Comparing Catcher In The Rye 'And A Dark-Brown Dog'

840 Words2 Pages

Innocence is something we all tried to preserve. A task that is impossible. Some lose it earlier, some older. In the catcher in the rye and “A Dark-Brown Dog” It is evident that both story’s protagonists are have trouble preserving their innocence. This is important because they have conflicting feelings, show signs of destruction, and are emerging as adults. Conflicting feelings is an important aspect to both stories because it shows the true characteristics of the character. As when Holden said to Sally “You’re probably the only reason I’m in New York right now, or anywhere…” (Salinger 131) then said when he got mad at her “You give me a royal pain in the ass’ (Salinger 133) In These quotes Holden shows that he first adored sally and loved …show more content…

For example in Catcher in the Rye Holden says “What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window(Salinger 104). In this quote Holden feels that he wants to commit suicide because he had a bad night by getting beat therefore he wants to cause destruction to himself. In other words, he feels that he must cause destruction when he feels scrap. This is equally so when the boy from “A dark-Brown Dog” when “he dragged his captive into a hall and up many long stairways in a dark tenement”(Crane 2). This shows how the child was torturing the dog. This occurred after the dog tripped on a rope which cause the boy to then feel like giving out anger towards the dog making a mistake. To clarify, both characters feel that they need to feel a need to destroy either themselves or something because of not feeling satisfied with an outcome. For example when Holden tried to fight the prostitute manager and got beaten badly. He felt the need to want to commit suicide. Also for the boy, of when the dog made a mistake and tripped on the rope he felt the need to have to let his anger towards the dog. Through the destruction and mixed feeling, it then leads the path towards emerging as an

Show More
Related

  • Free Essays - Catcher in the Rye

    773 Words  | 2 Pages

    Salinger went through many of the experiences Holden went though.  Salinger much like Holden had a sister that he loved very much, in the novel Phoebe is the only person that Holden speaks highly of; both men also spent time in a mental institution; Holden is telling the story from inside a institution; they were both kicked out of prep school and most importantly they were both a recluse from society.  This is why Salinger uses Holden as his persona all though out the book.  The ‘catcher in they Rye’ is almost like an autobiography for Salinger. He is using Holden as his persona to let us, the reader, dive into his thought pattern and find out some of the thoughts that he kept locked up in there.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Rhetorical Devices In The Thing Hings They Carried

    901 Words  | 2 Pages

    Analyzing innocence has always been a difficult task, not only due to it’s rapid reevaluation in the face of changing societal values, but also due to the highly private and personal nature of the concept. The differences between how people prioritize different types of innocence - childhood desires, intellectual naivety, sexual purity, criminal guilt, etc. - continually obscures the definition of innocence. This can make it difficult for people to sympathize with others’ loss of purity, simply because their definition of that loss will always be dissimilar to the originally expressed idea. Innocence can never truly be adequately described, simply because another will never be able to precisely decipher the other’s words. It is this challenge, the challenge of verbally depicting the isolationism of the corruption of innocence, that Tim O’Brien attempts to endeavour in his fictionalized memoir, The

    Read More

  • Comparing The Catcher In The Rye And A Streetcar Named Desire

    314 Words  | 1 Pages

    The bildungsroman ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D Salinger and the play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ by Tennessee Williams are both post-World War Two narratives which incorporate protagonists that challenge contemporary American attitudes. Blanche DuBois and Holden Caufield are quintessential examples of characters who subvert societal expectations, impositions and hegemony of America in the late 1940s and early 50s, the author and playwright have the plot revolve around these characters and their itinerant lifestyles as they literally and socially move from one milieu to another. Both Salinger and Williams use a plethora of literary devices such as symbolism, juxtaposition and imagery whether it is visual, auditory or olfactory to highlight

    Read More

  • Alienation In Catcher In The Rye

    590 Words  | 2 Pages

    Catcher in the Rye, by J.D Salinger is about a boy named Holden Caulfield who struggles with the codes of conduct his upper class lifestyle follows. For Holden, loss of innocence is not about smoking a cigarette as much as it is about his realization that the rules placed on him by society are phony. Holden distracts himself by focusing on his feelings of alienation because he does not want to face his own deep sadness over his own loss of innocence.

    Read More

  • Preservation of Innocence In The Catcher in the Rye

    1009 Words  | 3 Pages

    Have you ever pondered about when growing up, where does our childlike innocence go and what happens to us to go through this process? It involves abandoning previous memories that are close to our hearts. As we can see in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, we listen to what the main character; Holden Caulfield has to say about it. Holden is an average teenager dealing with academic and life problems. He remains untouched over his expulsion from Pencey Prep; rather, he takes the opportunity to take a “vacation.” As he ventures off companionless in New York City, we are able to observe many things about him. We see that Holden habitually states that he is depressed and undoubtedly, wants to preserve the innocence of others.

    Read More

  • The catcher in the rye and the stranger

    570 Words  | 2 Pages

    have so clearly portrayed in both books. But as much as both have been alienated, one is

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Catcher In The Rye And Lord Of The Flies

    104 Words  | 1 Pages

    Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait”. These are three demands used commonly for writing fiction.

    Read More

  • The Innocence of Childhood in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

    1249 Words  | 3 Pages

    Growing up and becoming mature can be an intimidating experience; it is difficult to let go of one’s childhood and embrace the adult world. For some people, this transition from youthfulness to maturity can be much more difficult than for others. These people often try to hold on to their childhood as long as they can. Unfortunately, life is not so simple. One cannot spend their entire life running from the responsibilities and hardships of adulthood because they will eventually have to accept the fact that they have a role in society that they must fulfill as a responsible, mature individual. The novel “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger follows the endeavours of Holden Caulfield, a sixteen-year-old teenage boy who faces a point in his life where he must make the transition from childhood to adulthood. In an attempt to retain his own childhood, he begins hoping to stop other young children from growing up and losing their innocence as well. As indicated by the title, “The Catcher in the Rye” is a book that explores a theme involving the preservation of innocence, especially of children. It is a story about a boy who is far too hesitant to grow up, and feels the need to ensure that no one else around him has to grow up either. His own fear of maturity and growing up is what leads to Holden’s desire to become a “catcher in the rye” so he can save innocent children from becoming part of the “phoniness” of the adult world.

    Read More

  • Holden's Pessimistic View of the World in The Catcher in the Rye

    826 Words  | 2 Pages

    Holden is a pessimistic, remote, and miserable character and he expresses this attitude through dialogue, tone, and diction. Throughout the book he has remained to be a liar, a failure, a loner, and lastly, a suicidal guy who feels like he has no purpose in life. Perhaps Salinger expressed his perceptions and emotions of his teen years in this book and it was a form of conveying his deep inner feelings of his childhood. Readers can see this clearly shown in The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger.

    Read More

  • Comparing The Catcher In The Rye And Ordinary People

    1024 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tragedy changes one drastically, whether it is in a negative or positive way. Something that used to be the norm, is no longer there. It has a ripple affect on the surrounding people. One person, one life, affects hundreds. Why does such a horrible thing happen? Is it just another case of being a victim of circumstance? Both of those questions are examined through the books The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and Ordinary People by Judith Guest as they follow the lives two troubled teenage boys, Holden Caulfield and Conrad Jarrett. While some may believe that two books stylistically differ, ultimately they relate more through the mutual themes of depression and the way one copes with it, social acceptance, and family tragedies.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Catcher In The Rye And Holden Caulfield

    1319 Words  | 3 Pages

    After his brother died, he broke the windows in the garage (Salinger 39). This moment where he lost his brother, affected him forever; he is never the same. Later on, there is an occurrence where he cries after getting robbed and punched by a pimp. This shows that he still at a child-like state because he is not mature enough to handle the situation. When Holden and Sally go skating, he has a mental breakdown when they take a break at a bar. He starts asking Sally a bunch of questions. Then he asks her if she would “like to get the hell out of here” (Salinger 132). Holden quickly changes the subject and goes from one thing to another. He even abruptly asks Sally to run away with him and marry him. Earlier he says that he “sort of hated Sally by the time [they] got in the cab” (Salinger 128). It is odd of Holden to ask Sally to marry him when he does not even like her. This shows that he is not emotionally stable and cannot organize his feelings. Based off of Freud’s Topographic theory, this is Holden’s unconscious (Polukis). These random outbursts that Holden has, shows that he is repressing his fears and traumas. In the same way, Salinger “had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for combat-related stress in an Army hospital” (Teicholz). Salinger became emotionally unstable after he was in World War Two and Holden becomes unstable after his brother dies. After Salinger’s break down, he

    Read More

  • Holden Caulfield: Bipolar with Multiple Personality Symptoms?

    1115 Words  | 3 Pages

    Holden has continually displayed evidence of a bipolar issue and multiple personality symptoms. For starters, one minute Holden is discussing how much he is revolted by the movies in every way, but the next is attending a premiere with Sally Hayes. “If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention them to me...but the worst part was that you could tell they all wanted to go to the movies. I couldn't stand looking at them. I can understand somebody going to the movies because there's nothing else to do, but when somebody really wants to go, and even walks fast so as to get there quicker, then it depresses the hell out of me.” (Salinger 2 & 116). Holden is incapable of making up his mind and hypocr...

    Read More

  • Catcher in the Rye Essay: Holden and the Complexity of Adult Life

    1175 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Catcher in the Rye is not all horror of this sort. There is a wry humor in this sixteen-year-old's trying to live up to his height, to drink with men, to understand mature sex and why he is still a virgin at his age. His affection for children is spontaneous and delightful. There are few little girls in modern fiction as charming and lovable as his little sister, Phoebe. Altogether this is a book to be read thoughtfully and more than once. It is about an unusually sensitive and intelligent boy; but, then, are not all boys unusual and worthy of understanding? If they are bewildered at the complexity of modern life, unsure of themselves, shocked by the spectacle of perversity and evil around them - are not adults equally shocked by the knowledge that even children cannot escape this contact and awareness?

    Read More

  • Catcher In The Rye And Night Comparison

    565 Words  | 2 Pages

    Imagine being all alone in the world or that everyone around you is dying. It is not a pleasant picture however Ellie Wiesel along with Holden Caulfield went through this horrific experience. Holden from the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger wants to avoid growing up because of all he has suffers. On the other hand, there is Ellie Wiesel who is the author of Night; one can see how his belief in humanity and God fades throughout the story. Both characters have a strong transformation along the narrative like losing faith as well as losing their childhood that changes their thought of life.

    Read More

  • Catcher In The Rye And To Kill A Mockingbird Comparison Essay

    692 Words  | 2 Pages

    Through the development of characters that are outsiders, literature is a way of questioning the values of society which is recognized throughout, Harper Lee’s novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and J.D. Salinger’s novel ‘The Catcher in the rye’. These two stories feature completely different plots, although the two books show multiple overlapping themes. Outsiders are often perceived to be the odd one out, and they show this by the way they act, and the way they make themselves known. Both Scout from ‘To kill a mocking bird’, and Holden from ‘The Catcher in the rye’ are seen as foreigners but for wholly different reasons.

    Read More

More about Comparing Catcher In The Rye 'And A Dark-Brown Dog'

Open Document