Holden Caulfield Adulthood

Improved Essays
Growing up is one of the uttermost challenging stepping stones in any teenager’s life. To grow up, or to become more towards adulthood; to be compelled to become mentally and physically mature. In the book “ The Catcher in the Rye” Holden goes through various developments of growing up. Being the uttermost important theme of the book would be growing into the best person you can be. For example, Holden Caulfield grows in incomparable ways, we discover new effects about him, and how he has uncounted stages of growth.

When he first appears in the story, Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye” is a novel about a young character who goes through growth into maturity. Typically Holden Caulfield is an unusual protagonist because his central goal is to resist the process of maturity itself. As his thoughts about the Museum of Natural History demonstrate, Holden
…show more content…
Holden has a fantasy that adulthood is a world of hypocrisy “phoniness”, while childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty. Of these two worlds he better his imagination of childhood as an wonderful field of rye in which children frolic and play; adulthood is an alarming place where you have to be significant. His created understandings of childhood and adulthood allow Holden to cut himself off from the world by covering himself with a protective armor of cynicism. But as the book progresses, Holden’s experiences, particularly his encounters with Mr. Antolini and Phoebe, reveal the shallowness of his impregnation

Holden’s little sister Phoebe plays an enormous role in his life. Being the fact that she is little and Holden is trying to preserve her youthfulness. When Phoebe tells Holden that she is going to run away with him, this snaps Holden’s mind back into reality. At that moment, Holden had to be a big brother and take care of his sister, as a result try to shape her into a good young lady. Holden doesn't want to infect Phoebe’s young

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In the novel The Catcher in the Rye authored by J.D. Salinger, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is a teenager who refuses to accept that he is becoming an adult. Holden is obsessed about being a child and refuses to stop horsing around. He chooses to place himself between the world of simple innocence and complex adulthood. Holden is the narrator and he chooses to tell the story in his own contradicting manner. Holden controls his experiences and his narrations of the same are distorted from reality.…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Holden Caulfield, a sixteen year old boy living in New York, has been sent to multiple boarding schools and share many similar experiences with J. D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye. Holden is not like normal teenagers, who are full of life, crave adventure and look forward to new experiences. In contrast, he hates many things, gets depressed, especially around young children, and thinks that everybody; but, mostly adults are phony. On a psychological level, there are many factors in his childhood experience which may have influenced why he acts and thinks such a way. By applying Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical theory, it is easier to understand what motivates Holden’s thoughts and actions, in addition to what Salinger experienced…

    • 1087 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Painful Journey Into the Wild by John Krakauer and The Catcher in the Rye by D.J. Salinger are stories of opinionated, stubborn young men on introspective journeys provoked by feelings that they are unable to comprehend. The protagonists, Chris McCandless and Holden Caulfield, both travel nearly identical paths, though they have very unique idiosyncrasies. Both Chris McCandless and Holden Caulfield are linked by the unhealable wound archetype, and fueled by oppressed feelings of discontent and confusion towards their family members respectively. They channel their feelings inward, which pushes them towards searching for an escape, “in the wild”.…

    • 2317 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, we see the narrator, Holden Caulfield, sink deeper and deeper into his mental instability. This began when Holden lost his brother, and went on as he started his adventure, fearing he would lose the rest of his family as well. Though this causes him not to be a very reliable source, it does make him more relatable to the book’s teenage audience. In your teenage years, you begin to question not only yourself, but the world around you, which can be seen through Holden's constant hypocrisy, angst, and overall sense of rebellion throughout the novel. The Catcher in the Rye has made itself very well known for a multitude of reasons.…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As humans we constantly find ourselves facing the fact that we are growing older and accepting the responsibilities that come with age. Sometimes we see teenagers, young kids and even some adults fall into a place where they are emotionally stuck in the past. In the catcher in the rye, Holden Caulfield is a character that portrays an irrational fear of growing up through displays of angst such as; Childlike behaviour, rebellion and sheltering/protecting others (young children). His fear and dread are normal reactions to adulthood and the phoniness he has come to understand it entails. In the novel the Holden tries to act mature but in his attempts he reveals the dept of his immaturity.…

    • 936 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Holden Caulfield is an interesting character; he gives off the persona of being a tough guy who is sarcastic and witty. In chapters 21-23 though it highlights his complete obsession with innocence and maybe that he is a more compassionate, caring, and loving person than he leads on to be. You can say that one of Holden’s biggest weaknesses is his little sister, Phoebe. In chapter 21 Holden makes an attempt of returning home in which he tricks an elevator operator in getting his up to his family's apartment. When arriving home his parents and brother are both not home, but he does find Phoebe sleeping in his brothers room.…

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Holden Caulfield Thesis

    • 1209 Words
    • 5 Pages

    After the expulsion from his fourth prep school for lack of academic success, the cynical adolescent, Holden Caulfield, returns to his hometown, New York City. There, Holden roams meaninglessly, trying to postpone his arrival and news to his family that he has once again failed to succeed in his schooling. Silently suffering over the death of his beloved brother, Allie, Holden builds up his inner turmoil toward adults and the phoniness they have created as they entered adulthood. Although Holden realizes that he himself is slipping into the adult world, he tries to resist the corruptness and demoralization by grasping onto the one pure element of his life, his younger sister, Phoebe. Caught between the conflicting worlds of blissful innocence…

    • 1209 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Even though Holden does not save the world, he makes strides towards finding himself and resolving his own exceptional feelings of loss, misanthropy, and apathy. Even though many critics believe the protagonist of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, is merely a depressed teenager who has failed to fit into the standards and expectations of society, Holden’s saga epitomizes a hero’s journey in that he strives to find himself through hardships and loneliness. Indeed, Holden Caulfield represents a different kind of hero, but is a hero nonetheless. Like in the hero’s journey, Holden Caulfield comes from a…

    • 1982 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Holden Caulfield, a sixteen year old boy, has an intense fear of change as well as growing up; however, after this experience he is more open and understanding of the necessity it is for development. In the novel Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the pivotal moment in the psychological development of Holden Caulfield is watching Phoebe on the carousel, because it reveals the author’s message that growing up is a necessity. Throughout the majority of the novel, Holden searched for answers about the adult world as well as constantly trying to prevent children from growing up. In the beginning, he was distraught over the question, “Do you happen to know where they go in the wintertime?”…

    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Thesis: After experiencing the harshness of the adult world, Holden embarks on a journey to become the Catcher In the Rye and preserve children's’ innocence. He goes through a numerous amount of different trials that end in failure; which leads to him realizing that innocence is not something that can be obtained forever. Body Paragraph 1 Holden develops a dream job that entails of him trying to preserve children’s innocence. His idea for his job came about after experiencing loosing his own innocence following a tragic event Salinger's purpose for including Holden’s dream job is to show Holden’s false sense of reality as well as how his past experiences lead him to his conclusion on innocence. Holden feels as though children are the only ones left with their innocence and he must do everything in his power to protect them.…

    • 1015 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    But Holden realizes, “the thing is with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you just have to let them do it, and not say anything…” (211). At this point, Holden realizes he needs to move on and go into adulthood. He realizes that Phoebe will have to move on from her childhood soon as well because she is already willing to take risks. In this chapter, Holden learns that life continues. He cannot do anything to prevent everything from changing.…

    • 932 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The author Salinger, makes Holden Caulfield this obnoxious, bad mouthing, cynic teenager. “...I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by phonies.” (Salinger p 13). In the novel Catcher in the Rye, Holden goes through many obstacles and is trying to find himself. But during his exploration,we realize that Holden is growing up and is becoming a man.…

    • 1191 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    To detail how Holden’s mindset works, J.D. Salinger incorporates Holden’s dream job into the story to help the reader further understand why Holden ventures this far to become the preserver of the possession he holds the closest, the innocence of the youth. Holden returns to his home earlier than he plans because he is has been removed from Pencey Prep, and he goes to see Phoebe in his older brother’s room. He tells Phoebe, “I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all…What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff… 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” (Salinger 173). Holden realizes what his goal in life is, and he explains to his little sister that he wants to be the person to look out for all the kids who are too naïve to look out for themselves and Holden wants to secure their innocence.…

    • 2253 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    And instead of acknowledging that adult hood scares him. He invents a fantasy that adulthood is a world of hollowness and hypocrisy and the world his sister lives in -childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity and honesty. Holden explains that adults are inevitable phonies, and the worst part of it is, they can’t see their own phoniness. Phoniness stands as a symbol of everything that’s wrong in the world he is forced to be in. It provides him an excuse to withdraw into his judgemental…

    • 905 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, suffers with the transition from childhood to adulthood. His teenage years are his most challenging moments in his life so far. In J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger uses symbols and details to convey the importance in protecting…

    • 906 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays