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We all grow up, and for some, it is more tumultuous than others. J.D.Salinger is known for encompassing in Literary form the struggles of the transition from a young adolescent to the experience of living in the adult world and highlighting what is important to a teenager during their journey to maturity. Salinger discusses certain themes important to the average teenager such as the protection of innocence, sexual frustration, and refusal to let go of the world they leave behind when they enter adulthood with diction, narration and symbols.
The main purpose of The Catcher in The Rye is to glorify and show the importance of innocence and why it should be protected. This means that Holden has to choose between the adult life that he will take, or continue to lead a life of childhood. Bryan beautifully summarizes the plot of this novel here: “ Holden is poised between two worlds, one he cannot return to and the other he fears to enter.”(Bryan 4) Holden’s main issue is the he is “hypersensitive to the exploitations and insensitivity of the post pubescent world and to the fragility of children” (Bryan 4) Throughout the entire novel he struggles to understand other character such as Ackley and Stradlater, both are extremes of the personality spectrum. In this spectrum, Ackley is the “Nerd” and Stradlater is the “jock” both are characters Holden doesn’t want to be. He also doesn’t want to become a sex machine, as exemplified with his experience with sunny, a young hooker he hires but only talked to before being extorted and being betrayed by her and her pimp. (Salinger 90) another sign that Holden doesn’t want to grow into a sexual being is that Holden is disgusted more from the act of the word “fuck” than the word itself. (Bryan 15)....
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...of that particular image. But the images of himself that have been tested thus far have been phony ones and we have been relieved rather than disappointed that he has failed to act in accordance with them.” (Trowbridge 16) Although Trowbridge makes a great generalization, this does not hold true for another symbol, Luce.
Carl Luce is the son of a psychiatrist, and is seen as a knowlegeable source of information to Holden. Trowbridge here describes this one exception. “In many ways Carl Luce represents the ideal of the man-about-town that Holden still dimly wants to become. He is several years older that Holden and has all the appearances of the suave sophisticate. He has a Chinese mistress and seems to Holden to be cooly in control of his life”(trowbridge 10). As Holden’s and Luce’s conversation progress, Holden loses his respect for Luce
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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:
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
The form of diction used in The Catcher in the Rye is a topic on which many people are strongly opinionated. Because the narrator speaks solely in the vernacular, the novel is ripe with vulgar language. Most of this language is used to characterize Holden, the protagonist and narrator, as a typical American teenager living in the late 1940s or early 1950s, but some of it is utilized to convey Salinger’s theme of innocence versus corruption. When Holden is walking through his sister Phoebe’s school, he sees a scrawl on the wall saying “Fuck you.” He imagines the writing was etched by “some perverty bum that’d sneaked in the school late at night to take a leak or something” (260-61). Again in the museum, Holden encounters another such sign. Both the school and the museum are places he identifies with his childhood, but they have been perverted by the corruption of the world. He is concerned for the children who will inevitably see these signs and be told what they mean by “some dirty kid…all cockeyed, naturally” (260), spoiling the children’s innocence. This is just one more step towards adulthood and corruption. He is disgusted by the people in the world, saying “You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write ‘Fuck yo...
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.
In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden’s outlook in life is either the innocence of childhood or the cruelty of adulthood. He believes that the innocence of childhood is very valuable and it should be protected from the cruelty and phoniness of the adult world. Therefore Holden has a desire and is compelled to protect a child’s innocence at all costs. This is revealed when Holden tells Phoebe that he wants to be the catcher in the rye. Holden says to Phoebe, “What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they’re ru...
We see during the novel that Holden wants to be able to protect innocence in the world, however by the end of the story he lets go of that desire. This is a point of growth for Holden. He finds that it is impossible and unnecessary to keep all the innocence in the world. While with Phoebe Holden says, “I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye...I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff...That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye” (173). In this moment Holden wants to be able to preserve all the youth and innocence in the world. He doesn’t accept that kids have to grow and change and that they can’t stay innocent forever. Later on in the story when Holden is with Phoebe at a carousel again he thinks, “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the golden ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them.” At the end of the novel Holden realizes and comes to terms with the fact that kids grow and lose their innocence. He moves from his want to be the “catcher in the rye” to...
This reveals Holden’s fantasy of an idealistic childhood and his role as the guardian of innocence. Preventing children from “going over the cliff” and losing their innocence is his way of vicariously protecting himself from growing up as well. Holden acknowledges that this is “crazy,” yet he cannot come up with a different lifestyle because he struggles to see the world for how it truly is, and fears not knowing what might happen next. Holden’s “catcher in the rye” fantasy reflects his innocence, his belief in a pure, uncorrupted youth, and his desire to protect it. This fantasy also represents his disconnection from reality, as he thinks he can stop the process of growing up, yet
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.
Sexual relationships can be negative or positive in many different ways. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been kicked out of Pencey Prep because he failed in most of his classes. He has been through sexual relationships that reflects his personality. Holden 's emotions towards women and sex reflects his feelings that all women are whores. He pines to be in love and have sex, but in the same time he is afraid to do so. Holden 's sexual immaturity destroys positive relationships with the opposite sex. The feminist lens is used to show how Holden pictures women, and used characteristics to show Holden 's personality.
Which is the kind of world he wants to live in. Holden expresses his desire to preserve the innocence of others when his sister Phoebe tells Holden that he doesn't like anything, and that he has no ambitions of what he wants to be when he is older. Holden then explains that he wants to be the catcher in the rye. He says that he imagines little children playing on top of a hill and that his job is to protect children from falling of the hill. This symbolizes catching children from losing their innocence and falling into the adult world. Holden tells Phoebe, “I know it crazy, but that is the only thing I’d like to be” (172). This unrealistic desire is contributes to why Holden is struggling to transition from adolescence to adulthood. Critics of the novel have said Holden would like to suspend time stating, “Holden's desire to protect children shows his desire for suspending time, for inhabiting a space of young people conserved endlessly” (Yahya 3). Not letting go of childhood memories or accepting the harsh realities of adulthood are damaging when transitioning from
In a conversation Holden has with his sister Phoebe, she asks him what he would want to be. In response, Holden says, “... I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. ... I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t know where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them ... I’d just be the catcher in the rye” (Salinger 224-225). Holden reveals his desire to be the protector of innocence and the reader sees that he would rather live in his own fantasy of innocence, than face the reality of the world around him. In his dream world, Holden wishes to be someone who protects children’s innocence. Similar to a child, Holden oversimplifies real life and has his own fantasy of what he wants to do. Lott and Latham stated in regards to Holden and his journey while finding his identity and say, “... the heroes also experience disillusionment with themselves and with the world around them as they move from innocent idealism of the very young to a more realistic acceptance of personal limits and social imperfections” (24). During the novel, it is obvious that Holden is stuck between the worlds of adolescence and adulthood. Holden 's obsession with innocence causes difficulty in accepting the responsibilities of adulthood. Everything is considered “phony” by Holden, except for what is still innocent. Holden is completely fixated on all forms of innocence and wishes to stay in
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
Some may say that the main character of J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, is merely the average teenager, although he seems to think about sex and women quite a lot for his age of sixteen. This point can be easily argued in many ways, one example being the time Holden called a perfect stranger, Faith Cavendish, to get together at an unruly time of night. Another example of the main character’s perversion is when he hired a prostitute named Sunny, and never actually accomplished anything. One last example could be Caulfield’s overall impression and cockiness when it comes to sex and women. In conclusion Holden Caulfield is engrossed in sexual thought.
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.
There is a singular event that unites every single human being on the planet, growing up. Not everyone can say it was pleasant, but no one can deny that it took place. The transition between childhood innocence and adulthood is long and confusing; often forcing one to seek out the answers to questions that likely have no definitive answer. During the process, the adult world seems inviting and free, but only when we are on the brink of entering this cruel, unjust society can the ignorant bliss of childhood be truly recognized. Catcher in the Rye explores the intimidating complexities associated with adulthood and how baffling it seems to the naïve teenage mind. 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.