Throughout this novel, Holden’s innocence is portrayed with the use of sexual experiences, use of language as well as adult desires. In this whole novel, Holden is suffering from the harsh reality of growing up. He is stuck in between being young enough to enjoy life as a child, but having…
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.…
“What lasts is what is written. We look to literature to find the essence of an age.” This is a statement by Peter Brodie. It is basically stating that we can see how the past was by what is written. I do agree with this statement, for years now literature has been able to give us clues from the past.…
The Catcher in the Rye begins with the protagonist Holden Caulfield telling the events that happened previously to him being put into a mental hospital for therapy. Although it does not directly state that Holden is in therapy until the end of the novel, if one reads between the lines they can interpret that he is in therapy within the first paragraph of the novel. As Holden begins to tell his story, he refuses to mention his early life, but he does mention that his older brother D. B. visits him mostly every weekend and is a writer. The reader can see that Holden is bitter because he believes that his older brother sold out to Hollywood, abandoning a career in profound literature for renown of the movies. Holden then tells the story of his…
After, Holden talks to someone he usually decides that a person is a phony unless they are a child. Whatever he wants from people he’s not getting it and this makes him bitter and lonely. The main idea of “The Catcher in the Rye” is that growing up sucks, because you become a phony, and the world around you is not an easy place to live, also loneliness and oblivion are waiting for you. So you need to learn how to deal with them while trying to understand something or else you’ll go mad.…
Holden Caulfield may not be the best narrator but he gets the point across- teenagers are at a crossroads between childhood and adulthood and are tasked with the emotional challenge of simultaneously giving up innocence and accepting maturity. This struggle is still as relevant today as it was in 1940, and The Catcher in the Rye illuminated this universal facet of human life beautifully, hence why this piece of literature is such a…
Holden’s parents couldn’t give their son the help he needed in a time he was most innocent and exposed. The Catcher in the Rye shows how a life so young can be shaped and abused by unfortunate events. Without the right support group and treatment, a young soul can be misguided and left off to understand growing up merely by themselves. The world can always be too much for everyone. Holden Caulfield was just getting used to…
Throughout the Catcher in the Rye, Salinger, is able to capture the hardships of a teenager’s unstable mental life, and portray it to the readers with ease. Salinger's use of having a relatable character; he allows the audience is able to connect and identify with Holden as a struggling hero, who is on his downfall. Though, the relatability of the character can conceal different hidden traits, that Salinger gave Holden. From the start of the novel, it is clear that Holden is mentally unstable as he reveals his past.…
The Catcher in the Rye portrays Holden Caulfield’s struggle to accommodate to the adult world. Caulfield is overtly ashamed of his inadequacy and resorts to deception to alter the way people think about him in addition to how he feels about himself. He attempts to mask his ineptitude at school and intimacy to create an ideal persona. Although Caulfield’s deception malignantly inflicts others as well as himself, it simultaneously enables Caulfield to exploit others and rebel against social pressures and his own…
A teenager who has had his fair share of trouble growing up, and wants more than anything is for someone to understand him. He wants to be grown, yet he hates everything about the “adult world”. Throughout Catcher in the Rye, Holden's representation of adolescence is shown through his actions, thoughts, and mental mindset. “ It's immaterial to me," she said.…
The Catcher In The Rye by J.D Salinger tells a story about a troubled teenager named, Holden Caulfield, who struggles with the fact that everyone has to change and grow up. Holden Caulfield has changed his perspectives in a few areas throughout the novel. He struggles with change, growing up, and expressing his feelings to other people. From the beginning of the novel, Holden isolates himself from society by ignoring helpful advice and holding on to his desire that everything in the world must remain unchanged. In the second chapter of the novel, Holden intentionally ignores Mr. Spencer’s advice, “life is a game, boy.…
Mesmerized by the internal need to preserve the innocence in the world around him, Holden ventures off on a life-changing journey to grasp the unattainable, the need to prevent children from maturing. With the unfortunate past events in his life guiding the way, Holden embarks on a mission to prove to the world that he can make his inflated dream a reality by protecting the youth from the impurities of adulthood. Being the catcher in the rye is more than just a job that Holden wants; it is the occupation he needs in his life to play his part. The heroic deeds Holden implicates into his voyage throughout the novel proves his valor, but he is stricken by an incognizant mentality, steering him away from his objective, and down the treacherous…
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.…
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.…
He wanted to spark a change in our society. Holden is an everyman character and someone we all relate to. The Catcher in the Rye was frequently read as a story about an individual’s alienation within a heartless world. Personally, I believe the novel is an eye-opener. It is a reminder that we do not live in a perfect world.…