother and gets involved in things that are not for his age. He drinks when he has the opportunity, and deals with random girls and woman. Evidence that Holden deals with woman is when he is at a party in a hotel. At the party he tries to get with some lousy girls. He offers to buy drinks and continuously asks to dance with them. These woman are way beyond Holden's maturity level. Holden also gets into a fight with Maurice, the pimp who works the elevator at the hotel. Maurice gets physically
J.D. Salinger and John Knowles both accomplished their description of their protagonists reaching their level of maturity through literary elements. They provided excellent examples of a teen growing up; and A Separate Peace and The Catcher in the Rye have at least one moral that one can rely on. In conclusion, the conflicts in the stories were things that I could actually relate to and I can expect to experience the same things that the characters experienced.
Holden’s immaturity causes him many problems throughout the story. Although he is physically mature, he acts more like a child. “All of a sudden I started to cry. I’d give anything if I hadn’t, but I did” (p. 103). This occurs when Maurice argues with Holden about money that Holden owes to a prostitute. The situation becomes too much for Holden to handle, and he breaks down like a child. Holden also tries to have immature conversations with people who have become adults. Another example of imma...
Holden is not just abnormal, he has problems that other teenagers, including the students at Pencey, experience going through adolescence. An example of this is Holden's jealousy towards Stradlater when he finds out he is going on a date with Jane Gallagher, “Boy,was I getting nervous” (42). Every teenager has bouts of jealously especially about the opposite sex, and Holden is no different. Holden's rebellious nature, to an extent, is typical for a teenage boy. His rebellious nature of smoking when it is not allowed, “You weren't allowed to smoke in the dorm...I went right on smoking like a madman.” (41-42). Holden is also anxious about change, which again to an extent is normal, “Do you happen to know where they go, the ducks...”(60), and he has the right to be; change,especially during adolescence, is a terrifying but exciting ride into the unknown, and similar to other adolescents Holden is afraid but intrigued about the unknown.
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.
One wakeup call to Holden would be when he refuses to pay the full amount of $10 to the pimp, Maurice for Holden’s time spent with Sonny. There are many ways Holden could of dealt with this situation, he could of paid him the full amount after being told to, he also could of tried to maturely persuade Maurice to letting his debt slide. After refusing to pay, the situation takes a violent turn. Instead of handling that situation like an adult would, Holden decides to say, “I don't owe you five bucks, I said. If you rough me up, I'll yell like hell. I'll wake up everybody in the hotel. The police and all” (102). Holden’s disclosed plan to everte the possible next predicament is to yell. Yell loud so that everyone in the hotel would be able to hear him. This is definitely something you would hear coming out of an 11 year old, but not so much an overconfident teenager fighting with a pimp. It was an extremely childish way of attacking the situation and got him roughed up. On the contrary it served the readers a good example of how naive and stubborn he is to the real world. A change in the way that Holden is acting is when he decides to not go on the carousel with Phoebe, but to sit on the bench and watch. This shows a very distinct line between adolescence and adulthood. On top of that a symbol that
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 resists conformity by avoiding issues while Juno embraces reality and approaches her problems. Holden issue revolves around the reality that he refuses to follow rules set by society. “Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules…game my ass, some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, all-right” (Salinger 12). Mr. Spencer advices Holden to play by the rules but Holden rejects the idea just as he rejects society. He does not conform to the principles of society despite people pressuring him to do so. Juno embraces the reality that she is pregnant and attempts to find an answer to her problem even if her solution does not align with social norms. Juno says, “I'm going to give it up for adoption and I already found the perfect couple, they're going to pay for the medical expenses and everything.” Juno finds a solution to the problem at hand by taking action. While still choosing to have the baby, she attempts to find a suitable adoptive family. Juno does not dwell on the fact that she will be a teenage mother but rather comes up with a solution that is ideal for both herself and the baby. Juno takes a positive approach to her problem unlike Holden who dwells on his problems. Holden and Juno can be portrayed as nonconformist heroes through different perspectives. While Juno embraces the
Protected by a cocoon of naiveté, Holden Caulfield, the principal character in the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, therapeutically relates his lonely 24 hour stay in downtown New York city, experiencing the "phony" adult world while dealing with the death of his innocent younger brother. Through this well-developed teenage character, JD Salinger, uses simple language and dialogue to outline many of the complex underlying problems haunting adolescents. With a unique beginning and ending, and an original look at our new society, The Catcher in the Rye is understood and appreciated on multiple levels of comprehension. The book provides new insights and a fresh view of the world in which adolescents live.
ambiguity of life. Holden develops a lot from being the cynical teen who tries to act
Holden cannot accept the loss of innocence as a step into the growing up process. The ones that he loves most, are those who are younger to him, they are innocent, and untouched by society’s truths. Holden says, “…I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around-nobody big. I mean – except me.
Holden is a teenage character who has suffered a lot in his life. He has suffered a lot. He doesn?t care about anybody other than his sister, Phoebe. He did not like the adulthood because he thought that every adult was a phony. Holden thinks that when people lie, they are being phony.
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.
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
The two worlds of childhood and adulthood are not as separate as Holden thinks they are. He cuts himself off from the rest of the world by judging others around him, mostly adults. In the book it says, “ What I liked about her, she didn’t give you a lot of horse manure about what a great guy her father was. She probably knew what a phony slob he was.” (Pg 3). The book starts off with him judging an adult that he barely knows. Holden is physically an adult, but in his mind, he is only a child. He can relate to a child better than he can with an
Holden doesn’t like the complexity of life and relationships. This is why he distances himself from his family and friends. After Holden is expelled from his school, he tries to stay away from his parents for fear of their reaction, even though learning of his expulsion is inevitable. He visits his sister Phoebe in their home multiple times throughout the novel because due to her young age, his sister and his relationship is simple. "For instance, within Holden, the desire to reject others conflicts with the desire to be accepted by others: he doesn't want to lend Stradlater his coat, but his overt actions belie this covert, warring want: he despises Ackley, but he invites him to see a movie; he hates movies, believing them to foster phoniness in society” (Mitchell). Holden struggles to “catch” others because he believes he is not accepted by others.