All human must come to a point in their lives where they must accept the reality of becoming an adult. They must leave their innocent ideas of the world and succomb to the complex world of adulthood. In the book, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D Salinger, the young man Holden Caulfield, is wedged between a perplexing world of innocence and maturity. The motif of “Dealing with Change” appears frequently when Holden must deal with the change maturing. The motif then reappears when Holden spots ducks in Central Park near a pond, and towards the end of the book when Holden explains why the Natural History Museum appealed to him so much. Throughout the book, Salinger uses the motif of “Dealing with Change” to convey the theme that change is an inescapable part of growing up. Holden is a teenager who refuses to grow up because he is afraid of gaining the responsibilities that come with it. Just like Holden, humans are naturally afraid to face the realities of the adult world. Holden tries to protect himself from the change of losing innocence, he imagining himself “in this big field of rye”, …show more content…
saving “thousands of little kids” from their impending doom as they start running off of the edge of a cliff.(174) By Holden stopping them from going over the edge, he is managing to stop them from ‘falling’ into adulthood. He does not want the kids to go through the harsh change of maturing and is trying to protect their innocence by doing so. Holden is terrified by the idea of change and disappearance.
Holden was in a cab driving past Central park then he noticed some ducks near a pound. “The ducks. Do you know, by any chance? I mean does somebody come around in a truck or something and take them away, or do they fly away by themselves – go south or something?”(81) Horwitz, the cab driver, disregards Holdens question completely and explains instead that the fish in the pound have it tougher in the wintertime then the ducks. Holden later asks Horwitz what he thinks the fish do in the winter, Horwitz responds that they “just stay there,” and that for food, mother nature takes care of them. The fish are representing staying the same and the ducks represent changing. Holden is represented by the ducks, because he is being forced to “move”, however, he would rather be like the fish: stay where he is and be provided
for. Holden desperately tries to divert away from change that occurs throughout the book. One of the ways he tries to avoid this change is by visiting the Natural History Museum as he did when he was younger. “The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. . . . Nobody’d be different” (121). Holdens memory of the museum as a child was still the same way as he remembered it now. It gave him a sense of comfort, suggesting that Holden was wanting to go back to the time when he was not filled with apprehension towards growing up. Holden, want to model his world after the museum, never changing, frozen in time, and being fixated onto the past. Holden is obviously hostile towards the idea of change. He wants to protect others from the anxiety of adulthood by saving their innocence. He wants everything to stay frozen as it is, but in reality, change is a given and the only thing that is for definite is that change will always be there, no matter how hard Holden tries to avoid it. All humans must go through this struggle of maturing into adulthood and find themselves during their way. Thus, Salinger's message to us is not only that it is impossible for us to run from growing up, but that we should let go of ourselves from the past and accept our lives as they are.
Holden wants to be independent but he wonders if it is really the best thing to do. He is too emotionally unstable to address his own issues so he projects them onto the ducks, do they take care of themselves and fly away? Or do they allow themselves to be saved by the truck? The cab driver answers his question by bringing up the fish in the lagoon. He says that the fish do not go anywhere and that they just open their pores so nature can provide for them.
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.
Holden wants to shelter children from the adult world (Chen). In Chapter 16, the catcher in the rye finally appears. This is also a symbol for what Holden would like to be when he grows older. He pictures a group of many kids playing in a field of rye, where it is his job to catch them from falling off the cliff. This shows Holden’s love for childhood and his need to preserve it in any way he can. According to Alsen, “The way Holden explains why he wants to be the catcher in the rye shows the kindness and unselfishness of his character. However, the surreal nature of the metaphor also reveals his unwillingness to face the real life choices he needs to make now that he is approaching adulthood.” By the end of the book, Holden realizes in order for kids to grow, there can’t be protection from all of potential harm. “He therefore gives up his dream of being the catcher in the rye and is ready to make a realistic choice of what he wants to do with his life” (Alsen). Holden’s dream world, that doesn’t involve change, is unrealistic. He is terrified by the unpredictable changes of the adult world, but there is no way for Holden to avoid the experiences and changes that the
There will always be a moment where we all change, but most of us would prefer to hold on to remaining an adolescent. "Catcher in the Rye" written by J.D. Salinger, is a story about a high-school student, Holden, who looks for a reason to change and move on from his depressing page of life. The novel depicts the adventures of Holden as he processes a change. Through Holden's resistance to change, Salinger expresses that people sometimes crave for the past which impacts us negatively, but we would be better off if we learn to move on and find something special.
The Theme of Change: The Catcher in the Rye Change has one of the large-scale consequences on our inhabits. Even though it is often never observed, change occurs every minute and every second we are living on this world. We live each day without recognising the dissimilarities in us, if it's a personal or a mental change. It's not until we gaze back on our past through recollections and images that we realize how much we've really altered over time. Sometimes, we have to look actually deep and analyze locations or things that are untouched by change to help us realize how much we indeed have changed. J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye exemplifies the hardships of Holden, a troubled adolescent considering with his fear and disapprove of change in his life. The extent to which his anxiety with change moves is shown by his concept of being the catcher in the rye area, catching young kids that drop off the cliff. The tranquility he finds inside things residing the same is epitomized by his admiration of the never-changing Eskimos in the repository. The contradictory effect of change upon him, however, is best shown through his trauma regarding the death of his dear male sibling, Allie.
In the Catcher in the Rye, Holden is an immature boy. Holden’s immaturity cause him many problem throughout the book. He is physically mature but not emotionally mature. He acts like a child. “All of a sudden I started to cry. I’d give anything if I hadn’t, but I did” (p. 103). Holden shows his emotional unstableness.
Growing up is not easy. The desire to slow down or stop the process is not unusual for adolescents. Resisting adulthood causes those who try to run away from it to eventually come to terms with the reality of life: everyone has to grow up, and fighting against it makes it much harder to accept in the end. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield often tries to resist the process of maturity in an effort to avoid the complicated life he might face as an adult, making him an unusual protagonist for a bildungsroman; this struggle, however, opens Holden’s eyes to the reality and inevitability of growing up, helping him realize that innocence does not last forever. Holden’s preference of a simplistic lifestyle is evident throughout the novel, but stands out especially when he visits the Museum of Natural History.
Holden fears adulthood because it brings responsibilities and trouble. He believes all adults possess an aurora of "phoniness." His disgust of everyone around him reveals his fear of growing up. Holden exhibits insecurity, so to make himself feel better, he exercises the power to condemn people for the way they behave. Holden believes hypocrisy is evident in every adult he sees...
phonies and all he hates. By being in the stage where he is, he manages to avoid change, control his world with his own hands, yet. creates a paradox between what he is, and what he wants to be. Possibly the main reason why Holden doesn’t want to become an adult. is his perception of ”phoniness” and hypocrisy surrounding adult.
In a novel, the theme is the insight of real life. J.D. Salinger’s initiation novel, The Catcher In The Rye, describes the adventures of 16-year old Holden Caulfield, the protagonist and first person narrator, who refuses to grow up and enter manhood. The most important theme developed by Salinger is Holden’s problem of dealing with change; he has trouble dealing with death, he refuses to accept children’s loss of innocence as a necessary step in the growing-up process, and has difficulties with growing up.
In J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, the main character Holden Caufield believes that innocence is corrupted by society. He exposes his self-inflicted emotional struggles as he is reminiscing the past. For Holden, teenage adolescence is a complicated time for him, his teenage mentality in allows him to transition from the teenage era to the reality of an adult in the real world. As he is struggling to find his own meaning of life, he cares less about others and worries about how he can be a hero not only to himself but also to the innocent youth. As Holden is grasping the idea of growing up, he sets his priorities of where he belongs and how to establish it. As he talks about how ‘phony’ the outside world is, he has specific recollections that signify importance to his life and he uses these time and time again because these memories are ones that he wont ever let go of. The death of his younger brother Allie has had a major impact on him emotionally and mentally. The freedom of the ducks in Central Park symbolize his ‘get away’ from reality into his own world. His ideology of letting kids grow up and breaking the chain loose to discover for themselves portrays the carrousel and the gold ring. These are three major moments that will be explored to understand the life of Holden Caufield and his significant personal encounters as he transitions from adolescence into manhood.
It takes many experiences in order for an immature child to become a responsible, well-rounded adult. In J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger’s main character Holden Caulfield matures throughout the course of the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Holden is a juvenile young man. However, through his experiences, Holden is able to learn, and is finally able to become somewhat mature by the end of the novel. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s story represents a coming of age for all young adults.
There is one event that unites all human beings. This event is the process of growing up and becoming an adult. The transition into adulthood from childhood can be very long and confusing. As a kid most of them can not wait to become an adult but once you experience adulthood you miss your childhood. The novel Catcher in the Rye shows how a teenager on the break of entering adulthood can get scared. Through the main protagonist Holden Caulfield, J.D. Salinger captures the confusion of a teenager when faced with the challenge of adapting to an adult society. Holden is faced with many problems as some teens
First, Salinger uses the ducks to represent Holden’s fear of change. Holden’s life is changing and he does not know where to go, so he looks to find out where the ducks go to give him some sort of sense of direction. While he was in the cab with Horwitz, they passed the pond and Holden asked, “The ducks. Do you know, by any chance? I mean does somebody come around in
Should this Title be Changed? There is one thing all humans have in common, the fear of change. Everyone is afraid to step out of their comfort zones and do new things because they don’t know what the result of these new things might be. The book “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger narrates the life of Holden, a teenage boy who struggles to grow up because he does not want to be part of the adult/corrupt world and he does anything to avoid reaching adultness.