In a world so said to be steeped in immorality and despair, the idea of purity and children, the vessels that embody said characteristic, are idealized above all. Those said to be adults gravitate towards their blinding light as if moths to a flame, and constantly try to recapture the feelings of naivety, honesty, and joy, as if by revisiting old memories they may be able to be closer to the happiness they felt as a child. However, the unyielding passage of time locks the adult in their place, entombing them with the inevitable truth that all things come to an end, and forcing them to abandon the childhood vision for what they are now. For centuries, the simple madness for accepting things as they are is what has been, and always should be, …show more content…
If Alice was forced to wander into a distortion of the adult world, Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye is entombed into his own ideal world, starkly separated between purity and impurity, and battling against the encroachment of anything adult-related into his life--a pointless battle, because as he ages, he is forced to confront the inevitable in becoming an adult himself. In comparison to Alice’s general acceptance of growing up, Holden is strongly implied to fear growing up, which is something he hides under layers of fabrication, masks of aloof attitude, and rejection of the majority of his peers, who have no qualms about growing up themselves. His fear of impurity in turn manifests in his social ineptitude, as he also has a form of egocentrism as a 17-year old; he knows that there exists people with different viewpoints but alienates them, and seeks for people who he idealizes as good into his personal world, as a result making them the only people he knows--thus where the egocentrism comes from, as he can safely assume that they all think the same way he does. Although Holden’s redeeming point is that he actively tries to seek out the human connection that he desires, he relies on social interaction to stabilize his identity; when the people don’t exist, or aren’t around anymore, such as Allie, Holden’s deceased brother, Holden breaks down and becomes unstable. (Salinger, 50) This is also demonstrated in his various encounters with other people, as he increasingly becomes disheartened from trying to save and be saved from his
In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden, cannot accept that he must move out of childhood and into adulthood. One of Holden’s most important major problems is his lack of maturity. Holden also has a negative perspective of life that makes things seem worse than they really are. In addition to Holden’s problems he is unable to accept the death of his brother at a young age. Holden’s immaturity, negative mentality, and inability to face reality hold him back from moving into adulthood.
It takes many experiences in order for an immature child to become a responsible, well-rounded adult. In J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger’s main character Holden Caulfield matures throughout the course of the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Holden is a juvenile young man. However, through his experiences, Holden is able to learn, and is finally able to become somewhat mature by the end of the novel. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s story represents a coming of age for all young adults.
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.
Growing up is not easy. The desire to slow down or stop the process is not unusual for adolescents. Resisting adulthood causes those who try to run away from it to eventually come to terms with the reality of life: everyone has to grow up, and fighting against it makes it much harder to accept in the end. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield often tries to resist the process of maturity in an effort to avoid the complicated life he might face as an adult, making him an unusual protagonist for a bildungsroman; this struggle, however, opens Holden’s eyes to the reality and inevitability of growing up, helping him realize that innocence does not last forever.
Holden Caulfield is a peculiar teenager. He's hypocritical, cynical, dishonest, and most of all...confused. All of these traits add up to an unreliable narrator, to say the least. You can never take what Holden says at face value: you have to read between the lines. In between the lines lies the fact that he is extremely lonely, and that his fear of abandonment causes him to isolate himself in opposition to that. He often tries to cover this up from both himself and outsiders, hence the lying and contradictory nature of his thoughts. The problem is, he doesn't know why he's lonely. He feels cut off from the rest of society; feels as though he is all alone in this world of supposed phonies. Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, Holden's loneliness shines through in the way he frequently reaches out to complete strangers for companionship (strangers he generally dislikes, too, which shows just how desperate he is for company). True to his contradictory nature, he also tries to isolate himself at the same time, for he fears abandonment. Abandonment, as a matter of fact, is at the very root of his issuance with creating connections: he reaches out to people and then immediately proceeds to push them away, for he is terrified of getting hurt by them.
Holden Caulfield a timeless figure configured by Salinger is put on a journey were he is trying to transition into the world by unlocking the door to adulthood .He is not yet ready to open that door because he still having trouble finding his identity and is filled with self doubt such as believing he is disappearing from the world , and deeming himself incapable of accepting change" He views himself as a liar, but he refuses to acknowledge that this means that he is phony, too"(CLC). But like many other adolescences he is native and faces the challenging road of finding himself and overcoming the trials and tribulations that life throws at him. Unlike most adolescences though Holden purposely puts himself in situations where he cannot connect with others in his everyday life and in turn becomes hopelessly lonely and alienated in society. This causes him to struggles in him communication with others in a mature and sophisticated manor.
The daunting face of adulthood is one that is inevitably encountered and must be confronted. In J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger depicts the disheartening journey from adolescence to adulthood that Holden Caulfield endures. Although holden seeks the freedoms that mark adulthood, he has yet to take up the role of a truly mature citizen as he is disgusted by the society conforming nature of those adults, leading him to his gradual mental decline. J. D. Salinger uses the immature character of Holden Caulfield as a means of revealing the difficult transition from adolescence to adulthood and the psychological effects that has on a person.
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
Holden in this novel is upset by the fact that growing up inevitably leads to growing out of being a kid and growing out of not being optimistic and pure in his eyes. This is expressed in the metaphor the novel is named. “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they do not look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.” (Salinger. 93) this is a metaphor for Holden wanting to be a protector of innocence keeping the kids from falling into the troubles of adulthood. He sees his innocence as already ruined and he does not want that for any of the other kids. Before becoming the catcher in the rye for others, Holden is looking for a catcher of his own to protect him from the harmful and dreariness of the adult world. He has looked for this in several places throughout his life his father, Mr. Antolini, and Mr. Spencer. His father has failed to be this because he is the one who sent Holden to these many failures of
In J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden Caulfield, narrates the events that unfolded when he was sixteen shortly after his expulsion from the prestigious, Pencey prep school. From moving place to place and deciding to both meet and avoid people of his past, Holden experiences the painful transition many adolescent teens go through; becoming an adult. Holden is reluctant to leave his youth and be a part of the phoniness that is the adult world, and it is because of this does he avoid his parents and isolate himself, but his efforts of seclusion does not get far. Time to time in the novel, Holden has wayward thoughts about the ducks in the Central Park Lagoon. Holden’s curiosity of the ducks greatly reflects
Adolescence is a time of great change—you are transitioning from a child to an adult, you are becoming more independent, and you are figuring out who you are as a person. Although these changes can be exciting, the realities of adulthood and loss of innocence scares most young adolescents. Author JD Salingers ' novel, The Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951, follows a troubled teen named Holden Caufield’s the following days after being kicked out of yet another prep-school. In these few days, we see how he struggles with the fact that everyone has to grow up and that the innocence of the young cannot be protected forever. Holden feels that adults are corrupt due to the lack of their childhood innocence. Therefore, his ultimate message, or
Many young people often find themselves struggling to find their own identity and place in society. This search for self worth often leaves these young people feeling lonely and isolated because they are unsure of themselves. Holden Caulfield, J.D. Salinger's main character in the book The Catcher In the Rye, is young man on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. One contributor to this breakdown, is the loneliness that Holden experiences. His loneliness is apparent through many ways including: his lack of friends, his longing for his dead brother, and the way he attempts to gain acceptance from others.
Teenage years are, without argument, the most confusing and difficult years of a person’s life as they prepare to go into adulthood. A wave of anxiety filled teenage year’s leads to an anxiety filled adulthood, following with a variety of prescription drugs and therapy sessions along with way. Throughout the “Catcher in the Rye” novel, Holden shows several signs of depression in various areas of his life such as lying, thoughts of suicide and the constant repetition of the word “depressing” in its self. Lying usually becomes second nature to those who suffer from depression as they feel the need to shield themselves away from the world. Holden assumes to lie to just about any adult he encounters so he can obscure insecurities and shelter his lack of inspiration in life. Holden is “the most terrific liar you ever saw,” (16) when it came to people wanting to assist him in finding his way in life. His frequent used technique was to shove people away by telling them “don’t worry about me…I’ll be all right, I’m just going through a phase” (18) when in reality Holden is screaming, hoping someone will s...
J. D. Salinger’s novel, Catcher in the Rye explores the ambiguity of the adult world Holden must eventually learn to accept. Throughout the novel, Holden resists the society grownups represent, coloring his childlike dreams with innocence and naivety. He only wants to protect those he loves, but he cannot do it the way he desires. As he watches Phoebe on the carousel, he begins to understand certain aspects of truth. He writes:
Holden and the Complexity of Adult Life What was wrong with Holden, the main character in The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D.Salinger, was his moral revulsion against anything that was ugly, evil, cruel, or what he called "phoney" and his acute responsiveness to beauty and innocence, especially the innocence of the very young, in whom he saw reflected his own lost childhood. There is something wrong or lacking in the novels of despair and frustration of many writers. The sour note of bitterness and the recurring theme of sadism have become almost a convention, never thoroughly explained by the author's dependence on a psychoanalytical interpretation of a major character. The boys who are spoiled or turned into budding homosexuals by their mothers and a loveless home life are as familiar to us today as stalwart and dependable young heroes such as John Wayne were to an earlier generation. We have accepted this interpretation of the restlessness and bewilderment of our young men and boys because no one has anything better to offer.