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While Holden Caulfield years for companionship and care, at the same time he wants to be by himself. This leads to problems where Holden decides to meet up with people who he doesn’t like out of desperation, then bashes the person in their presence. The people near Holden aren’t a desirable person per say, and Holden aspires to be with people he is unable too. Holden would rather stay away from people to keep himself safe from the hurt they can cause them. Holden can’t stand the company he has because they aren't real, he cares about them too much, or they aren't there. Throughout the novel Holden meets with people for drinks or love that only makes himself feel worse in the end. For instance, when Holden first meets up with Sally, he felt …show more content…
This is mostly toward Holden’s deceased brother Allie, who passed away due to Leukemia. This was the most detrimental to Holden because you can see exactly how this affected him. On the night of his passing, Holden was in his garage breaking all of the glass windows. Holden even,” Tried to break all the windows on the station wagon we had that summer, but my hands was already broken and everything by that time, and I couldn’t do it (Salinger 39).” Losing a family member at the age of thirteen changes who you become. But the real reason he loves Allie so much is because he passed away. Holden’s whole dream was to be a Catcher in the Rye and protecting the innocents of children. Since Allie passed, the only way Holden can recall him is through his memories, where he lives forever innocent. That's the reason why Holden holds onto his “Caul” as he is falling throughout the story, to protect the innocents of Allie and not let him fall with himself. The only person that Holden was able to catch in the rye was Allie, being forever innocent in the mind of …show more content…
Before she rides on it the first time, he gives the “Protection hat” to her as she rides it, protecting her symbolically if she falls trying to reach for the gold rings. As soon as the ride finishes, she runs to Holden and gives him the hat back. She goes straight back to the ride and continues to reach for the ring without his brother’s protection. That’s the whole reason why Holden finds the moment so beautiful. He got to see his sister grow up, which is exactly what he needed to stop falling. Holden is the father that Phoebe needs, being as her parents were not in the scene. Holden hates phonies and tries to avoid them because of the pain they cause him, he strays from Jane to keep her innocent in his head, and to keep Allie safe in Holden’s rye
J.D Salinger gives his personal vision of the world successfully through his persona Holden Caulfield in the ‘Catcher in the Rye’. Caulfield struggles with the background of New York to portray Salinger’s theme – you must live the world as it is, not as you would like it to be. There by exposing Salinger’s vision on the world.
This metaphorically explains how he feels about Allie. Holden wishes he could somehow save him from leukemia, even though it is uncontrollable. Also, when his sister, Phoebe, rides the carousel Holden thinks about telling her to be careful and not fall, but he refrains because he realizes if she falls, she falls; there is nothing he can do about it. This is significant because it shows how he is learning to understand that he has to let children live their lives and grow on their own. Holden initially wants to be a guardian for all children protecting them from pain, but he later learns that his approach of being overprotective is not
Holden’s childhood was far from ideal, with Allie dying, his dysfunctional parents and the revelation that he had some “perverty” stuff happen to him when he was a kid. Due to this, he isn't ready to step into adulthood and leave his childhood behind. This is why Holden is mostly alienated from adults and connects more to the innocence of children like the girl at the park and his sister, Phoebe. However, Holden is disillusioned with both adulthood and childhood. He already knows how it feels to be an adult; drinking alcohol, being independent, living by himself and caring for Phoebe, but isn’t ready to immerse himself in it.
Holden’s apparent desire to be separated from the majority of his family and friends appears to have been triggered by the death of his younger brother Allie. From Allie’s there has been a downward spiral in Holden’s relationships, as he begins to avoid contact with others and isolate himself more. The reason I believe this is because we can see how immense his anger is after Allie’s death, ‘I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist’. The death of Allie has become like an awakening to Holden, and has alerted him how precious childhood innocence is, when Holden comes to this realisation he convinces himself to do everything within his power to protect the innocence of himself and those around him, to protect them from what he sees as a false adult world. Although Holden clearly fails to protect himself, as he falls into all sorts of situations which hardly boasts of innocence and virt... ...
He's so used to the idea of being alone that it becomes what he wants. Holden is so petrified of losing the people he is closest to, so he decides to not be close with anyone. He is afraid of the same repercussions from Allie. He would rather keep to himself than risk contentment, rationality, and stability. He for so many days after his removal from Pencey would by himself go to bars alone and try to drink away his pain. “I guess it was because I was feeling so damn depressed and lonesome” (Salinger 198). It’s during this time that Holden is falling down a dark, bottomless pit of depression and loneliness. It eventually almost became the death of him when he had isolated himself so much. He became sick, depressed, and full of anxiety. His decision to distance himself weakened him beyond his belief. “I still had that headache. It was even worse. And I think I was more depressed than I ever was in my whole life” (Salinger 252). His depression was starting to get the best of him and all he needed was to be comforted by someone other than
Holden alienates himself by believing he is better than everybody else. Every time Holden meets or talks about someone he is judgemental. Even when he is talking about someone he spends time with, he cannot help but ridicule them, “I never even once saw him [Ackley] brush his teeth....he had a lot of pimples. Not just on his forehead or his chin, like most guys, but all over his whole face. And not only that, he had a terrible personality. He was also sort of a nasty guy. I wasn't too crazy about him, to tell you the truth.”(Salinger,14 ). Ackley is probably the closest thing to a friend Holden has. Yet he criticizes him is a very nitpicky way, convincing himself he does not like
However, his feelings suggest that the true reason for his depression is his loss of Innocence. When he was 13 years old, he lost his little brother Allie to leukemia. Allie meant a lot to Holden. He even becomes a symbol in the book. Allie is the one who keeps Holden from falling of the cliff, he’s the reason that he hasn’t lost his innocence yet. “Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down, and nobody'd ever see me again. Boy, did it scare me. You can't imagine. I started sweating like a bastard—my whole shirt and underwear and everything. Then I started doing something else. Every time I'd get to the end of a block I'd make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I'd say to him, "Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Please, Allie." And then when I'd reach the other side of the street without disappearing, I'd thank him.” (Sallinger) In this part, Allie plays the role as the Catcher in the Rye and keeps Holden from falling of the cliff. This is why i believe that Holden wants to become a “ Catcher in the Rye”. He wants to help people like Allie has helped him. He feels that it's what he’d meant to do with his
Another part where Phoebe shows her influence on Holden is when Holden states, “… the kids were trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the horse. The thing… is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it…if they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them.” Holden feels that by letting Phoebe ride alone, he will make good for her, something that his parents did not give him. At the same time, Holden reveals his feelings towards his Allie, who he loves and takes care of.
He was driven to become unstable. Throughout the novel he gets increasingly wacky with the continued corruption of his innocence. The final revelation that he could not save himself or others caused him to snap. All of the depression, loneliness, and frustration bottled inside burst, causing an emotional breakdown, “I was damn near bawling...I don’t know why” (Salinger 213). The difficulty about being a tragic hero, however, is that Holden will never overcome his fault. So when he says in the end, “This one psychoanalyst guy they have here, keeps asking me if I’m going to apply myself when I go back to school next September. It’s such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what you’re going to do till you do it?” (Salinger 213). Holden’s uncertainty about the future means he will continue his cycle of self defeating behavior until he either learns to accept adulthood, or dies rejecting it, like in Mr. Antolini
From the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the youthful protagonist Holden Caufield, employs the word “phony” to describe the behavior of a number of characters including Mr. Spencer and Ossenburger, however it is not them who are“phony”, it is the young main character. First, Mr. Spencer, Holden’s ex- history teacher, is not described as phony, but according to the adolescent, his choice of words are. Secondly, according to our main character, Ossenburger is not the generous philanthropist he portrays himself to be, but rather a greedy undertaker. Lastly, the protagonist could quite possibly be the authentic phony. All in all, the main character’s use to describe many other characters in the book is with the single word phony, when in fact the word phony would be the most probable word to describe the lead character.
The negative light that Holden views the world under is a key contribution to his unhappiness. He is unable to see even a glint of sincerity in people’s actions which allows him to experience feelings of severe despondency and dejection. “People never give your message to anybody,” (pg. 166) shows how Holden no longer feels let down by people but instead expects the worst from them instead. He struggles to find genuinity in people’s actions, and in turn feels “lousy and depressed,” by nearly everything. Holden is constantly seen bringing down the adult world. It is shown he has an inner conflict between his adult and child self, leading him to feeling lost and without a place. He is disgusted by the adult world describing it as a place filled with “phonies” but, views adolescence as a source of happiness. He shows a direct fear of change by stating, “The best thing...was that everything always stayed right where it was.” (pg. 135). As Holden is being pushed out of his childhood and into an area where he feels out of place, it is only inevitable that this would be a source of his depression. Both of these internal conflicts add to Holden Caulfield’s
Allie was someone he loved and cared for more than anyone, he glorified Allie to the point of worship as he recounts that “it wasn’t just that he was the most intelligent member in the family. He was also the nicest …. God, he was a nice kid”(43-44). When he dies Holden passes his breaking point and never has recovered. Holden keeps everything inside, yet when his brother dies, a different side of Holden that is deeply real is revealed. This is exemplified when he describes when he hears of Allies death in the garage “I slept in the garage the night he dies, and I broke all the goddamn windows in the garage...I even tried to break all the windows on the station wagon...but my hand was already broken...I hardly didn’t know I was doing it, and you didn’t know Allie”(44). This shows a key factor in how Holden deals with pain, he would rather deal with physical pain than emotional pain as it is
Holden struggles with himself mightily and cannot fulfill his responsibilities. One of Holden’s struggles is that he has a bad attitude towards everyone. For example, at the school he goes to, he hates his roommates and his teachers. In addition to not liking anyone, Holden
Holden tries to preserve his own innocence, and the innocence of others by not letting go of childhood memories and through his desire to suspend time. Holden views the adult world as corrupt and full of phonies. He admires childhood because of how it is free of corruption, and untouched by the adult world. IN order to preserve his own innocence Holden often attaches himself to childhood memories. The Museum of NAtural History is one of Holden’s favourite places . He mentions that his grade one teacher Miss. Aigletinger used to take his class there every saturday. While writing about the museum he says, “The best thing, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was” (121). This shows how Holden wants to preserve his innocence because he expresses how he likes how everything stayed the
J.D. Salinger, in his novel The Catcher in the Rye, shows that often times when an individual faces problems in their life they will try to find a means to escape, instead of solving them. Throughout the novel, Holden seems to be excluded from any group. He feels alienated from the rest of society, but I believe that Holden stays bitter on purpose. He keeps a cynical, sarcastic outlook on life so as to escape his true feelings. This is not uncommon for people who have trouble accepting their problems.