Joan Wasser

Holden the main character of Catcher in the Rye, is a seventeen-year-old who acts childish. The many actions he in an attempt to become is similar to an irresponsible adult’s attempts to become a more mature one. In his many experiences towards adulthood he smokes cigarettes, and although it’s unhealthy it’s one of the only ways he can seem like an adult. However, there is one drawback, and it’s that Holden wants to do childish things. His image of adults throughout the book is that they’re a…

Throughout the course of the novel, it is apparent that Caulfield is struggling from some type of “internal clash” (Gaynor 88) that causes him to feel the amount of resentment toward society that he does. Many critics argue that Salinger’s depiction of the painful transition through adolescence in The Catcher in the Rye closely resembles his own life journey. Wan Roselezam Wan Yahya and Ruzbeh Babaee, two professors at University Putra Malaysia, discuss this connection in their 2014 critical…

Aristotle Mendoza - Ari is the main character of the book, being the novel’s POV. He starts out as 15 and ends at 17 years old. In the beginning of the novel, he is a friendless angry teen with no self-confidence and has an elder brother in prison. He thinks life is boring until he finally meets Dante Quintana. Ari is straight in the beginning but throughout his experiences with Dante, he draws to a conclusion that he is gay. Dante Quintana - Dante is the second main character. He also starts…

In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the main character, Holden Caulfield, has many issues. He likes to push his problems onto others, judge them with his internal thought, and isn’t willing to work on any of his personal issues. Holden Caulfield doesn’t take responsibility for his actions and tends to blame society for his problems. Whenever Holden has a bad experience, he’s very quick to blame society and other people around him. For example, Holden blames the general population…

When adolescents are faced with the issue of ‘growing up’ many of them pounce on the opportunity to be labelled as a mature and responsible adult. In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s refusal to grow up fuels his journey to explore the boundaries between adolescence and adulthood and find a place for himself in a society he detests. Throughout the novel, it is the children and adults whom he encounters, as well as his internal struggles that allow him to understand his…

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…

Holden’s Struggle with Mental Illness J.D. Salinger is the author of the controversial novel The Catcher in the Rye. The story depicts the short span of Holden Caulfield’s few days in winter after being kicked out of Pencey Prep, a prestigious school Holden was attending. His journey is off to a rough start after Holden still has not completely accepted the death of his younger brother, so he tries forming new relationships with people and rekindle old friendships. After numerous failures,…

In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, it is clear that the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, struggles to deal with a myriad of issues that weigh heavy on his mental health. Salinger utilizes cynical narration to display the difficulty Holden has blending in with a world full of “phonies” as he calls them. As the story progresses Holden’s imagination and fantasies stray further and further away from reality, to the point where he even longs to live in solitude in a cabin in the woods. Holden is also…

J.D. Salinger’s, The Catcher in the Rye, is generally discerned as the story of a sixteen year old boy, known as Holden Caulfield, who struggles to find peace after his brother’s death. Holden wanders aimlessly around New York in the winter for two days and attempts to save children from falling into adulthood and becoming what he calls, phonies. He, generally, will settle until genuine feelings are shown, which leads to his running away. Salinger captures the significance of Holden’s late…

Although the movie Igby Goes Down is based on The Catcher in the Rye, there are a few minute differences in the demeanors of the two main protagonists, Igby and Holden. Both struggle in education as well as life, and seeks an escape from it, but their reactions to this failure outline severely different futures for each protagonist. Even though Igby endured unique experiences in the adult world, Holden is more likely to apply himself due to his reactions to his own failures, as well as his…