To begin, the definition of isolation is to “cause (a person or place) to be or remain alone or apart from others.” Holden and Charlie isolate themselves mentally in order to cope with the deaths of friends and family members. Charlie is suffering after the suicide of a friend, while Holden is struggling to cope with the death of his younger brother. Although Holden has a fear of being in a committed relationship, he desperately wants to be in one. He believes that by isolating himself from society, he can hold on to any individuality he has left. This is shown when he tries to create relationships with others, but his underlying desire to be by himself only further alienates him. He desperately tries to create relationships with whoever he …show more content…
This is similar to previously in the novel when he asks the cab driver to get a drink with him. The depression he faces as a result of unsuccessfully being able to socialize creates further barriers between Holden and those around him. From the beginning of the novel, Charlie makes it clear to the reader that he is “both happy and sad and [is] still trying to figure out how that could be” (Chbosky 2). Thus showing that he is struggling with his social and emotional identity. Unlike Holden, Charlie’s isolation is more mental than physical. He spends a lot of his time ensuring his friends are happy, yet disregards his own feelings. Charlie’s emotional alienation is what brings him to fit in with society. By alienating himself so that he does not stand out, he thinks that he is fitting in with the norms that society imposes. Although Holden and Charlie face isolation in different aspects of life, they both create barriers which affect their socialization as teenagers who are coming of …show more content…
Holden and Charlie have very similar, yet different views on why people are phony. To begin, Holden blames phoniness as the reason he is not a social being and why he isolates himself from others. Holden leaves his high school because “[he] was surrounded by phonies”; this is easily noticed from the beginning of the novel (Salinger 17). He believes others are phony and he is above them. Due to the fact that Holden is unable to deal with the concept of growing up, he criticizes those who do want to grow up, ironically making him phony, something that he resents so much. Charlie, on the other hand, can be viewed as phony because he is consistently dishonest to those around him in order to protect his friends. Despite the fact that his dishonesty comes from a place of love, he still exhibits a phoniness nevertheless. By being conspicuous with his lies, he creates a phony personality towards his friends because they cannot see him as someone they can trust. “You weren’t being his friend at all. Because you weren’t honest with him” (Chbosky 201). Charlie is constantly challenged to stay true to who he is, without pushing away those who are close to him. Holden and Charlie both face phoniness whether it being a personal quality they are exhibiting or from other people; this plays a critical theme in the journey both boys are
J.D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye, uses the behaviour of protagonist Holden Caulfield to shape his personality in the way he alienates himself from the rest of the world. Holden alienates himself from the society he lives in, his relationships with others and also the relationship he has with himself. Holden struggles to cope with the fact that eventually he will have to grow up and so will everyone around him. Holden see’s the world not being perfect as a huge problem that he alone has to fix because everyone else is too much of a ‘phony’ to do it. The novel explores Holden’s weekend after he got kicked out of his fourth school, Pency Prep, and the struggles he faces with alienating himself.
Holden’s apparent desire to be separated from the majority of his family and friends appears to have been triggered by the death of his younger brother Allie. From Allie’s there has been a downward spiral in Holden’s relationships, as he begins to avoid contact with others and isolate himself more. The reason I believe this is because we can see how immense his anger is after Allie’s death, ‘I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist’. The death of Allie has become like an awakening to Holden, and has alerted him how precious childhood innocence is, when Holden comes to this realisation he convinces himself to do everything within his power to protect the innocence of himself and those around him, to protect them from what he sees as a false adult world. Although Holden clearly fails to protect himself, as he falls into all sorts of situations which hardly boasts of innocence and virt... ...
He's so used to the idea of being alone that it becomes what he wants. Holden is so petrified of losing the people he is closest to, so he decides to not be close with anyone. He is afraid of the same repercussions from Allie. He would rather keep to himself than risk contentment, rationality, and stability. He for so many days after his removal from Pencey would by himself go to bars alone and try to drink away his pain. “I guess it was because I was feeling so damn depressed and lonesome” (Salinger 198). It’s during this time that Holden is falling down a dark, bottomless pit of depression and loneliness. It eventually almost became the death of him when he had isolated himself so much. He became sick, depressed, and full of anxiety. His decision to distance himself weakened him beyond his belief. “I still had that headache. It was even worse. And I think I was more depressed than I ever was in my whole life” (Salinger 252). His depression was starting to get the best of him and all he needed was to be comforted by someone other than
Both Holden and Charlie are full of self-loathing and depression, both experiencing the traumatic loss of a family member at a very young age. "I know he's dead! Don't you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can't I? Just because somebody's dead, you don't just stop liking them, for God's sake – especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that're alive and all.” (Salinger 222-223) In this quote Holden talks with his sister about the loss of his brother, Allie. Holden can't seem to move on ever since his brother's death. He needs to learn how to live his life in the present and not dwell on the past. Every day Holden relates everything he does and everything that happens back to Allie’s death. “Hey, Candace. I killed Aunt Helen, didn't I? She died getting my birthday present, so I guess I killed her right?
J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye is a compelling narrative on the themes of isolation and individualism. Holden Caulfield’s loneliness, a more distinct manifestation of his isolation problem, is a driving force throughout the book. A majority of the novel portrays his almost frantic quest for companionship as he darts from one meaningless encounter to another. However, while his behavior is a stark indicator of his loneliness, Holden consistently shies away from self-reflection and therefore doesn’t really know why he keeps behaving as he does. Since Holden relies on his isolation to sustain his detachment from the world and to keep intact a level of self-protection, he frequently sabotages his own efforts to end his seclusion.
The term “phony” reoccurs over the course of the novel; Salinger informs the reader, “you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever… sickened by human behavior.”(189) Initially, Holden is portrayed as an extremely judgmental individual; however, the reader cannot help but ignore the underlying truth to what Holden observes around him. Overall, Holden is disgusted by the superficial and hypocritical world that is evolving around him. Holden Caulfield encounters numerous “phony” people. Many of his acquaintances have traits that make them easily capable of being labeled as pretentious, much like Ward Stradlater and Carl Luce. Yet, there are other individuals that the common reader would not consider “phony”, for instance the actors of the play. He describes the actor as doing more showing-off than real acting, and makes them appear conceited. Additionally, when he is conversing with other viewers, he also believes they are superficial in the way they are discussing the play. By Holden’s quick perceptions of people, Salinger presents Holden as a hypocritical, disapproving villain. Alternatively, Holden describes people for what they really are and wishes that the world could be a much simpl...
To be called a phony is to be called fake, something that no one wants to be recognized as. Throughout one’s life it is inevitable that one will meet a person who fits the criteria of a phony, which is generally one person’s idea, rather than a set definition. Some base phoniness off of certain actions and behaviors, such as hypocrisy and frequently lying, although for others it is pushed to the extreme, in which phoniness, can be found in everyone, through any action. As for Holden Caulfield, a seventeen year old boy who is thrust into adulthood, after being kicked out of Pencey Prep School in Pennsylvania, and decides to stay in New York City for a few days before going home, he finds himself surrounded by phonies. Holden is able to call
Making mistakes is a completely normal part of life. Learning from your mistakes is a necessity because it’s the only way to progress. Beatrice Wood, an artist and sculptor speaks one solution for dealing with mistakes. “Life is full of mistakes. They’re like pebbles that make you a good road.” These “pebbles” (mistakes), which come in all different shapes and sizes create structure for us to go anywhere in life. By contrast, Holden’s resistance towards his school work creates too many pebbles, and he is stuck spinning his tires in rocks. In The Catcher in Rye, J.D. Salinger displays through Holden that making mistakes and learning from them is a vital part of growing up, because running
...d to mean the world to him. Both his brother's death and parents desertion have evidently deeply impacted him. Holden pretty well lied to himself, claimed the he had no place in society, all to give him plausible reasons to isolate himself. By calling people phonies, which he frequently did, he was in all reality pushing them away before giving himself the chance to even debate getting to know them. 'Phony people' was like his own private excuse for avoiding making friends. Holden's only hope to attain happiness is to open up to others. If he refuses to, he will forever consider the world to be full of evil, corruption, and phony people. His cynicism, dishonesty and judgemental habits are like a cape that he wears to ward off the elusively hanging threat of abandonment.
“Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to man.” (Thomas Carlyle). In the story Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, this coming of age book tells of the teen troubles experienced by the main character Holden Caulfield. After Holden gets expelled from his school Pencey Prep, Holden leaves school a couple days early to explore New York City. In his travels he experiences isolation from friends at school, feeling disconnected from his family, as he tries understand these periods angst he finds some peace.
In this book , numbness is caused from the painful experiences the character has been through which causes him to shut down his emotions and give himself a reason not to become close to anyone to avoid pain. In the book we learn that Holden's younger brother Allie died a while back. Holden explains how he busted the windows and hurt his hands and was not able to go to his little brother's funeral. He explains that after the death , he shut down and seemed to lose his relationship with his parents and other people. He is afraid of attaching to people and becoming hurt again. This is one of the ways he numbs himself. He feels that if he opens up , something will happen that will cause him to lose that person and miss them when they are gone. By the end of the novel , he doesn't really have a relationship with anyone. The only person that Holden can care and love for is Phoebe , his younger sister. I think that she is the only one Holden feels comfortable around because he doesn't feel judged and
To Holden, everyone is either corny of phony. He uses these terms to describe what a person is if they do not act naturally and follow other people?s manners and grace. Holden dislikes phonies and thinks of them as people who try to be something they are not. He loathes people who showed off because it seems unnatural every time they do not act like themselves. Holden does not allow himself to have friendship because of his dull attitude. In the beginning of the book, the reader knows that Holden is lonely when he separates himself from the rest of the Pencey students by watching the football game from Thomsen Hill and not the grand stands. Holden is not a very sociable person partly because he finds himself better than many others. He dislikes his roommate because of his generic leather luggage. His next door roommate Ackley does not seem to want a friendship with him either. Holden finds Ackely?s zit crusted face ridiculous and doesn?t want him in his room at first. This shows the reader that Holden is a lonely person because he chooses to be lonely and does not want anything to do with people who do not fit into his perception of normal.
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.
In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Salinger explains how a character with a unique mind and personality from others can lead into alienation. For instance, Holden Caulfield, the main character of the novel, chooses to run away from school and home because of how “different” everyone is. Compared to the people around him, Holden is lonely, a smoker, quiet, and a semi-atheist. With these factors, Holden becomes alienated from the world. As the novel explains the environment and circumstances that Holden encounters, the readers can infer that Holden tends to be alone and remain silent.
Many of the times that Holden criticizes people, it is something he does himself. (Pg 13) “. one of the reasons I left Elkton was that I was surrounded by phonies.” Holden himself is many times what he refers to as a “phony”. He knows that he lies and pretends to like people that he would rather not be with.