Understanding the Inevitable in The Catcher in the Rye
If something is inevitable, it will occur at some point in time. It is an event that will occur no matter what is done to stop it from happening. In the book The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield tries to stop himself from maturing into an adult. The book details the events that happen to show Holden that he cannot overcome maturity because maturity is inevitable.
Holden Caulfield has failed out of three other prep schools before his parents enroll him at Prencey. The first chapter takes place during the last days of Holden’s first term at Prencey. He has failed four of his five classes, and because of this, he has been asked to not return for the next term. The headmaster has already verbally informed Holden, and is writing a letter to his parents to inform them. Since there is nothing left for Holden at Prencey, he decides to leave the school before the official end of the term. He goes to New York to relax until his parents expect him home for the mid term break. Holden’s experiences during this long weekend lead him to some sort of mental hospitalization. At the end of the novel, Holden is in the hospital recovering and is somewhat optimistic about attending a new school.
The inevitable cannot be avoided. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden is trying to avoid maturity. He does not want to leave the familiarity of school for the cold world of adults. He purposely does not study so he will not pass his classes and graduate. After he fails out of Pencey, Holden knows that his parents will not give him another chance to fail at another school. They will leave him on the doorstep of maturity. In an effort to stop this from happening, Holden leaves Pencey before hi...
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...tyle of writing. Salinger mixes the actual account of an event with Holden’s personal thoughts about that particular event. Salinger uses this style to great effect when he shows what Holden thinks about what a character just said. “’I’d love to. Grand.’ Grand. If there’s one word I hate, it’s grand” (Salinger 106). This unique style of writing is the reason The Catcher in the Rye should be included in a list of works of high literary merit.
In the book, Salinger shows us that no matter how much we try to avoid the inevitable, it will happen no matter what we do to delay it from occurring. Holden goes through many events before he finally understands this simple fact. There is only one thing that can be done about an inevitable event, and that is to prepare for it.
Works Cited
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown and Company 1951.
Salinger’s view of the world is lived out thought Holden – his persona. The novel is Holden’s steam of conscience as he is talking to a psychoanalyst “what would an psychoanalyst do…gets you to talk…for one thing he’d help you to recognise the patterns of your mind”. At the start of the novel it is addressed directly to us “if you really want to hear about it”. This gives us a sense of reality as though it is us that is the psychiatrist. We see the random thought patterns of Holden’s mind as he starts to feel more comfortable, Holden goes off on to many different tangents while he is talking. Salinger is using Holden as a type of easy way out to confess his view of the world.
In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden, cannot accept that he must move out of childhood and into adulthood. One of Holden’s most important major problems is his lack of maturity. Holden also has a negative perspective of life that makes things seem worse than they really are. In addition to Holden’s problems he is unable to accept the death of his brother at a young age. Holden’s immaturity, negative mentality, and inability to face reality hold him back from moving into adulthood.
Holden’s endless journey begins when he received the call when he is expelled from Pencey Prep because of his low grades. Holden starts out as a college student that is damaged deep down his heart. The world before his journey was full of phonies as he commented, “Also at the threshold, the initiate will encounter a helper” (Ariane Publications 9). The helper usually leads the main character into the essential path before any accomplishments. In this condition, Holden’s former History teacher Mr. Spencer takes the role. He asks Holden,” Do you feel absolutely no concern for your future, boy?” (Salinger 20). He warns Holden about the difficulties that are waiting for him ahead but also pushed Holden forward to the journey. Even though Holden did refuse the journey by lingering at school after he got the expel letter. Nevertheless, the talk with Mr. Spencer may have aff...
Salinger continues his use of installing reality in fiction by Holden’s hospitalization. The reader finds out within the first chapter that Holden is being hospitalized due to a recent mental breakdown (Salinger). Interestingly enough, Salinger was also hospitalized shortly after his combat in WWII for his mental breakdown (Biography). Clearly, Salinger was making a major connection to himself through Holden by giving his character his
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.
Salinger’s demonstration of use of physical falls leads to a metaphorical fall for Holden, his nervous breakdown that has him checked into a mental institution. Salinger’s demonstrations of these physical falls revolve around Holden’s role of the catcher in the rye, protecting children from losing their innocence and becoming phonies. This metaphorical fall for Holden was caused by the fact that he realized that growing up is necessary and we all end up falling. Holden realizes this through his role of the catcher in the rye, Mr. Antolini, Sally, and Phoebe. When transitioning into adulthood we all lose our innocence, therefore we become phonies.
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.
Secondly luxury products are easy to counterfeit, some countries such as china, turkey, and other still have to improve their IPR policies
He cannot control or protect anyone, or himself, from the future. Holden’s last two sentences of the novel really capture the entire journey he has gone through: “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody” (214). This is Holden getting over everything that has happened to him. He understands that he can overcome what has happened from him in order to learn from his past and move forward to the future.
Holden would often mention about how lonely and depressed he was, “It was against my principles and all, but I was feeling so depressed I didn’t even think. That’s the whole trouble. When you’re feeling very depressed, you can’t even think.” (Salinger 91). This quote shows that because of Holden’s isolation, he becomes so depressed his morals bend and becomes more corrupted. Holden often repeats himself when he wants to emphasize something important. J.D Salinger’s tone sounds like a typical teenager using many slang and vulgar words such as, “chrissake” and “goddam.” Today, the lexicon Salinger used seems normal since the literary period was pre-modernism. However, when it was first published in the 1950’s it was offensive, caused a lot of controversy, and was even banned in several countries. The Catcher in the Rye was first banned after its publication for nontraditional or unpopular viewpoints, which many other classic writers faced such as William Shakespeare and Mark Twain. The book is known for being obscene and profane that teachers have been fired for allowing their students to read it. However, with Salinger’s coming-of-age-feel, it is still a popular book and is read in schools
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.
Holden attacks various weaknesses in the 50's society. He criticizes nearly everything that he observes, and refuses to pull punches. Often Holden uses his brilliant talent of observation to discover the true motives behind the people he calls "phony." Through his observations the reader can interpret Salinger's view of the 1950's culture. Holden's perceptions of paranoia, conformity, and the consumer culture convey Salinger's views.
...lawsuits. Informative videos that show interviews of key players that fight to stop the illegal activities include ABC Nightline, ABC: Faking It, and Katie Couric’s segment on counterfeit fashion. It’s comforting to see that there is an awareness that is building. The contribution between eBay, the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and the major designers in world is really one of the first steps in spreading attention and understanding of fake of fashion goods. So far, each year of its planned event has found success. Consumers should take the awareness to heart and be proactive in extending it to prevent catastrophes in areas of human creativity and economy. This would also include inhibiting further subsidy of illegal activities. Counterfeiting is an undeclared war and consumers are the only ones who can essentially save the world from its negative impact.
Sigmund Freud was born in Freiberg, Moravia in the year of 1856. Crain said that Freud was smart, so his family fully supported him to continue his studies (137). Boring points out, in Freud’s early life, he discovered the medical usage of cocaine (433). Later, his marriage and parenthood brought him contentment, therefore, it was understood that he “was strengthened in support of his own theory of sexuality and in withstanding the odium sexuale that was directed towards him” as his sexual wants to male dominance and to monogamy were conservative and fundamental (Boring 434). In the year of 1902, another famous psychologist was born in Frankfurt, Germany, Erik Erikson, but he was not a psychologist firstly. He was known that he did not graduate from high school because he was not interested in school education (Woolfolk 67). However, the event of meeting with Sigmund Freud changed his life, and he started to study child psychoanalysis (Woolfolk 67). The most...
Nowadays, education is a very important tool that will determine individual productivity and economic growth in a country. Most of people in the world are always being occupied with education as this will ensure a better future for themselves. That is why, there are a number of people tend to go to private tutoring classes or sessions in order to obtain additional knowledge. Thus, private tutoring is defined as a fee-based parallel education sector that provides additional instruction to students enrolled in the public school system. This lead to the widespread of private tutoring phenomenon in many countries where they claimed that this kind of additional education is a helpful tool for their studying progression. Is it really that significant? Therefore, in order to acknowledge this statement, this research has an intention which to clarify either private tutoring is a helpful tool or unnecessary distraction that only lead to negative effects towards students.