The Catcher in the Rye: Questioning Masculinity and Sexuality in Society
During the post war society of the 1950’s in America, uniformity and conformity were a must. Although men and women were all required to do things during WWII, after the war men and women were put into traditional roles that were reaffirmed. Not accepting these roles would make one an outcast. Society has always had certain expectations for each gender. These expectations that are set for men and women pressure them to do things that they may not be ready for.
For most of history men and women have always played roles in society. With set expectations for men it has always been hard for those that stray from the path of manhood. With a very heterosexual society the 1950’s
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Salinger’s coming of age novel The Catcher in the Rye, he expresses the challenges a young person faces when entering, or refusing to enter, adulthood. Salinger uses the character of Holden Caulfield to challenge society’s expectations of men through his characters constant questioning of society’s norms. Holden wanders from the expectations set by society for men to be masculine by having feminine qualities. Expectations for what it means to be a man, pressure Holden to do things he is not ready for. Not only do expectations from society pressure Holden, but also his expectations that he has for himself affect what he does in the novel.
J.D Salinger questions the behavior of young men by making Holden refuse the usual things that society would say he should.It is very apparent that Holden cannot relate to the men around him. The characters in the novel that show the typical characteristics of men of the period. With Stradlater, Holden’s roommate, being the typical handsome teenage guy that takes girls in his to fool around with. Salinger uses this character to further show that Holden is not like the guys his age, perhaps proving that Holden does not have the same sexual drive as the guys around
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In his article "None of that David Copperfield crap: Clive Baldwin explores masculinity in The Catcher in the Rye," Clive Baldwin criticizes the ideal image of masculinity and how J.D. Salinger has created a novel that digresses from the typical "boy to man" narrative. Not only does Baldwin criticize the actions of Holden, but also the reason for which J.D. Salinger has written them. Baldwin questions whether the novel represents Salinger 's ideas about the measures of "real" masculinity. With what society and the media in the novel expect, Baldwin argues that is what makes Holden attempt to commit all these actions to be a man. Holden 's desire to become a "catcher" of young children aligns him further away from the contemporary expectations masculinity. According to Baldwin,"Caulfield 's digressive narrative approach and his ambition to occupy a maternal role as the 'catcher ' of young children aligns him with the feminine in a further subversion of contemporary expectations of masculinity." Baldwin 's point is that Holden, despite his efforts to be be a "man", fails to conform to the expectations set for masculinity. Baldwin 's claim that Holden 's ambition is a maternal role further shows his digression from traditional masculinity, but that is with the assumption that Holden still wanted to be meet the expectations of
Holden Caulfield, the teenage protagonist of Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger, struggles with having to enter the adult world. Holden leaves school early and stays in New York by himself until he is ready to return home. Holden wants to be individual, yet he also wants to fit in and not grow up. The author uses symbolism to represent Holden’s internal struggle.
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.
In J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is seen by some critics a a drop out student destined for failure in life, but I see him as a symbol of an adolescent who struggles to adapt to the reality of adulthood.
J. D. Salinger's notable and esteemed novel, Catcher in the Rye, reflects the hypercritical views of a troubled teenager, Holden Caulfield, towards everyone around him and society itself. This character has a distinguished vision of a world where morality, principles, intelligence, purity, and naivety should override money, sex, and power, but clearly in the world he inhabits these qualities have been exiled. Holder desperately clings to and regards innocence as one of the most important virtues a person can have. However, he son becomes a misfit since society is corrupted and he yearns for companionship, any kind of connection with another to feel whole and understood again. Ironically, despite his persistent belittling and denouncing of others, he does not apply the same critical and harsh views on himself.
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.
Like stated earlier, gender roles in the 50’s were very strict and narrow-minded. That being said, women were extremely limited in their role in society. First of all, women were expected to be homemakers. By homemaker, I mean the women w...
Innocence lies within everyone in at least one point in their lives, but as reality consumes them, that purity begins to vanish slowly as they learn new experiences. In the coming of age novel set in the nineteen-forties, J.D Salinger writes about a sixteen-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield who stands between a road that separates childhood from adulthood and is confused about which path to take. On a three-day trip in New York away from his family and fellow peers at school, Holden encounters many situations in which lead him to think twice about who he wants to become and how he wants to guide others who are in the same situation he is in. In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D Salinger utilizes symbolism, vivid imagery, and slangy diction to expose Holden’s struggle to preserve the innocence of the people that he loves while alienating himself from the adult world he calls “phony.”
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger is a coming-of-age novel set in New York during the 1940’s. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the story, is a detached seventeen-year old boy harboring feelings of isolation and disillusionment. He emphasizes a general dislike for society, referring to people as “phonies.” His lack of will to socialize prompts him to find nearly everything depressing. He’s alone most of the time and it’s apparent that he is very reclusive. This often leads him to pondering about his own death and other personal issues that plague him without immediate resolution. Holden possesses a strong deficit of affection – platonic and sexual – that hinders and cripples his views toward people, his attitude, and his ability to progressively solve his problems without inflicting pain on himself. The absence of significant figures in his life revert him to a childlike dependency and initiate his morbid fascination with sexuality. In this novel, Salinger uses Sunny, Sally Hayes, and Carl Luce to incorporate the hardships of discovering sexual identity and how these events affect adolescents as they try to understand their own sexuality.
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 The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield feels a compulsion to protect women over anything else. The reason for this is that Holden views women as the last innocent people left in society. J.D. Salinger makes it a point to display the powerful influences that women have had on Holden throughout his life by retelling Holden's experiences with his own mother as a younger man. These trends continue throughout the story, as the events that unfold involving Phoebe and Jane Gallagher become focal points during Holden's time in New York City. Holden's desire to protect women seems to go so far that he begins to feel immediate hostility -- hostility that may or may not be justified -- towards several male characters.
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.
Some people feel all alone in this world, with no direction to follow but their empty loneliness. The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D Salinger, follows a sixteen-year-old boy, Holden Caulfield, who despises society and calls everyone a “phony.” Holden can be seen as a delinquent who smokes tobacco, drinks alcohol, and gets expelled from a prestigious boarding school. This coming-of-age book follows the themes of isolation, innocence, and corrupted maturity which is influenced from the author's life and modernism, and is shown through the setting, symbolism, and diction.
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.
Society places ideas concerning proper behaviors regarding gender roles. Over the years, I noticed that society's rules and expectations for men and women are very different. Men have standards and specific career goals that we must live up to according to how others judge.
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.