His Last Walk

signal for assistance, since he is pleading for guidance. Holden’s main hardships throughout the course of the book were fearing reality and adulthood. When he calls his former English teacher, Mr.Antolini for a place to stay until he can figure out the next path in his journey, it depicts his scarcity of energy from running away from his fears. He could no longer flee from the hardships…

tries distancing himself from everyone and the things around him. This is shown when people have come into his room at the beginning of the boom and he goes out of his way to subtly let them know he wants them to leave. The second theme is Holden having to deal with the reality of having to grow up, and he doesn't want to. He thinks that the…

He tells the story in a first person “stream of consciousness” style and often goes off on tangents about things, such as his younger sister Phoebe, giving the story a sense of verisimilitude. Holden is also very sarcastic and cynical, saying “[his] parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if [he] told anything pretty personal about them” (Salinger, 1). Though his sarcasm and cynicism set him off as a bit hostile, Holden is one that pays great attention to detail, especially when it…

motivation throughout the story. Holden goes to New York City and spends most of his time looking for something, but he never tells the reader exactly what he is looking for, I don’t even think he knows exactly what it is he is looking for. He seems to be looking for friendship or just genuine communication, but he is looking for it in the wrong place. Nobody else is concerned with friendship or honesty, besides his little sister Phoebe. After, Holden talks to someone he usually decides that a…

novel, Catcher in the Rye, struggles with alienation, drugs, and alcohol due to his tragic past. Growing up, Holden lived a pretty normal life, until his brother’s tragic death. His brother, Allie, even though he was younger than Holden, was Holden’s inspiration in life. When Holden discovered that Allie was dead, he slept in the garage, and at one point during that night, Holden managed to break all of the windows in his garage out of complete and utter sorrow. The reader first gets introduced…

however, this is because of his hard and troubling past that lead him to become who he is now. Holden has a unique way of looking at things, he thinks that practically anyone and anything can be phony, always saying things like ‘I found it phony,’ or ‘they were being phony’ and even, ‘it was all phony as hell’. He seems to use a lot of the same words over and over again, this could be “partly because [Holden] has lousy vocabulary and partly because [he] acts quite young for his age”…

J.D Salinger's work was influenced heavily by his life because of the things that happened to him, he connected his books to his life by his experiences. His work was his life. J.D Salinger’s books went with how he was feeling and the way his life was going. The Catcher in the Rye’s main character Holden Caulfield was based off of J.D Salinger's young life, Salinger not being a good student had been kicked out of his school which happened to Holden Caulfield. Both of these books have a…

In Catcher in the Rye, Holden decides to leave New York to head out West after he experiences a frightening feeling of “just go[ing] down, down, down, and nobody’d ever see [him] again” (217). Yet, Holden decides to visit Phoebe one last time before leaving, so he pays a visit to her school. Holden’s experience of “go[ing] down, down, down” mirrors the image of someone falling off a cliff like in Holden’s imagination as a “catcher in the rye” (191). In a way, Holden himself is a child in the rye…

Leukemia. Holden never full recovers from the family loss and is affected by this through the rest of his childhood and as he continues to grow up. In the novel, the death of Allie, Holden’s brother, causes Holden expresses multiple symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Throughout the novel he experiences insomnia, sudden mood swings, and suicidal thoughts. Some people think “boys will be boys” and his symptoms are just part of being a teenager; however, they are arguably much more severe.…

J.D. Salinger’s reason for writing such a controversial novel was to appeal to the teenage mind. Holden is sexually confused and struggles expressing his feelings. He admits he is still still sexuall driven and has said that if a girl tells him stop, he will stop. For Holden “no” means “no”. Holden believes that his noble trait is really one of his weaknesses. When he encounters Sunny he decides he wants want nothing to do with her sexual advances. Throughout teenage years one can only assume…