Has a person ever existed that hasn’t judged someone else in their lifetime? Judging by reality as well as literature it seems that no person like that has ever existed. It appears that it is human nature to want to separate others as purely good or evil. Does everyone fit into the mold of good or evil? In the two novels The Five People You Meet in Heaven and The Catcher and the Rye the main characters are morally ambiguous and this plays a major part in the novels as a whole and the theme the authors are trying to portray. Throughout The Five People You Meet in Heaven, there is moral ambiguity shown with the main …show more content…
Both of the main characters are presented as morally ambiguous along with protagonists. The conflicts in these novels are person vs. self. In The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Eddie is conflicted with himself because he doesn’t think he has lived his life to the fullest and he has failed as a person. Correspondingly Eddie has a conflict with his father, who has always defeated him whenever he was up. He was always looking to seek approval from his father and he wasn’t able to receive it at any time in his life. Therefore, the conflict with his father soon developed into a conflict of his own residing with himself. With the novel The Catcher in the Rye, Holden has a problem with his own self because of the struggle he has with adulthood and change. He makes up a fantasy land where his world is innocence which represents his childhood. The differences that make up the two novels are the themes. Reoccurring themes that show up in The Five People You Meet in Heaven are sacrifice, forgiveness, and love. Whereas in The Catcher in the Rye the themes that exist are change, loneliness, and the painfulness of growing
In J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in The Rye Salinger writes about the main character Holden Caulfield and his life. Holden is a teenager who comes from a wealthy family, he loves his family and lives very happy until the death of his brother Allie. After his brother died Holden becomes troubled, being kicked out of school again and again developing a negative view of the world. Holden throughout the book shows anger,denial, and acceptance over the loss of his brother.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger is a popular novel that was originally published in the 1950’s. In the book, Salinger explores various themes through the main character Holden and his interactions with others. Some of these themes include, alienation, loss and betrayal. Holden constantly feels betrayed throughout the novel by several people, including his roommate, teacher, and sister.
Salinger went through many of the experiences Holden went though. Salinger much like Holden had a sister that he loved very much, in the novel Phoebe is the only person that Holden speaks highly of; both men also spent time in a mental institution; Holden is telling the story from inside a institution; they were both kicked out of prep school and most importantly they were both a recluse from society. This is why Salinger uses Holden as his persona all though out the book. The ‘catcher in they Rye’ is almost like an autobiography for Salinger. He is using Holden as his persona to let us, the reader, dive into his thought pattern and find out some of the thoughts that he kept locked up in there.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is an enthralling and captivating novel about a boy and his struggle with life. The teenage boy ,Holden, is in turmoil with school, loneliness, and finding his place in the world. The author J.D. Salinger examines the many sides of behavior and moral dilemma of many characters throughout the novel. The author develops three distinct character types for Holden the confused and struggling teenage boy, Ackley, a peculiar boy without many friends, and Phoebe, a funny and kindhearted young girl.
Has there ever existed a person that has not judged someone else over their lifetime? Judging by reality as well as literature it seems that no person like that has ever existed. It appears that it is human nature to want to pronounce others as either purely good or evil. But does everyone fit into the mold of good or evil? In Albert Camus's The Stranger, Meursault is a morally ambiguous character, and this ethical indistinctness plays a major part in the novel as a whole and the theme that Camus is trying to portray.
“The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger is considered one of the best books of all time. This book hit many people around the world on a personal level, affecting them both positively and negatively. People claim this book was written specifically for them because of how much they can relate to Holden. This, for some people, was a good thing and the main reason they enjoyed the book, but others took it the wrong way. The two biggest cases of this was John Hinckley and Mark David Chapman, both of which murdered or attempted murder because they felt the book was telling them they had to. I am going to take a psychological approach on why these two men thought this, other people who thought the same thing, and Holden’s own criminal mindset.
I read it over the long hours of one night, unable to put it down, until suddenly the light of the sunrise penetrated my blinds. As I closed the book with a satisfied smile, tears streamed down my face until the title of the book became one big blur. Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven had sparked a much-needed emotional reformation inside my heart. It had quenched my thirsty body with a hope and comfort I had been seeking for the longest time.
I think The Catcher in the Rye can be compared to The Outsiders. In both books, both of the protagonists felt they were isolated from the society. Holden is clear that he was not part of any social group and showed no interest in joining one. While in The Outsiders, the title alone tells the readers that they are from the outside, they are outside of the society. The only difference is that Holden was alone, while Ponyboy had a gang (Greasers). Since Holden was alone, he had no one to express his emotions to, while Ponyboy had a gang and they understood one another like a gang.
In the novel, Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is an example of a prosaic rich adolescent boy,with a pedestrian set of problems, but a psychoanalysis reveals that Holden has a plethora of atypical internal conflicts. Internal conflicts that other students at Pencey, such as Stradlater and Ackley, would not normally experience.
I believe that when J.D. Salinger was calling The catcher in the rye as his spiritual Autobiography he was referring to some of holden's struggles as those he faced in adolescence and Holden's feelings as something he struggled with after world war two. Growing up Salinger struggled with academics and fitting in.After his time in the military Salinger Struggled with some mental health issues, and isolated himself.He is very similar to holden in this way.
This quote is in the exposition of the story, The Five People You Meet In Heaven. The quote demonstrates many elements of fiction including conflict, theme and it also has some foreshadowing incorporated into it as well. The conflict that this quote foreshadows is the cable snapping and the car that was held up by this cable falling. This quote is another foreshadowing of Eddie’s death and also of the theme of the whole book which is: there are no random acts in life. The theme is demonstrated in this quote because it was a seemingly innocent story, an innocent act which affects many people. All Nikki did was, was drop a key, not even on purpose. The key merely fell out of his pocket when he was riding a ride and it fell into the base of Freddy's
The battle of Gene with himself and Holden with himself creates the similar major conflicts between the novels. In this case, Holden has it much more difficult in The Catcher in the Rye because he has to struggle with a great depression and he constantly tries to escape it through drinking, sexual intimations, his awful attitude, and attempts of being out going after he leaves Pencey Prep early. The cause of this depression is the death of his younger brother Ally. In the novel, he describes that h...
In the Story Catcher in the Rye Holden has a “ideal” view of the world that contradicts his perception in reality. Holdens “ideal” view of the world is that everyone contains childhood innocence and no one should try to break that innocence so people can just be who they want to be and not get made fun of or attacked. In Holden's mind he thinks that everyone thinks like he does and his view of reality is that all the phonies try to break childhood innocence so his reality trys to break his ideal world he has in his head. This unique way of thinking causes Holden to run into internal and external conflicts because not everyone thinks like he does.
J. D. Salinger’s novel, Catcher in the Rye explores the ambiguity of the adult world Holden must eventually learn to accept. Throughout the novel, Holden resists the society grownups represent, coloring his childlike dreams with innocence and naivety. He only wants to protect those he loves, but he cannot do it the way he desires. As he watches Phoebe on the carousel, he begins to understand certain aspects of truth. He writes:
The internal conflicts in The Catcher In The Rye are often viewed as sentimental subplots that provide depth to the coming of age story ...