Catcher in the Rye
J.D Salinger’s novel “Catcher in the Rye,” focuses mainly on Holden Caulfield because he is the narrator and the novel is about his memory of characters and events throughout the story. These characters are more than just remembrances but actually help the reader to better understand Holden. Mr. Antolini, Phoebe, and Jane Gallagher are all characters that help fully characterize Holden.
Mr. Antolini helps the reader better understand Holden’s hasty judgments about characters in the novel. He is one of the few people in the novel who Holden respects and does not consider a “phony.” Holden respects Mr. Antolini because he understands him and does not treat him like an inferior student like the rest of his teachers do. Mr. Antolini is very open with Holden and this is shown when he lets him stay the night in his apartment. Holden’s quick judgments of people are shown and better understood when Mr. Antolini touches his forehead while he sleeps in chapter 24. “I know more damn perverts, at schools and all, than anybody you ever met, and they’re always being perverty when I’m around.”(192) Holden jumps to conclusions right away when he wakes up to Mr. Antolini touching his forehead. Instead of thinking that his teacher was just showing affection and care for a student he is very quick to think that he is a pervert and homosexual. In the quote Holden says, “they’re always being perverty when I’m around,” this is more evidence that Holden jumps to conclusions and is quick with assumptions rather than to think about what it is to be a pervert. He thinks that he is just in the wrong place at the wrong time but it is more likely that he just assumes they are being “perverty” when they are truly not. Another example of Holden being quick with judgment is directly after the incident happens. Without letting the incident sink in, Holden changes into his clothes and runs out of the apartment. Mr. Antolini and the events that take place in his apartment help the reader fully understand Holden. Mr. Antolini is a compassionate person and his actions are out of care for his friend and student, Holden’s quick and hasty judgment is shown when he overlooks Mr. Antolini’s concern and affection for a homosexual advance.
Phoebe is another character that helps the reader bet...
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...y voice was shaking something awful.” Holden’s helplessness to realize that sex can be casual is showing that he is immature and that he doesn’t want to let go of his childhood innocence. Jane’s character, a girl who Holden knows very well and has affection for, has casual sex which makes Holden very upset, this helps the reader better understand Holden’s immatureness and his refusal to let go of his childhood innocence.
In the novel “Catcher in the Rye” the reader is able to better understand Holden by the characters in his remembrances. Mr. Antolini, a person who shows affection for Holden, shows the reader that Holden makes quick assumptions and judgments with characters in the novel. Phoebe, Holden’s younger sister, makes it evident to the reader that Holden does not want to grow up, mature, and have a future as an adult. Jane Gallagher’s character also helps the reader better understand Holden by making it evident that he does not want to let go of his childhood innocence. Although Holden’s character is the main focus of the novel, his remembrances of other key characters help define him and give the reader a better understanding of who he is.
In J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, The main character Holden, is a lost individual that has certain people that have immense impact on his life although they never appear in the novel. Holden’s Journey starts when he runs away from his school and travels to New York City. In the city he has many experiences with girls and other people that eventually make him realize home is where he needs to be. Holden finally decides to go home to his family and especially to see his sister, Phoebe. Allie and Jane are two characters that Holden talks in thinks about a good amount in the novel, and because of it they impact his thoughts as well as his behaviors throughout his time in New York City, and in the novel as a whole.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger is a popular novel that was originally published in the 1950’s. In the book, Salinger explores various themes through the main character Holden and his interactions with others. Some of these themes include, alienation, loss and betrayal. Holden constantly feels betrayed throughout the novel by several people, including his roommate, teacher, and sister.
Due to J.D Salinger’s personal and relatable narrative treatment, Catcher in the Rye continues to engage audiences, even 64 years after it was first published. The way the book deals with alienation and disillusionment in regards to Holden’s past trauma - through the closeness of first person narration and conversational writing among other techniques - creates a personal connection to Holden’s character and helps adolescents relate his troubles to their own.
Thesis statement: The relationship Holden and Blanche have between family and people in society leads them to an inner turmoil, which eventually results in their psychological breakdowns.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is an enthralling and captivating novel about a boy and his struggle with life. The teenage boy ,Holden, is in turmoil with school, loneliness, and finding his place in the world. The author J.D. Salinger examines the many sides of behavior and moral dilemma of many characters throughout the novel. The author develops three distinct character types for Holden the confused and struggling teenage boy, Ackley, a peculiar boy without many friends, and Phoebe, a funny and kindhearted young girl.
Holden Caulfield, portrayed in the J.D. Salinger novel Catcher in the Rye as an adolescent struggling to find his own identity, possesses many characteristics that easily link him to the typical teenager living today. The fact that the book was written many years ago clearly exemplifies the timeless nature of this work. Holden's actions are those that any teenager can clearly relate with. The desire for independence, the sexually related encounters, and the questioning of ones religion are issues that almost all teens have had or will have to deal with in their adolescent years. The novel and its main character's experiences can easily be related to and will forever link Holden with every member of society, because everyone in the world was or will be a teen sometime in their life.
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, describes a period of time in a young
In JD Salingers' Catcher in the Rye, a troubled teenager named Holden Caufield struggles with the fact that everyone has to grow up. The book gets its title from Holden's constant concern with the loss of innocence. He did not want children to grow up because he felt that adults are corrupt. This is seen when Holden tries to erase naughty words from the walls of an elementary school where his younger sister Phoebe attended. "While I was sitting down, I saw something that drove me crazy.
In 1950 J.D. Salenger captures one of society’s tragedies, the breakdown of a teenager, when he wrote The Catcher In The Rye. Holden Caulfield, a fickle “man” is not even a man at all. His unnecessary urge to lie to avoid confrontation defeats manhood. Holden has not matured and is unable to deal with the responsibility of living on his owe. He childishly uses a hunter’s hat to disguise him self from others. The truth of his life is sad and soon leads to his being institutionalized. He tries to escape the truth with his criticisms. Knowing he will never meet his parents’ expectations, his only true friend is his eight-year-old sister Phoebe, to whom Holden tells that he really wants to be ‘the catcher in the rye”. Holden admits his only truth and shows that Phoebe is his only friend. Another form of escape for Holden is his acting, which he uses to excuse the past. Holden has tried to lie, hide, and blame his way through life; when he finds that it is not the answer he collapses.
Holden is afraid to leave his precious/innocent childhood behind and enter the corrupted, evil society adults and ha trouble accepting adults and society. Mr. Antolini basically is saying He’s falling down the rye, and still hasn’t hit rock bottom because he can’t fully understand adults and society. Everything doesn’t make sense to him, from adults being complete phonies to sex. He can’t understand adults which is why his transition from childhood and adulthood is very difficult and complex for him. His own actions and decisions often contradict itself due to, to opposing “worlds” of Holden. Childhood and
Holden never seems to have a pleasant time interacting with the adults and the world they've created. Holden describes the hotel he was staying at as being "lousy with perverts (Salinger 62).” At the hotel, Holden characterizes every adult he sees as a pervert. He does not know any of them but because they are grown up he sees them strictly as perverts, despite who they truly may be. However, Holden does try to fit in amongst these alleged “perverts” but later in the novel his inability to engage with a prostitute demonstrates how despite his efforts to belong in the adult world he is still childlike. Salinger uses Holden's childlike ways along with his inability to conform to societal normalities to express how he views the adult world as something he doesn't want to fully commit to. Salinger puts Holden is suspended development in order to prove how hard it is to fully belong in the adult world, especially if its occupants are already corrupt in their own ways. Throughout the novel Holden prefers the company of children over the company of adults as he believes adults to be fake and perverted. While at Ernie’s bar one of D.B.’s old acquaintances, Lillian Simmons, strikes up a conversation with Holden. Lillian hasn’t uttered the words to Holden when he prematurely deems her “strictly a phony (Salinger 86).” Holden wants nothing to do with
The relationship between gods and mortals in mythology has long been a complicated topic. The gods can be generous and supportive, and also devastating and destructive to any group of humans. Mortals must respect the powers above them that cannot be controlled. The gods rule over destiny, nature, and justice, and need to be recognized and worshipped for the powerful beings as they are. Regardless of one's actions, intentions, and thoughts, the gods in Greek myth have ultimate power and the final decision of justice over nature, mortals, and even each other.
The book, Catcher in the Rye, has been steeped in controversy since it was banned in America after its first publication. John Lennon’s assassin Mark Chapman, asked the former Beatle to sign a copy of the book earlier in the morning of the day he murdered Lennon. Police found the book in his possession upon apprehending the psychologically disturbed Chapman. However, the book itself contains nothing that might have lead Chapman to act as he did. It could have been just any book that he was reading the day he decided to kill John Lennon and as a result, it was the Catcher in the Rye, a book describing a nervous breakdown, that caused the media to speculate widely about the possible connection. This gave the book even more recognition. The character Holden Caulfield ponders the thoughts of death, accuses ordinary people of being phonies, and expresses his love for his sister through out the novel. So what is the book Catcher in the Rye really about?
He even condemns people he doesn’t know as phonies, such as the man that his
The protagonist, Holden Caulfield, interacts with many people throughout J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, but probably none have as much impact on him as certain members of his immediate family. The ways Holden acts around or reacts to the various members of his family give the reader a direct view of Holden's philosophy surrounding each member.