Salinger employs a multitude of narrative devices in order to reveal and craft Holden’s mood as he narrates. Throughout this excerpt, Holden is portrayed as being in a despondent mood as walks through Central Park, drunk due to drinking during the night. He has reached a point in his destructive depression where he no longer maintains the will to live. Salinger crafts this scene with specific details in a chronological order to reveal Holden’s mood as being despondent. The excerpt begins with Holden breaking the record he bought for Phoebe, initially depicting Holden’s despondent mood as he “damn near cried” (170) due to the event. By specifically depicting that Holden nearly came to crying due to the small event of the record-breaking, Salinger building the fragile state of Holden’s mind that has left him in a despondent mood. Everything bad that can happen in the world is occurring …show more content…
Thus, Salinger is directly introducing Holden’s despondent mood at the beginning of the passage and continues to build it as the passage continues. This becomes prevalent as Holden begins to throw coins on the lake in Central Park even though he is close to having no money left to spend. He claims that he doesn't “know why [he] did it, but [he] did” (173), illustrating the despondent mood that Holden, the narrator, possesses. His lack of caring expresses the helplessness that Holden feels as he has lost the will to live, due to his life never working out correctly. Moreover, Salinger specifically picks coins as Holden is similar to them in that no one truly cares about them and will allow for them to be wasted away. That the only thing Holden has control over are his actions, but even this ability lacks the power to change Holden’s life. Finally, Salinger finishes carving Holden’s despondent mood as he reaches the point where he has accepted his death but worries how it
Salinger uses specific motifs and symbols to illustrate Holden’s naive and unrealistic view of the world. A great example of this is when he believes he can be the catcher in the rye. By doing so he imagines he is able to maintain all the innocence within society. Holden
He comes to some realizations, but nothing that makes him less pessimistic, making him a shining example of how being immoderately idealistic can disrupt your expectations for the world. It is glaringly clear that Salinger purposely portrayed Holden as a mess in order to show off the flaws of setting expectations above the healthy dose. If you only accept people without flaws and never leave room for air, you will always be
The first way J.D. Salinger shows that Holden’s depression is not only affecting him, but also the people around him, is...
The way that Salinger writes gives the audience a very personal and insightful look into what Holden is feeling. It’s told in the first person, in a confessional style, and utilises digression. This creates a sense of closeness with the protagonist. It’s like Holden is talking directly to the reader.
Published in 1951, J. D. Salinger's debut novel, The Catcher in the Rye, was one of the most controversial novels of its time. The book received many criticisms, good and bad. While Smith felt the book should be "read more than once" (13), Goodman said the "book is disappointing" (21). All eight of the critics had both good and bad impressions of the work. Overall, the book did not reflect Salinger's ability due to the excessive vulgarity used and the monotony that Holden imposed upon the reader.
Salinger continues his use of installing reality in fiction by Holden’s hospitalization. The reader finds out within the first chapter that Holden is being hospitalized due to a recent mental breakdown (Salinger). Interestingly enough, Salinger was also hospitalized shortly after his combat in WWII for his mental breakdown (Biography). Clearly, Salinger was making a major connection to himself through Holden by giving his character his
This essay outlines how J.D. Salinger creates a unique person in Holden Caulfield as he strives to find his place in the world as he moves from childhood to adulthood.. Holden narrates this story from the first person in flashback recounting events that happened to him over a two day span the previous year around Christmas. He narrates this story from some sort of mental hospital or institution. This is a clue as to how this journey affected him. This essay discusses how Holden views himself as he is growing up, affected by interaction with other characters, and how he is affected by loss of innocence moving from childhood to adulthood.
Throughout the novel, J.D, Salinger develops Holden’s character with numerous situations. Holden makes the reader question his rectitude through his perspective of those around him, his sexual desires, his general attitude, and his chronic lying. Because Salinger permits the audience to know how situations proceed from Holden’s perspective, the audience has an alternative side of Holden available to evaluate. Without the varying traits Holden presents, The Catcher in the Rye would not thoroughly depict Holden as a suffering individual. Thus, Holden’s character is morally ambiguous and crucial to the overall development of the novel.
Some phrases are merely embodiments of his everyday mannerisms, such as the suffixation ‘and all’. However, certain key words and phrases provide insight into Holden’s thought process. For instance, consider Holden’s constant assertion that he is truthful in his own speech: “I was personally acquainted with at least two girls he gave the time to. That’s the truth” (Salinger 63). In this quote, Holden rejects the idea that he may be embellishing his story for dramatic effect. Likewise, Holden feels compelled to remind the reader that he is impartial and genuine in his observations, as if to attest to both the reader and himself that he is not—and cannot be—phony. In the face of mounting circumstantial evidence that he is a phony (e.g. lying, refusing to call Jane Gallagher, etc.), his repeated insistence otherwise demonstrates Holden’s inability to come to terms with himself. This idea is further exemplified in the pivotal carousel scene, “I felt so damn happy all of a sudden . . . I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth. I don’t know why” (Salinger 275). This scene, commonly understood as one of resolve, portrays Holden’s incapacity to identify why he reacted a certain way, yet he continues to insist that he is telling the truth. Even in entirely positive moments, Holden still lacks the introspection necessary to truly reflect on himself, creating a dichotomy for
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.
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...
The overcoming of his psychological obstacles does not obstruct his learning, it molds and transitions him to an adult. Salinger manifests these obstacles when Holden is feeling miserable and depressed when thinking about his brother who had passed away, Allie. “Boy, I felt miserable. I felt so depressed, you can’t imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie” (98).
Events in Holden's life lead him to become depressed. Holden's depression centers on Allie. The manner that Holden sees himself and how he sees others leads him to be expelled from school. The speaker expresses, "One thing about packing depressed me a little," (51). Holden expresses these feelings when he packs his bags after being notified that he is expelled. Holden leaves school and heads for New York City, where he finds himself to be more lonely and depressed than ever. He is all alone and he laments, " What I really felt like doing was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out of the window," (104). Holden says this while he is all alone in his motel room. He is too ashamed of himself to return home, he knows that his mother will be upset and his father will be angry with him. He also adds that " I wasn’t feeling sleepy or anything, but I was feeling sort of lousy. Depressed and all, I almost wished I was dead," (90). Holden states this during one of the first nights that he is staying in New York. Holden expresses many thoughts of depression.
First off, Salinger utilizes Holden’s interactions with others to highlight how easily and unreasonably Holden gets irritable. As Holden engages in conversation with three women in
Jerome David Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye is a truly unique novel in terms of writing style. The story is told in a second person narrative style by a character named Holden Caulfield, and is written loosely in a fashion known as 'stream of consciousness writing'.