One Last Breath

way to talk to people or respect them. To others, his actions come through as annoying which he finds himself in constant blame of the actions of other people. This makes him completely detached from everyone, even Phoebe. Isolates himself from the one person he loves most when Phoebe stated that she wants to run away with Holden he tells her immediately…

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger is about a young boy named Holden whose struggling through a traumatic experience from his younger brothers death, Allie, to his parents sending him to boarding school because of expressing his feelings. You will see the symbols Holden leaves and the signs of depression, focusing on his overall progression and development throughout the book. With the three most important symbols that he shows of his sadness and depression from the red hunting hat, the…

These children are never shown in a negative manner (unlike nearly every other character in the book), Salinger thus demonstrates to the reader that the example these maturing children are setting is a positive one. Holden, however, displays a lack of understanding of the growing process. To “be the catcher in the rye”(p.225) and prevent children from engaging in any hardships (especially those that are a result of the maturing process) is what holden believes…

In the 1950s through 1960s, about twenty books were banned. One of these books included the now award-winning novel The Catcher in the Rye. This is a story about a 16-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield as he is in New york alone after being kicked out of his Prep School. In this novel, J.D. Salinger addresses the topic of human sexuality and offensive language from the perspective of Holden Caulfield. In the 1950s and 1960s, books that spoke about sexual topics and had very explicit language…

The inability to value consequences is expressed by J.D. Salinger in many of his writings, and is especially relevant in his award winning novel, The Catcher in the Rye. The central message in a majority of Salinger’s writings is that you cannot run away from your problems, for the consequences always catch up to you in the end. Balancing on the line of adolescence and adulthood, J.D. Salinger provides the reader with a first-hand psychological analysis on the struggles of a teenager entering…

As human beings we are subjected to what our society calls “perfection” and what the world calls “normal”. Adults and children alike are constantly bombarded with what we should look like, wear, act, who we should hang out with and etc. For Holden Caulfield, from Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, his idea of what should be sought after is to be submerged in innocence. At times he struggles with this idea and may act out in anger or may act upon adult ideas but all in all. Although Holden…

Life is one big story of irony, it is ironic because life never guarantees anything but death. The irony in Holden Caulfield’s life is that although he believes strongly that ‘phonies’ are what is wrong with the world, he is the biggest one. Nobody in his life knows who the real him is, and it seems that nobody ever will. Holden does not want anybody to know who he truly is inside, and on the outside, he is a pessimistic, sarcastic, and a type A wannabe. There are two pieces of irony in Holden…

understand his problems. “You’d like her. I mean if you tell old Phoebe something, she knows exactly what the hell you’re talking about” (p. 67). Therefore, Holden doesn’t want Phoebe to grow up, because he afraid that one day she will change and lose her child innocence. She is the one he can trust and she is not “phony” like almost everyone else. He was able to open her a secret about his dream to be catcher in the rye for kids, someone who will hold them from falling, because when he was…

Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, Holden often makes the claim that he is depressed. One example of this is when Holden is getting ready to sneak out of Pencey High School and says, “One thing about packing depressed me a little. I had to pack these brand-new ice skates my mother had practically just sent me a couple days before” (Salinger 58). Holden is truly depressed despite sounding sarcastic and fake. One of the reasons for Holden’s depression is that he feels guilty about how disappointed…

sadness and doubts just like Holden. These along with other less significant differences make Holden Caulfield rather irrelevant to modern teenagers. It is clearly seen that academics were of little worry to Holden. He showed this by failing all but one of his classes and by having previously been kicked out of school for poor grades. In the modern world there is a huge emphasis on doing well in school to set oneself up for going to a good college and obtaining a good job. This is validated by…