I'm Already There

This quote was interesting because it revealed a more childish and curious side to Holden’s typical angsty character. Salinger uses the ducks in the pack as a metaphor to represent change, something Holden fears, due to them migrating during different seasons. Holden question of where will the ducks go, is actually a question for his future after running away from Pencey. This resonates with since I share the same question of “What will happen to me in the future” due to college being just…

Holden Caulfield is a 17 year old, who just got expelled from Pencey Prep, for failing all his classes except English. He makes it clear that he doesn’t feel sad about leaving the school because he didn’t connect with his fellow students. When he was at his dorm room his other roommates came in, the one telling him about his date tonight with Jane Gallagher, a friend of Holden. The roommate talks Holden into doing a homework assignment for him while he’s out. He writes about his deceased…

In J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the author uses symbolic images that the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, encounters. Holden in the novel goes through several life obstacles and tries to find acceptance to adulthood. Throughout the novel, Holden often acts the opposite of society and wishes for the present day to have more of the nostalgia he had in the past. The Catcher in the Rye illustrates how Holden tries to find stability and acceptance in a broken society full of phonies…

While some may think Holden Caulfield brought his depression on himself, others argue he just could not help it. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye touches both on the main antagonist Holden Caulfield’s disapproval of his social class and Holden’s journey of descending deeper into his mental state of depression. Due to his dislike of his social class, Holden finds himself separating from them and falls into a deep hole of depression and isolation because of the increasing pressure put on him…

Holden Caulfield is one of the most interesting and confusing characters in all of literature. He is the seventeen-year-old narrator and protagonist in The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger. Holden, who is in a mental institution, tells the story of a weekend spent in New York when he was sixteen after he was kicked out of his fourth school for failing four out of his five classes. Holden is a very opinionated boy who has been related to by teenagers over the last 60 years. Throughout the book,…

Throughout the song “Help!” by the Beatles, the singer is directly calling for assistance to get back up for the hardships in life that have brought him down. Related to the protagonist from Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Holden is also in need of help. The lyrics: “Help me get my feet back on the ground Won't you please, please help me”, demonstrates the singers signal for assistance, since he is pleading for guidance. Holden’s main hardships throughout the course of the book were fearing…

Theme is the subject, or topic, of a piece of writing, consisting of the main idea of the story. Authors will usually make the theme of text clear and consistent throughout the story. In the book “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger, there are a couple of different themes throughout the book. The two main themes in this novel are the feeling of exclusion and dealing with the reality of having to grow up, both in relation to depression. The feeling of exclusion is that Holden is feeling…

A Comparison of the Narrators of The Catcher in the Rye and “A & P” Both The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and “A & P” by John Updike use careful choices of language and details that aid in the characterization of their narrators. Salinger’s narrator, Holden, is a seventeen year old boy who is telling presumably a therapist the events that occurred after he was expelled from Pencey Prep. He tells the story in a first person “stream of consciousness” style and often goes off on…

J.D. Salinger’s character, Holden Caulfield, in the controversial 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…

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…