According to Study.com, “A coming-of-age story focuses on detailing the growth of the protagonist from a child to an adult.” But why is this important? Coming of age is when children reach adulthood. To get to this stage, many teens and young adults experience things like love and loss, develop empathy, and change their perception of their parents. Finding identity and perception of parents changing are two essential parts of the coming-of-age process. In Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden is portrayed as immature at the beginning of the novel. As he ages, one can see Holden working to find his identity and who he is. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Juliet matures throughout the story, and as she does this, one can see Juliet's perception of her parents changing. …show more content…
When he meets people, he often lies and makes things up. He is frequently judgemental of others and calls them “phonies.” Holden is kicked out of school and goes to New York City for multiple days; he meets many people and surrounds himself with new experiences. He finds his identity and grows throughout his time in New York City. After Holden's experience in New York City, after talking to his sister, he says, “‘Yeah,” I said. I meant it, too. I wasn’t lying to her.” (Sallinger 212). This quote shows Holden has grown out of his immaturity and has more awareness of others after spending time with himself and discovering himself. Overall, throughout the novel, Holden grows and finds his identity. The play Romeo and Juliet also portrays a coming of age. In Shakespeare's play, Juliet is obedient to her parents and respects them very much. Throughout the play, Juliet's vision of her parents shifts. Juliet is a Capulet, and her father and mother listen to her opinions, allowing her to get married when she wants, although Juliet was never very close with her mother. Juliet has secret relationships with her family's rival son,
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.
Holden Caulfield is a sixteen-year-old who explores New York City after he is expelled from his prep school (Salinger). He cannot return back home because he is afraid of his parents’ response and takes no responsibility for his actions whatsoever. Holden hates the adult world, where he calls all adults “phonies.” In his world, one can’t go back to childhood, but one can’t grow up because that will make one a phony (Bloom, The Catcher in the Rye 124). Holden is stuck in between a world, where he doesn’t want to remain a child or grow up into the adult he is expected to become. According to Chen, Holden fears the “complexity, unpredictability, conflict, and change” of the adult world. He occasionally acts like an adult, when he hires a prostitute (Salinger 119), checks into a hotel room (Salinger 79), and takes care of his sister, Phoebe. As a result of Holden’s immense fear of growing up, he tends to partake in childish tendencies, such as wearing a bright red hunting hat. These actions are his way of isolating and protecting himself. Holden is stuck in his own little world. These actions are very immature; Holden does not accept the adult world for what it is. He needs human contact, care, and love, but he has built a barrier, preventing himself from these interactions (Chen). He also acts like a child by acting out “pretend” scenarios even when no one is
Childhood is an unusually hard thing to rid yourself of when it is time for you to pass into the intensified life of adults. Personally, I have yet to overcome that challenge. The Catcher in the Rye is a well developed story about a high school boy, Holden Caulfield, who is stuck between the stages of adolescence and adulthood, and is trying to discover his identity. All his life, Holden Caulfield has refused to grow up, and as the book progresses, he is on the fine line of leaving innocence and adolescence behind and passing into adulthood, but what gives him the needed shove into the realm of adulthood was getting over his brother, Allie’s death. To Holden, Allie is the main definition of innocence. Eventually Holden comes to the decision to be the catcher in the rye. After this decision he tries to follow through with his plan and ultimately decides that he can’t keep anyone from growing up. This seems to be his breaking point in the book where he finally overcomes all his negative emotions towards Allie’s death and accepts it for what it is, knowing that he has to move on.
Holden’s many insecurities, his teetering on the edge of childhood and adulthood, and his irrational ideas help the reader realize that Holden has a mental problem. Holden has several insecurities that are displayed throughout the book that hint at his condition. The protagonist’s insecurities are demonstrated in his judgment of others. He criticizes adults for their flaws as he thinks he is the only rational adult in the world, describing all adults as superficial and more importantly “phony.” Holden once referred to his headmaster as a phony when he was talking about his daughter Selma, “She probably knew what a phony slob he was.”
Holden and the Complexity of Adult Life What was wrong with Holden, the main character in The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D.Salinger, was his moral revulsion against anything that was ugly, evil, cruel, or what he called "phoney" and his acute responsiveness to beauty and innocence, especially the innocence of the very young, in whom he saw reflected his own lost childhood. There is something wrong or lacking in the novels of despair and frustration of many writers. The sour note of bitterness and the recurring theme of sadism have become almost a convention, never thoroughly explained by the author's dependence on a psychoanalytical interpretation of a major character. The boys who are spoiled or turned into budding homosexuals by their mothers and a loveless home life are as familiar to us today as stalwart and dependable young heroes such as John Wayne were to an earlier generation. We have accepted this interpretation of the restlessness and bewilderment of our young men and boys because no one has anything better to offer.
He begins to own up to his mistakes and starts to build stable relationships with his peers. In a conversation with Phoebe Holden mentions that he wants to be a catcher in the rye, and save children from falling off the cliff. Being a catcher in the rye is a metaphor that represents Holden's dream of saving people and leaving a lasting mark on the world. “ I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy”(186). When we enter this point in the book we can really get a feel for how much Holden has matured as he has begun thinking about others and not just focusing on himself. Although Holden has progressed in his track towards maturity he still tends to sway away from maturity. Holden continues to impolitely disagree with others and argue his way to the top in order to achieve what he desires, “Daddy's going to kill you.” Phoebe suggests, then Holden comes right back and states “I don't give a damn if he does” (186). This example shows that Holden still has a fixed mindset on his ideas and doesn't allow for new thoughts to persuade him to change his opinions. This forces us to view him as immature as we do not see a man who is incapable of interchanging ideas with others and therefore unable to interact with his
Each and every person will go through a coming of age experience sometime in their life. Those experiences can come in different forms. But, each coming of age experience ends up shaping us to become a mature adult. In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee tells a coming of age story through Scout Finch, an aging girl’s point of view. Her brother, Jem Finch, who experiences coming of age before Scout, realizes that being an adult was not what he hoped.
Salinger exemplifies Holden’s struggles growing up because he has often never let go of his past childhood memories. At one point Holden was writing a composition, which he seemed to enjoy, and he thought to himself, “My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt” (49). We all have little items from our childhood that we either keep or naturally just let go of. Considering Holden has not let go of his brother’s death from leukemia, provides him with a mental block to not growing up. Having that part of his childhood erased creates a gap between his feelings of maturity.
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.
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
In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden’s vision of nature of childhood and adulthood are not as separate as Holden believes them to be. Holden tries to battle through the pressures of adulthood while staying in his childish frame of mind. He feels that if he acts childish, he can go back to that. He also feels the need to be an adult and do his own thing. Holden is at war with himself trying to see what he really is- a child or an adult. Although, Holden thinks he is being an adult by drinking and smoking, he is actually becoming more childish.
Coming of Age is when a character in a story goes through a life-changing event they learn a life lesson from. There are many types of books and short stories that are based on Coming of Age, "The Flowers" by Alice Walker is one of them. In the story the main character, Myop, is wandering through the woods. However, she later decides to shorten her walk, after she starts to feel uncomfortable and fearful, of her surroundings. Soon she decides later to find her way back home until she stumbles across something... a dead body. At first Myop was astonished of what she had uncovered . It was something she had never encountered before. After examining the body she began to realize that it was actually something very interesting. Seeing the lifeless
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.
Since both The Bridegroom (First published by Heinemann in 1958) and Things Fall Apart belong to the category of African literature, the relationship between black and white men in Africa is a subject that the two literary works must deal with. In Things Fall Apart, readers get in contact with first phase of colonialism in lower Niger, and in Bridegroom, readers catch glimpses of the period of apartheid. Writers of The Bridegroom and Things Fall Apart successfully use the description of relationship to stress on the themes, which are racial segregation in The Bridegroom, and social disintegration in Things Fall Apart. The ways of achieving this is through the use of narrative viewpoints, diction, dialogue and conflict.