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Gender stereotypes literature
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Naturally, Your Mind is Immature Sexual relationships can be negative or positive in many different ways. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been kicked out of Pencey Prep because he failed in most of his classes. He has been through sexual relationships that reflects his personality. Holden 's emotions towards women and sex reflects his feelings that all women are whores. He pines to be in love and have sex, but in the same time he is afraid to do so. Holden 's sexual immaturity destroys positive relationships with the opposite sex. The feminist lens is used to show how Holden pictures women, and used characteristics to show Holden 's personality. On the way back from Erine 's, he arrived to the hotel. Maurice met …show more content…
He states that she is stupid. One day, he calls her to go on a date and she accepts. He said that he did not like her, but he still went out on a date with her because he considered her to be attractive. When he first saw her, he felt astonished because the way she looked. The moment he saw her, ' '… [He] felt like marrying her ' ' (124). This quote shows that Holden is totally crazy, as he thinks to marry her because of her outside appearances. They took a cap to watch a show and in the cap Holden told Sally that he loves her. He confessed to her, ' ' I told her I loved her and all ' ' (125). He lied to her, he said that because he thought she was good-looking. This proves that Holden acted in a foolish way because he did not mean what he said. At the bar, Holden suddenly started shouting and talking about how much he hates New York City. Sally asked him, ' ' Don 't shout, please ' ' (130). Holden did not realize that he was shouting. After that, he was speaking until suddenly Sally stopped him. She told him, ' ' You jump from one- ' ' (131). This shows that Holden is immature about talking to Sally in a certain topic to another, and he could not stay focused. Besides, he changed his tone without noticing that himself. Few minutes later, he came up with this crazy idea to run away with Sally. He wants to run away from New York City, and everything that involves the city. Holden tells Sally that he …show more content…
His relationships with women failed because he was immature and insecure of himself. He did not think logically about the decisions he made throughout his life. Even though, he wanted to fall in love with a girl, and have sex his fear prevented him to do so. Also a factor that influenced his view on women was that he thought they were all whores, which caused him not to have a normal relationship with any woman. One day, he is thinking of his old friend Jane and he wants to call her, the other he wants to marry Sally and run away with her. At the end, he was not decisive about which girl he wanted to be with, or if he just wanted to have a one night sexual relationship with a
Holden struggles to make connections with other people, and usually resorts to calling them phonies whenever they upset him. He finds natural human flaws in people and runs away from connection immediately. His date with Sally shows this. Near the end of the date, Holden tells Sally about his plans to run away from life. When Sally gives him practical advice, Holden is quick to escape connection by calling her “a pain”. Sally’s advice would definitely guide Holden in a more realistic direction, but that is not what he wants to hear. Conflict always arises in his mind even if there is little in reality. His struggles with finding connection also make him too apprehensive to call his old friend Jane. Holden likes to think of Jane as a pure and perfect girl that he can
In the novel The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger,Holden the main character tries to take on adult and mature situations but finds himself in reality not getting very far. Holden Caulfield who goes to Pencey has failed four out of five classes and gets the notice that he is being expelled from the school. He leaves the school and goes out and tries to adventure into the real world. Holden takes on many challenges and obstacles throughout the book . Although Holden wants to be independent many people perceive Holden in numerous different ways to his actions and feelings. Faith and Stradlater both perceive Holden as irritating, when in reality he tries to distract himself from being depressed. For example when Holden was in the phone
A person who is able to live life with many struggles such as dropping out of school and dealing with a family member’s death can really continue pursuing their lifestyle in the future. In The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger, it becomes evident that Holden has difficulty accepting himself and others as he constantly defines people as "phony". Before we can understand why Holden leaves on his journey at all, we must understand his struggle. Holden leaves Pencey because he was surrounded by phonies and wants to find success elsewhere. He tries to find someone to communicate with by turning to his family. Holden just wants someone to talk to and wants to break his depression by succeeding.
In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger develops Holden Caulfield as a morally ambiguous character. Throughout the book, Salinger speaks as Holden and introduces him as a callous and subjective individual. However, the author permits the reader to be within Holden’s mind, giving the audience an alternative perspective of Holden’s true character. Without the obscurity of Holden’s personality, the work would lack a crucial element. As the protagonist, Holden serves as an equivocal adolescent that is relatable for the reader.
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 novel, The Catcher in the Rye, written by JD Salinger, touches on the themes of innocence, death, and the artifice and the authenticity in the world, while following the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, through his weekend trip to New York City. As the story unfolds, Holden, as narrator, becomes more vulnerable to the reader, and starts to express his feelings surrounding the death of his brother, Allie, as well as his feelings about himself. Holden is faced with a truth that has haunted him for many years: adulthood. Many of the qualities Holden exhibits, which he sees as negative, are those of the average person: struggle, loneliness, deep sadness. He is one of many classic protagonists that encourages the reader to relate to them on
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger is a coming-of-age novel set in New York during the 1940’s. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the story, is a detached seventeen-year old boy harboring feelings of isolation and disillusionment. He emphasizes a general dislike for society, referring to people as “phonies.” His lack of will to socialize prompts him to find nearly everything depressing. He’s alone most of the time and it’s apparent that he is very reclusive. This often leads him to pondering about his own death and other personal issues that plague him without immediate resolution. Holden possesses a strong deficit of affection – platonic and sexual – that hinders and cripples his views toward people, his attitude, and his ability to progressively solve his problems without inflicting pain on himself. The absence of significant figures in his life revert him to a childlike dependency and initiate his morbid fascination with sexuality. In this novel, Salinger uses Sunny, Sally Hayes, and Carl Luce to incorporate the hardships of discovering sexual identity and how these events affect adolescents as they try to understand their own sexuality.
In the novel, Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is an example of a prosaic rich adolescent boy,with a pedestrian set of problems, but a psychoanalysis reveals that Holden has a plethora of atypical internal conflicts. Internal conflicts that other students at Pencey, such as Stradlater and Ackley, would not normally experience.
Holden has a respect for women that he views as unnatural. He feels that his sexual desires should be similar to those of his roommate Stradlater and peer, Luce. Holden shows his confusion by saying, "The thing is, most of the time when you're coming close to doing it with a girl, a girl that isn't ...
In today's world many people do not show their true self to people that they do not feel comfortable around. Readers can see this in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Holden only shows his true authentic self to women and girls. Although Holden seems that he does not like to talk to anyone, when he is around women he pays attention to them, is comfortable, and expresses his true feelings.
In his fight with Stradlater, Holden’s character is shown as a defender of innocence. He defends the memory of his brother through the report he writes for Stradlater. Because of Stradlater’s criticism on his brother’s death, Holden destroys the essay and says “All right, give it back to me, then,’ I said. I went over and pulled it right out of his goddamn hand. Then I tore it up.” Holden is tormented by the memory of his brother throughout the novel, and in this fight he defends his brothers memory by protecting the baseball glove. Later in this scene Holden is upset with Stradlater’s relationship with Jane. Holden explains, “If you knew Stradlater, you 'd have been worried, too. I 'd double-dated with the bastard a couple of times, and I know what I 'm talking about. He was unscrupulous.” Holden tries to defend Jane’s innocence and the reader is able to see Holden’s ethical code to protect the innocence and memory of others. In Holden’s confrontation with Maurice, Holden displays his detestation of the evil phony. “All of a sudden I started to cry. I 'd give anything if I hadn 't, but I did. 'No, you 're no crooks, ' I said. 'You 're just steeling five ' 'Shut up, ' old Maurice said and gave me a shove.” The scene between Maurice and Holden over the prostitute Sunny shows his emotions when it comes to fake people. In this scene he
Holden wants to be with Sally only when he is not thinking straight. After his long rant about school, he asks her to move to “these cabin camps… in Vermont” with him (132). Holden is not being level headed, which can be observed by Sally telling him to “stop screaming at (her)” multiple times (132). Later, after Holden calmed down, he realized he only “meant it when he asked her,” and “wouldn’t have taken her even if she’d wanted to” (134). When Holden is in a bad state of mind and is “too drunk… to give Jane a buzz,” he decides to give, “old Sally Hayes a buzz” (150). Holden feels attached to her and always seems to need her in these bad moments, but afterwards, he “wished to God (he) hadn’t even phoned her” (151). In moments of foolishness for Holden, he always falls back on Sally, and only later when he reflects on it, does he regret the decisions he made. Sally in Catcher in the Rye, is involved with many of Holden’s regrets, making her one of the necessary characters throughout Holden’s
Holden instead of challenging these ideologies chooses to perpetuate them. Holden’s obsession with the objectivation of women and death exemplifies that the masculinity he practices is toxic. Male readers of this novel can then cling to these stereotypes as well, and continue to perpetuate rape culture and toxic masculinity. In the above examples, Holden shows that he is a product of negative social constructs upheld by a patriarchal
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 had anything better to offer. It is tragic to hear the anguished cry of parents: "What have we done to harm him? Why doesn't he care about anything? He is a bright boy, but why does he fail to pass his examinations? Why won't he talk to us?"
In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield feels a compulsion to protect women over anything else. The reason for this is that Holden views women as the last innocent people left in society. J.D. Salinger makes it a point to display the powerful influences that women have had on Holden throughout his life by retelling Holden's experiences with his own mother as a younger man. These trends continue throughout the story, as the events that unfold involving Phoebe and Jane Gallagher become focal points during Holden's time in New York City. Holden's desire to protect women seems to go so far that he begins to feel immediate hostility -- hostility that may or may not be justified -- towards several male characters.