The story is being told through Holden’s point of view. This is an important part of the story as Holden’s narration reflect his inner turmoil and emotions vividly. Furthermore, the discrepancies that appear in the novel is a unique way to express Holden’s character as unreliable and contradictory.
9. The Catcher in the Rye writing style is very distinct due to Holden’s narration. Holden has a gritty narration style that not only accurately tells his experience, but also his disposition and turmoil throught. He talks like a teenager and seems to address the audience at times. The writing is very conversational, yet profound. Holden is actually talking to a therapist the whole time, but the writing makes his tale into a novel rather than a summary.
10. “I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.” This quote captures Holden’s inability to express himself in both ways. He’s confused and naive, unable to see what it is that holds him back from connecting to people. Even when Holden is aware of his faults, he refuses to acknowledge the fact and instead rationalizes, blaming the others around him and ignoring people’s attempts to reach him.
11. The main setting of the story is New York in both day and night. This setting exemplifies Holden’s disconnection with both sides of the city and its people. At
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The Catcher in the Rye holds many symbols, many of them relating to Holden. One is his red hunting hat. It symbolizes Holden’s individuality as one of a kind. The red also resembles Allie and Phoebe’s hair which is connected to youth and innocence. However, Holden also avoids showing it to people he knows. This reflects his underlying desire for attention and fear of being rejected for his true self. Another is the carrousel and Phoebe’s attempt to reach the gold rings. This symbolizes the act of reaching for one’s desire or goal despite the danger of it all. This ultimately changes Holden’s protective and naive view of
3) This quote reflects the overall theme of the book because it shows what kind of person Holden is. Considering, he didn't want to introduce himself.
...ents surrounding Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye depict the havoc that Holden perceives about his life. Holden has feelings of escaping the world which he considers full of phoniness and hypocrisy. These thoughts are representative of Holden’s method of avoiding adulthood, the fictitiousness of the adult world, and his strong desire to be heroic. At times, he believes that his only way of avoiding this adult world is mortality. He does not see a pleasant life ahead as an adult; Holden is already a teenager, which makes him closer to adulthood. The story ends with Holden’s confession that he misses everybody. He remembers good things along with the bad things, his love and closeness to Phoebe versus the profanity on the school wall. Distinctions between good and evil blend or fade away. All experiences have simply become a part of Holden Caulfield.
Need for Control in Catcher in the Rye? With his work, The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger created a literary piece that was completely unique. The entire novel was written from the first person viewpoint of the 17-year-old boy Holden Caulfield. The majority of the story is compiled of Holden's rudimentary monologue of “complexly simple” thoughts, the rest utilizing his relay of previous dialogue. That, along with the use of unique punctuation, digressive explanations, and complex characterization, transforms the simple plot into a complex literary classic.
Now having identified and explained all of Holden Caulfield’s emotional struggles between his curiosities with growing up and his need to preserve innocence through symbols and imagery, Holden begins to realize this efforts are useless. He is aware life goes on and everyone will be exposed to the cruelty and phoniness of the world at some point or another. He just believed he could postpone the inevitable truth for the ones he considered to be still innocent including himself.
Holden’s metamorphism throughout the book makes him a more likeable and relatable character. He no longer criticizes everything or feels inclined to hate every aspect of life. Holden is capable of great change and so are all people. Through learning more about your life in regards to others you become a better person. When reading The Catcher in the Rye, you learn how others view you and how they view themselves. The fascinating insight from this book improves your own self-worth and ability to sympathize with other people.
Reveals about situation: Similar to the previous chapter, this quote reveals how Holden masks and conceals his emotions. The reader is well aware that Holden is in fact a sensitive person, but the reader is also aware that he does not reveal his true emotions to other characters in the novel. Because of this character flaw, he does not like for others to show their emotions either. Therefore, this chapter not only elaborates on the previous chapter, but gives a deeper meaning to Holden and his insecurities.
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, is a story about a mentally troubled 16-year-old who experiences a plethora of emotions throughout his adventures in New York City. Not only do the events of the story shape Holden Caulfield, but events outside of his narration help to make him who he is. Holden’s life was negatively impacted by the death of his brother Allie, but the time he spends with his sister, Phoebe, on the carrousel helps to enable him to have a more positive outlook on life.
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.
In the first 15 chapters of Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, readers gain a sense of Holden's distracted and complex persona through both his scattered thoughts and interactions with other characters. As Holden expresses his heartbreaking loneliness by taking on and off his red hunting hat, he also labels strangers and friends alike as "phonies" following each exchange he has with them.
Holden, struggling to find his true identity fears the thought of change. Seeking the Museum of Natural History for the comfort of sameness, he expresses his admiration for the unchanging exhibits, “The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move.” (135) With continuous fear of change, Holden puts himself into an even further whirlwind of emotional distress and isolation, all while constantly picking apart everyone around him and judging them merely on the way that they speak or the words that they say. In the very first sentence of chapter three, Holden admits to being a liar, “I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It’s awful. If I’m on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I’m going, I’m liable to say I’m going to the opera. It’s terrible.”
Feeling vulnerable after leaving his fencing team’s equipment on the subway, Holden purchases his red hunting hat. “ In this sense, Holden's red hunting cap is both concrete evidence of how he does not fit into the Pencey mold and a symbol of the backwards hunt he will pursue in the wilds of Manhattan” (Pinsker, Pinsker 9). The red hunting hat manifests Holden’s uniqueness among his peers. He wears the hat backwards, connecting to the backwards trip he makes throughout New York City, eventually leading him to come to a sense of reality. The hat bestows him with a sense of confidence, "... I swung the old peak way around to the back - very corny, I'll admit, but I like it that way. I looked good in it that way" (Salinger 18). Holden exploits the hunting hat for protection, just as the thought of Allie did when Holden experienced the peak of his mental breakdown. Holden details, " My hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way, but I got soaked anyway." (Salinger 213). Connoting to Allie’s read hair, the hunting hat too, is red. This is Holden’s method of figuratively keeping his brother with him. “Protected only by the red hat, which he now wears like a baseball catcher as he evokes Allie's favorite sport” (Bryan 65), emphasizing Holden’s use of the hat as one of the last ways he can hold onto
The harshness of living independently in such an overwhelming environment is destructive to Holden’s innocence. If he had never been expelled from school than he could have maintained the remnants of his innocence in a safe and familiar environment. The loss of his brother combined with his expulsion from school causes damage to his innocence that he cannot repair. Holden is dismayed by his loss of innocence, and as outside factors push him farther into corruption his wishes to go back to when he was wholly
Stream of consciousness is a narrative device in which the author tries to mimic the natural thought processes through writing. Each thought, feeling and emotion flows freely through the mind like a stream. The use of stream of consciousness narrative style is vital in getting to know Holden. Not only does this style allow us to know how Holden is externally reacting to situations, we also get insight into his internal monologue. We can simultaneously learn about Holden's feelings at the time of the event as well as insight into his past.The reader's first
The novel charts Holden's experiences over a long period of time. It starts on a Saturday in December just before school closes for Christmas break. He has been informed of his expulsion from Pencey Prep School. What worries him most about being kicked out of school is his parents' reaction, for he has already been expelled from other educational institutions. Soon, Holden decides to go to New York. Holden encounters a large number of people as he travels the city of New York and goes into nightclubs.
The Title in Relation to the Events and Theme of The Cather in the Rye