Similarities Between Catcher In The Rye And Nothing Gold Can Stay

Improved Essays
J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is set in the 50s. The book follows the story of Holden Caulfield, a young man coming to terms with his brothers death. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” , a poem by Robert Frost, contains many themes, one of which it shares with The Catcher in the Rye. This shared theme is that the loss of innocence is inevitable. Both works share a common motif of gold, a similar conflict in that the prevention of the loss of innocence is futile , and an air of sadness.

The Catcher in the Rye and “Nothing Gold Can Stay” share a common motif of gold. This symbol appears throughout the poem, in the title, and the first and last lines. This gold is called “Nature’s first green,” which symbolizes childhood, and the

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Have you ever felt like nothing good ever lasts for too long? “Nothing gold can stay” By Robert Frost .The theme is shown in a S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders through the demise of the young people. The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel by S. E. Hinton, first published in 1967 by Viking Press.…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ is a 1951 novel written by J.D. Salinger. Set in the 1940’s, it is told from the point of view of a troubled teen, Holden Caulfield. It looks at his emotions and view of the world which show the reader his distressed nature. This novel focuses on the alienation of the main character, madness and mental illness, mortality and lies and Deceit. Despite Holden’s constant interaction with others throughout ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ it still seemed to me that, whether intentional or not, he was bringing his isolation upon himself.…

    • 119 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Within our humanistic culture, people tend to pursue many things, and in doing so believe that they will find meaning. These pursuits include business success, wealth, relationships and entertainment. People have testified that while they achieved their goals of wealth, relationships and pleasure, there was still a deep void inside, a feeling of emptiness that nothing seemed to fill. Shawn Sutherlands, Seeing Red, lays open an overeducated, underemployed character, Ethan Reid, who is struggling to reconcile expectations with reality. Similarly, J.D. Salinger’s, The Catcher in the Rye, illustrates a teenager, Holden Caulfield and his dramatic struggle against growing up and facing his own reality.…

    • 149 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Holden Caulfield Controversy

    • 2757 Words
    • 12 Pages

    His mind began to clear, with the help of Phoebe. On page 211, Salinger writes “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab the gold ring you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but its bad if you say anything to them.” Holden knows that death is inevitable. He cannot be “the catcher in the rye” and protect children from change, just as nobody could protect him…

    • 2757 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Approximately 6.7 % of the American population is living with depression, but only about 1 out of every 3 persons is being treated. The novels Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath explore just what it’s like having major depression. The two main characters in these novels are both different and similar in many ways. A huge difference between the two is their gender roles; one is male and the other female, however both struggle with conforming into them. The biggest similarity between the two is their difficulty with battling their mental illness and the detachment from life as a result.…

    • 181 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When comparing the themes and moral dilemmas between J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in The Rye and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, one will come across several subtle similarities amidst the more obvious differences in both books. Both Salinger and Tartt begin by telling each of their stories through the eyes of teenage boys living alone, either physically or emotionally, in New York City. The two stories then continue on separate paths; Tartt’s story taking the longer road full of many plot twists and turns, while Salinger chooses to take the more brief and to-the-point direction with his story.…

    • 169 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Billy’s ordinary world was cluttered with fear which stemmed from an unhealthy childhood. Abraham Maslow, one of the founding fathers of humanistic psychology in the1940’s, created the Hierarchy of Needs. “The lower the needs in the hierarchy, the more fundamental they are...” (Tay, Diener, changingminds). Maslow created a pyramid to model the five most important human needs, “essential for evolutionary survival” (Tay, Diener).…

    • 2365 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Catcher in the Rye The Catcher in the Rye is a coming of age story (Bildungsroman). Discuss Holden’s journey to maturity. By the end of the novel does Holden finally accept that growing up is part of life and give in to the process of maturity or does he continue to resist it? “The Catcher in the rye” is a bildungsroman novel written by author J.D Salinger in 1951.…

    • 1184 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Often times humans will follow what their hearts want rather than thinking the situation through. In the novel “The Catcher in the Rye,” Holden Caulfield, a 16 year old boy, who failed out of Pencey Prep, tries to follow his heart to make everything perfect. Holden assumes that all children are innocent and perfect without noticing the truth. He tries to protect their innocence by following his heart to do good for all children, but always thinking about this shortly made him depressed and it leads him to be admitted into a mental institution. In “Dead Poets Society” Neil followshis heart to be an actor, and with the help of his english teacher at his all boys preparatory school, Mr. Keating, he is the lead in a play.…

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Rye Museum Symbolism

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Throughout the novel The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger frequently utilizes symbols in order to develop a theme. One recurring theme in the novel is that maturity comes with a price that many are reluctant to pay—the loss of innocence. The author employs symbols like the Museum of Natural History, the “F*** You” signs on the walls, and the Carousel to illustrate this theme. However, moving on from your childhood is an essential part of life, although it may be difficult.…

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Catcher In the Rye: Final Essay When coping with a devastating loss, people often turn to defense mechanisms to help heal, or conceal their pain. They sometimes ignore the loss, and rather than reacting to it, they project their thoughts for that person onto someone else. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, shares his experiences regarding high school, adolescence, loss, and independence, and uses projection, and regression as mechanisms to heal his pain. Holden uses the defense mechanism projection, while dealing with the loss of his brother Allie.…

    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Through the iconic voice of Holden Caulfield, an estranged adolescent, one hears a cry for help emerge from the clouds of depression so effortlessly that nearly everyone, regardless of background, relates. As evident within J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and particularly during chapter 20, Salinger utilizes casual diction, relatable syntax, and a symbolic setting to convey Holden’s great dejection and introspection about death itself. With such a strong rhetorical technique as this, Salinger appeals to the empathy of the audience and creates a nearly universal cult-following for Holden. Although undeservingly idealized, Holden’s struggle to find meaning and happiness in this passage suggests a greater, underlying aspect throughout…

    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    By definition, the meaning of a phony is an insincere, pretentious, or deceitful person. In the two novels, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, both books revolve around a phony. In The Great Gatsby, the book is based on the phony life of James Gatz, more commonly known as Jay Gatsby. In The Catcher in the Rye, the book is centered around a teenage boy who struggles to be truthful with himself and others.…

    • 2041 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Although both “The Road not taken” (756) and “Nothing Gold can stay” (654) have different meanings they are also similar in many ways. Robert Frost tends to use a lot of nature imagery in most of his poems including both of these. Usually the nature imagery he uses has nothing to do with the true meanings of his poems. He is well known for using nature to describe a situation or place.…

    • 1378 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    An inescapable aspect of growing up is that parts of life will change. Though one may not like these changes or want to accept them, they must. These changes, like the death of family members or people around them, can mold a person dramatically, and shape the way that they think of themselves and the world around them. The Catcher in The Rye exemplifies this idea perfectly through the main character’s, Holden’s, experiences as he recounts his life and his actions and experiences before being admitted into a mental hospital. Through the character of Holden Caulfield and the idea of death, J.D. Salinger provides a narrative about how the realities of life and modern society can shape a person as they develop and accept those concepts.…

    • 2075 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays