The Importance of Growing Up
Growing up. It’s one of the reasons you were brought here to become who you are. It is something that is meant to happen but there is always those few individuals that always try to avoid it much like Holden in the book, “Catcher in the Rye” by J.D Salinger. Growing up can be a struggle at times. Growing up happens to everyone. It’s a part of your life and you cannot take that away. Whether you're younger or older or whether you like it or not. It can be scary, it can be exciting, it can be confusing at times. It makes you who you are. If it wasn’t for growing up, you wouldn’t have the good times or the bad times and you wouldn’t have any life lessons or skills. There are many stages of growing up. Young …show more content…
He doesn’t really see the point of it and how it satisfies individuals. Holden bumps into intimacy when he takes the train to New York. For instance, in chapter 8 he describes enjoying the solitude of late night train rides. He is referring to”late night train rides” to when he sexually arouses a female stranger. He was given a date to a party by the lady. Then he goes to a nightclub to flirt with older women. Onwards, he then deflects attention from himself and starts making up lies to the woman to stop talking. He starts to feel guilty for lying. This shows how Holden is growing up because he does not know what he wants and ends up reflecting back as it was a bad decision to go to the nightclub in the first place. Secondly, Holden sees sex as inherently degrading. For example, he says “You wouldn’t want to “do crumby stuff” to her.” When a girl says she wants to stop, Holden stops. "No" means "No" for Holden Caulfield. Unfortunately, Holden seems to think this is one of his weaknesses. During the encounter with Sunny, the prostitute, Holden decides that he simply does not want to go through with the act of sex. He feels like he can’t have a sexual relationship with a girl at all because he thinks that sex would turn her into sort of an “object” basically. This means that Holden has to either fulfill his sexual urges with girls he doesn’t care about or not fulfill them at all. He considers …show more content…
It can teach life lessons. In the story, Holden is taught that life is like a game and how you should play it according to the rules but he avoids it. Dr. Thurmer said “Life is game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”(Salinger, 11) Holden thought that what Dr. Thurmer was dumb. He thinks that he’s just blurting out random stuff and he doesn’t believe what he’s saying. While Holden compares life to a game or sport, which is a major theme in the story, leaving the fencing equipment on the subway shows that Holden doesn’t care and doesn’t take the game of life very seriously. Nor does he care about his future. This relates to growing up because using games as an analogy for how someone should live their life; following the rules and staying out of trouble which is something one should always keep in mind. Also, Allie’s baseball mitt can relate to games and sports and how it shows growing up. Holden was describing how there are many poems written all over the baseball mitt, so he can read them out on the pitch while waiting for the ball. He also described Allie’s personality. This shows how Holden remembers his brother as an innocent kid that saw baseball for what it is: a game. In addition, He didn’t take things too seriously. The fall from the cliff represents the fall of innocence. The cliff, for Holden, would represent mistakes children make in their lives (whether
Growing up. It’s one of the reasons you were brought here to become who you are. It is something that is meant to happen but there is always those few individuals that always try to avoid it much like Holden in the book, “Catcher in the Rye” by J.D Salinger. Growing up can be a struggle at times. Growing up happens to everyone. It’s a part of your life and you cannot take that away. Whether you're younger or older or whether you like it or not. It can be scary, it can be exciting, it can be confusing at times. It makes you who you are. If it wasn’t for growing up, you wouldn’t have the good times or the bad times and you wouldn’t have any life lessons or skills. There are many stages of growing up. Young …show more content…
He doesn’t really see the point of it and how it satisfies individuals. Holden bumps into intimacy when he takes the train to New York. For instance, in chapter 8 he describes enjoying the solitude of late night train rides. He is referring to”late night train rides” to when he sexually arouses a female stranger. He was given a date to a party by the lady. Then he goes to a nightclub to flirt with older women. Onwards, he then deflects attention from himself and starts making up lies to the woman to stop talking. He starts to feel guilty for lying. This shows how Holden is growing up because he does not know what he wants and ends up reflecting back as it was a bad decision to go to the nightclub in the first place. Secondly, Holden sees sex as inherently degrading. For example, he says “You wouldn’t want to “do crumby stuff” to her.” When a girl says she wants to stop, Holden stops. "No" means "No" for Holden Caulfield. Unfortunately, Holden seems to think this is one of his weaknesses. During the encounter with Sunny, the prostitute, Holden decides that he simply does not want to go through with the act of sex. He feels like he can’t have a sexual relationship with a girl at all because he thinks that sex would turn her into sort of an “object” basically. This means that Holden has to either fulfill his sexual urges with girls he doesn’t care about or not fulfill them at all. He considers …show more content…
It can teach life lessons. In the story, Holden is taught that life is like a game and how you should play it according to the rules but he avoids it. Dr. Thurmer said “Life is game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”(Salinger, 11) Holden thought that what Dr. Thurmer was dumb. He thinks that he’s just blurting out random stuff and he doesn’t believe what he’s saying. While Holden compares life to a game or sport, which is a major theme in the story, leaving the fencing equipment on the subway shows that Holden doesn’t care and doesn’t take the game of life very seriously. Nor does he care about his future. This relates to growing up because using games as an analogy for how someone should live their life; following the rules and staying out of trouble which is something one should always keep in mind. Also, Allie’s baseball mitt can relate to games and sports and how it shows growing up. Holden was describing how there are many poems written all over the baseball mitt, so he can read them out on the pitch while waiting for the ball. He also described Allie’s personality. This shows how Holden remembers his brother as an innocent kid that saw baseball for what it is: a game. In addition, He didn’t take things too seriously. The fall from the cliff represents the fall of innocence. The cliff, for Holden, would represent mistakes children make in their lives (whether