1. The Quest:
Foster’s characteristics of the QUEST are the quester, the destination, the purpose, the challenges along the way, and the reason behind going to the destination. In The Catcher in the Rye Holden is the quester who begins his journey by being kicked out of Pencey Prep. He decides to go on a trip instead of going home and revealing to his parents that he has been expelled. Staying around New York is a challenge in itself, and by the end of his trip Holden realizes more about himself. Some of the challenges he faces are his immaturity levels getting in the way of certain tasks and his loneliness. At the end of his trip Holden begins to have a new sense of maturity, and is ready to grow up.
2. Flights of Fancy
Flight symbolizes returning
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For the crucifixion in the bible Jesus is wounded in the hands, feet, side, and head in his final hours. Holden in The Catcher and the Rye has a wounded hand; “My hand still hurts me once in a while.”. He is punched in the stomach. Finally, after his fight with Stradlater, Holden walks into Ackley’s room with blood dripping down his face. As Holden walks into the room, he flicks on the light, which surrounds him giving him the appearance of wearing a halo, and the first word out of Ackley’s mouth when he sees Holden is “Jesus!” Another quality that Holden has in common with Christ is time in the wilderness. Holden spends most of his time throughout the book in New York City, which is considered to be a concrete jungle in our world. So for Holden, New York is his metaphorical wilderness where he is faced with challenges and realizes more about himself. Holden’s journey is described as being three days long, like the amount of time that the Christ was buried. Holden isn’t physically buried, but he is metaphorically buried with depression and angst. However with the help of Phoebe on the third day he is able to realize himself and get out of his depression. The last way that Holden displays qualities similar to Christ is through his forgiveness. At the end of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden says, “ I sort of …show more content…
In his fight with Stradlater, Holden’s character is shown as a defender of innocence. He defends the memory of his brother through the report he writes for Stradlater. Because of Stradlater’s criticism on his brother’s death, Holden destroys the essay and says “All right, give it back to me, then,’ I said. I went over and pulled it right out of his goddamn hand. Then I tore it up.” Holden is tormented by the memory of his brother throughout the novel, and in this fight he defends his brothers memory by protecting the baseball glove. Later in this scene Holden is upset with Stradlater’s relationship with Jane. Holden explains, “If you knew Stradlater, you 'd have been worried, too. I 'd double-dated with the bastard a couple of times, and I know what I 'm talking about. He was unscrupulous.” Holden tries to defend Jane’s innocence and the reader is able to see Holden’s ethical code to protect the innocence and memory of others. In Holden’s confrontation with Maurice, Holden displays his detestation of the evil phony. “All of a sudden I started to cry. I 'd give anything if I hadn 't, but I did. 'No, you 're no crooks, ' I said. 'You 're just steeling five ' 'Shut up, ' old Maurice said and gave me a shove.” The scene between Maurice and Holden over the prostitute Sunny shows his emotions when it comes to fake people. In this scene he
The Catcher in the Rye revolves around Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the novel, and his disillusionment. Holden’s disillusionment illustrates that he has a problem accepting such. Aforesaid is based upon multiple factors, most which have brought Holden lasting traumas. A remedy is required for Holden to accept his disillusionment and enable an improvement of his situation. For Holden’s remedy, the consultation of psychologists, and additional specialized health professionals would be the core of an apt remedy for Holden’s psychological and physiological state based upon the numerous causes of such and the everlasting trauma of some of the determinants of aforesaid situation. The origins of Holden’s disillusionment revolved mainly around the death of his younger brother Allie three years ago, of which he still experiences the trauma to this day. His disillusionment is caused by both
Catcher in the Rye is a complicated book about a young man going through, what appears to be a nervous break down. This is a book about the boy’s negative self-talk, horrible outlook on life, and a life itself that seems to keep swirling down the toilet. He keeps trying to fill his life with something, but the reality of it is he doesn’t exactly now what he needs. It’s complicated to understand at parts, because all he does is think of things in the worst possible conditions.
Holden Caulfield, portrayed in the J.D. Salinger novel Catcher in the Rye as an adolescent struggling to find his own identity, possesses many characteristics that easily link him to the typical teenager living today. The fact that the book was written many years ago clearly exemplifies the timeless nature of this work. Holden's actions are those that any teenager can clearly relate with. The desire for independence, the sexually related encounters, and the questioning of ones religion are issues that almost all teens have had or will have to deal with in their adolescent years. The novel and its main character's experiences can easily be related to and will forever link Holden with every member of society, because everyone in the world was or will be a teen sometime in their life.
Page 38 is a typical example of how Holden values the qualities of purity and innocence. He attempts to throw a snowball against a car and fire hydrant, but quickly refrains from doing so, “the fact that he does not throw the snowball is “an attempt to preserve innocence (graham 2007:39). I strongly agree with this statement, as Holden’s fear of change is highlighted throughout the novel, which in turn paints a clear picture to the reader of Holden’s deepest desire, which is to preserve the innocence of childhood that gets hopelessly lost in the“phony” world of adulthood. Holden’s constant referral to adults as being “phony” is rather ironic as he says that one “wouldn’t” know If one was “being phony” this clearly means that he himself does not realize weather or not he himself is phony.
In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden views the world as an evil and corrupt place where there is no peace. This perception of the world does not change significantly through the novel. However, as the novel progresses, Holden gradually comes to the realization that he is powerless to change this.
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”.
In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the protagonist, a 16-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield who lives in the 1940s, struggles to concur with the views of his society. After getting kicked out of boarding school once again, Holden runs away to New York. He decides to have an adventure of his own, instead of returning home. Holden's experiences in New York lead to further disruptions in his life, which eventually cause him to be put in rehab. Holden would struggle with the same issues if he were a teenager living today. If Holden Caulfield lived today, he would be able to relate to more people through modern technology like cell phones, the Internet, and social media; however he would be even more hypocritical and at odds with the world because he would disapprove of other people’s use of these technologies, which would make him feel even more alienated.
...ents surrounding Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye depict the havoc that Holden perceives about his life. Holden has feelings of escaping the world which he considers full of phoniness and hypocrisy. These thoughts are representative of Holden’s method of avoiding adulthood, the fictitiousness of the adult world, and his strong desire to be heroic. At times, he believes that his only way of avoiding this adult world is mortality. He does not see a pleasant life ahead as an adult; Holden is already a teenager, which makes him closer to adulthood. The story ends with Holden’s confession that he misses everybody. He remembers good things along with the bad things, his love and closeness to Phoebe versus the profanity on the school wall. Distinctions between good and evil blend or fade away. All experiences have simply become a part of Holden Caulfield.
The protagonist, Holden Caulfield, interacts with many people throughout J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, but probably none have as much impact on him as certain members of his immediate family. The ways Holden acts around or reacts to the various members of his family give the reader a direct view of Holden's philosophy surrounding each member.
Holden’s “catcher in the rye” dream represents God’s wishes for the human race in the Garden of Eden. Holden symbolizes God when he dreams that he has to “catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff” (191, Salinger). The imagery of the cliff represents loss of innocence, so when Holden has to keep the kids from going over the cliff into a chasm, he represents God, when God tries to preserve the innocence of Adam and Eve, and when God warns them from eating the apple, which like the cliff, causes them to lose their innocence. In the same dream, Holden thinks that the kids are “running and they don't know look where they're going” (191, Salinger). This vision of the kids shows that the kids don't know that they are going to lose their
J.D. Salinger's novel Catcher in the Rye revolves around Holden's encounters with other people. He divides all people into two different categories, the "phonies" and the authentics. Holden refers to a "phony" as someone who discriminates against others, is a hypocrite, or has manifestations of conformity. A person's age, gender, and occupation, play a key role in how Holden interacts with them.
in all but one of his subjects. He does not like to talk about his
Throughout “The Catcher in the Rye”, Holden Caufield longs for intimacy with other human beings. One of Holden’s main problems is that he sees childhood as the ideal state of being. He thinks that all adults are phonies.
One morning when he was walking up Fifth Avenue he starts to feel as he will not make it to the other side of the street. “I thought I’d just go down, down, down…….”. He then starts talking to Allie and ask him to protect him from going down and disappear. He thanks Allie when he reaches the other side of the street safely. By this time it is quite clear that Holden does not think clearly anymore and is emotionally in a very deep and dark place. He decides to just say goodbye to Phoebe and hitchhike to a sunny and pretty place where nobody knows him. He will also pretend that he cannot hear or speak and he will marry a deaf-mute woman as well. “If we had any children, we’d hide them somewhere”, thus protect them and their innocence from the evil world and the cruelty of adulthood. The Asian Social Science Journal did an analysis on the adolescent problems in The Catcher in the Rye and their conclusion is as follows: “Holden 's enemy is the adult world and the cruelty and artificiality. I see this to be Holden physically at war with the adult world. He is the protector and even the leader of the army of the youth, fighting to preserve their
Holden is a pessimistic, remote, and miserable character and he expresses this attitude through dialogue, tone, and diction. Throughout the book he has remained to be a liar, a failure, a loner, and lastly, a suicidal guy who feels like he has no purpose in life. Perhaps Salinger expressed his perceptions and emotions of his teen years in this book and it was a form of conveying his deep inner feelings of his childhood. Readers can see this clearly shown in The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger.