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The catcher in the rye secondary character essay
Aspect of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye that is interesting to you
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In chapter one, Holden’s tone is caustic, incoherent, and bitter. Beginning the novel, Holden says, “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it to tell you the truth. [...] I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything” (Salinger 3). Conveying Holden’s bitterness through word choice and syntax, the author delivers a message to his readers about what to expect the rest of the novel in terms of language and tone. His use of the words crap, lousy, and goddam all render to Holden’s pungent …show more content…
Spencer would not feel too bad about flunking him. After seeing that Mr. Spencer felt pretty lousy about flunking him, he tried to make him feel better: “So I shot the bull for a while. I told him I was a real moron, and all that stuff. I told him how I would’ve done exactly the same thing if I’d been in his place, and how most people didn’t appreciate how tough it is being a teacher. That kind of stuff. The old bull” (17). The readers can tell that Holden is being truthful because of the way he feels and responds towards Mr. Spencer. Holden rambles on in hopes of making him feel better for flunking him. Therefore, it makes sense that his purpose for the note is to make Mr. Spencer feel better about failing …show more content…
Ackley barges into Holden’s room and Holden thinks to himself: “He ha[s] a terrible personality. He [is] also sort of a nasty guy. I wasn’t to crazy about him, to tell you the truth” (26). The whole time Ackley is in Holden’s room, he talks about how mean, rude, dirty, etc. he is. He even tells him to his face what he thinks about him. When Stradlater comes to join them, Holden thinks to himself, “He was at least a pretty friendly guy, Stradlater. It was partly a phony kind of friendly, but at least he always said hello to Ackley and all” (34). Holden seems to have conflicted feelings about Stradlater. He thinks that he is nice although it may be phony, and that he is handsome and built, but he also thinks that he is a hot-shot, a secret slob, and thinks too highly of
Holden, before leaving for New York, attended a boarding school named Pencey Prep. He makes it clear that he thinks everyone, teachers and students alike, is a “phony.” At one point, his roommate Stradlater goes out with a girl who ends up being Jane Gallagher, a childhood friend and crush of Holden. In his eyes, this is a betrayal. Holden is annoyed
Since Holden was isolated from his family, in order to not get hurt again he tries to find hypocrisy in people to stop himself from trusting others. Holden feels isolated after being sent to a boarding school that “was full of phonies” by his parents (Salinger 90). Salinger’s message to the audience with this quote is that when
He is a bothersome and continues to annoy Holden by entering their dorm without any permission. Holden believes that Ackley has no life since he does not go anywhere. I think that Ackley enjoys the company of Holden and appears to like Holden quite often. Holden does treat Ackley awfully because he doesn’t listen and gives sly remarks towards Ackley. Holden acts as if he is more superior than Ackley, who is a senior, since he doesn’t want to start a conversation and doesn’t care about Ackley. In fact Holden describes Ackley as a peculiar roommate and as a result, it affects the way Holden acts around
Holden experiences both alienation and disillusionment when meeting with people like Sally Hayes, Sunny and Ackley. Holden is so desperate to have human connection yet, when he starts to talk to them, he experiences them as ‘phonies’. This makes him more depressed, continuing his downward spiral. Holden is caught in a trap of his own making.
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
To elaborate, one of the reasons Holden is unfit for sympathy is his personality. Throughout his coming of age, he often gives up and is lazy, tells lies or makes excuses. To begin with the former, Holden gives up on his schooling. Pencey Prep is “the fourth school [he's] gone to” (9). “[He] was flunking four subjects and not applying himself and all” (4) so “they kicked [him] out” (4). Holden though, does not feel bad about failing school, but for the pain he causes his teacher in doing so. His teacher, Mr. Spencer, “[feels] pretty lousy about flunking him” (12) and when he asks Holden if he opened his textbook once the whole term, Holden lies and replies with “Well, I sort of glanced through it a couple of times” (11). He tells this lie because “[he] didn't want to hurt [Mr. Spencer’s] feelings” (11). Since Holden respects Mr. Spencer, he regrets making his teacher feel bad about failing him. Although he is regretful, he did not even attempt to pass...
With his repetition of phrases such as “it really did” and “if you want to know,” his use of slang including “take a leak” and “booze hound,” and his coarse language, Holden gives the novel an upbeat, optimistic feeling, despite the book’s darker theme. Holden’s tone and diction allow the reader to relate to him and imagine him as a friend.
Holden and his roommate Stradlater are in the bathroom, as Stradlater is preparing to go on a date. Originally, Holden assumes that Stradlater’s date is a girl named Fitzgerald, however, he is informed that there has been a change in the “arrangements” and that he is going with Jane Gallagher instead. This information takes Holden by surprise, as Jane and Holden were neighbours, thus growing very close, and the thought of Stradlater possibly using a girl he is close to for his personal gain aggravates Holden.
First off, he is a teenager, which is on average, most of the people who has read and is reading The Catcher in the Rye. Young teenagers can relate to Holden quite easily, mainly due to his speech and actions. Holden Caulfield is a young lad, who swears in just about every other sentence. An example of Holden 's usage of swear words would be, “It was a funny thing to say. It sounded like a real kid. You 'd think a prostitute and all would say "Like hell you are" or "Cut the crap" instead of "Like fun you are” (Salinger 51). Instead of speaking politely, Holden uses his own normal vocabulary, or instead, most of the teenagers ' vocabulary. It is so common to just walk into a high school and hear people use swear words left and right. Salinger’s purpose is to create a chain of connection between Holden and the reader, so that way, the reader can feel in place when reading the novel. Another way Holden connects with the reader is through his actions. Holden dropped out of high school, and occasionally got into fights. According to a quotation on page 5 of The Catcher in the Rye, it states, “Well. . . they 'll be pretty irritated about it," I said. "They really will. This is about the fourth school I 've gone to." I shook my head. I shake my head quite a lot. "Boy!" I said. I also say "Boy!" quite a lot” (Salinger). Now, before we all criticize Holden for
that he is trying to hide his true identity. He does not want people to know who he really is or that he was kicked out of his fourth school. Holden is always using fake names and tries speaking in a tone to persuade someone to think a cretin way. He does this when he talks to women. While he is talking to the psychiatrist he explains peoples reactions to his lies like they really believe him, when it is very possible that he is a horrible liar and they are looking at him with a “what are you talking a bout?” expression. Holden often lies to the point where he is lying to him self.
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.
The narrative allows the reader to be exposed to Holden Caulfield’s mind to form a psychoanalytical perspective and emphasize how he goes through many experiences. An example of when Holden went through a violent outburst is when his brother, Allie passed away. “I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist just for the hell of it.” (Salinger 39). This citation is meaningful and clearly shows what kind of person Holden becomes. He was very close with his brother Allie and that mentally broke him. He had a very strong and sad mental breakdown in the moment that affected his futu...
Holden returns to school and goes to his bedroom in the dorm. In his room quietly reading, his neighbor Robert Ackley came in. Holden describes him as a pimply, insecure, annoying boy with a bad dental hygiene. When Holden’s roommate Stradlater who was “madly in love with himself” (27) arrived home after the football game, Ackley abruptly left. Stradlater tells him that he has a date with a friend of his, Jane Gallagher. Jane is someone that Holden really cares for and because he knows the way Stradlater is, Holden became worried for her. “It just drove me stark raving mad when I thought about her and Stradlater parked somewhere in that fat-assed Ed Banky’s car”. (48) Holden became depressed and lonely, so out of the blue Holden decides to pack his things and leave for New York a few days earlier. On the train to New York, Holden meets the mother of one of his schoolmates. Not wanting to tell his whole life story, he told her his name was “Rudolf Schmidt”, the name of th...
It is made evident that Holden is enamored with Jane Gallagher, and this first manifests itself when Holden talks about her to Stradlater. “I used to play checkers with her,” Holden recounts. “ ‘She’d get [her kings] all lined up in the back row. Then she’d never use them. She just liked the way they looked when they were all in the back row.’ Stradlater didn’t say anything. That kind of stuff doesn’t interest most people” (41). In a world where almost everything is so “goddam depressing,” thinking about Jane’s minor traits actually makes Holden happy, even if it is the kind of stuff that does not interest most people. It allows him to channel his childhood, where he was oblivious to the phoniness around him. However, this silly nostalgia cannot get across to Stradlater, who is more interested in Jane as a sexual being than trivialities such as her checker tactics or struggles with ballet. This physical interest eventually becomes the root of their brawl in their dorm. Although Holden’s interrogative mood agitates Stradlater, Holden is only showing his genuine care for Jane. Unlike Stradlaer, Holden has enough sense to know that Jane, being the humble, intelligent girl she is, deserves to be treated right. So, even though Holden lets his anger get the better of him and eventually start a fight, he has reason to do
Holden's idealism is first brought forth when he describes his life at Pency Prep. It is full of phonies, morons and bastards. His roommate, Stradlater, " was at least a pretty friendly guy, It was partly a phony kind of friendly..." (26) and his other roommate, Ackley is "a very nosy bastard" (33). Holden can't stand to be around either one of them for a very long time. Later, he gets into a fight with Stradlater over his date with Jane. Holden is upset because he thinks that Stradlater "gave her the time" and that he doesn't care about her; 'the reason he didn't care was because he was a goddam stupid moron. All morons hate it when you call them a moron' (44). Holden not only sees his roommates as phonies and bastards, but he also sees his headmaster at Pency Prep as a "phony slob" (3). This type of person is exactly what Holden doesn't want to be. He strives to be a mature adult; caring, compassionate, and sensitive.