In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, the main character Holden Caulfield, often alienates himself which leads him into severe depression.
Just after Holden leaves Pencey he arrives in New York City. He is feeling like giving someone a call and decides to use the nearby phone booth. “The first thing I did when I got off at Penn Station, I went into this phone booth. I felt like giving somebody a buzz … but as soon as I was inside, I couldn't think of anybody to call up. My brother D.B. was in Hollywood. My kid sister Phoebe goes to bed around nine o’clock- so I couldn’t call her up.. Then I thought of giving Jane Gallagher's mother a buzz… but I didn’t feel like it. So I ended up not calling anybody. I came out of the booth, after about twenty minutes or so.” (59) Holden feels like calling someone but ends up not doing so and isolates himself even more. Holden does this periodically throughout the novel and his isolation often leads him into a manic depression. He finds it extremely difficult to connect with people or to open up to them. The onomonopia buzz is used several times in this quote. Slang often indicates immaturity in someone. The selection of language shows just how childish and immature Holden really is.
Just before Holden leaves Pencey to say good-bye to Mr. Spencer, he watches the football game from the top of the hill. “Only I wasn’t watching the game too much. What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some sort of good-by. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving. I hate that.” (4) Holden had been kicked out of Pencey and is watching the football game hoping to feel some sort of closure or good-bye from the school and its members. The motif of alienation is shown her...
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...en reflects on all the people he met in the story and also tries to give advice to the reader. At this point the story has come full circle and Holden was finally able to release all the thoughts and feelings he had been keeping to himself. Throughout the novel Holden isolates himself from people on purpose so that he does not have to express or share his feelings with others. Salinger’s purpose of the novel is given here. Holed says do not ever tell anybody anything because if you do you start to miss everybody. Although Holden is telling the author not to open up to anyone, the reader can clearly see that being isolated puts you in a horrible position. The author is essentially saying that you should not alienate yourself or you will most likely end up depressed like Holden is.
Works Cited
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye. Little, Brown and Company, 1945
J.D Salinger gives his personal vision of the world successfully through his persona Holden Caulfield in the ‘Catcher in the Rye’. Caulfield struggles with the background of New York to portray Salinger’s theme – you must live the world as it is, not as you would like it to be. There by exposing Salinger’s vision on the world.
1) This quote is an example of an allusion because Holden is referring to the book, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Moreover, it doesn't describe it in detail, its just a brief comment.
He tries to convince her to run away with him to live in a cabin. She tells him to pursue an education and he gets upset and hurts her feelings. He makes another unsuccessful call to Jane. Later that night he sneaks into his family apartment to visit his beloved sister Phoebe. He tells her that he got kicked out of Pencey and she gets upset that he doesn’t like anything. He says there is one thing he would like to do. He would like to be “the catcher in the rye,” catching little children before they fell off a cliff. Holden then sneaks away, going to Mr. Antolini’s house, a man he respects because when a boy from his school jumped out from his dorm, he was the one to pick him up. While he’s sleeping on his couch he wakes up to his teacher touching his head. Disturbed, he leaves immediately. The next day Phoebe tries to run away with him, but he won’t let her. She gets upset and he takes her to the zoo. The story ends with him watching his sister ride the carousel. It makes him very happy. In this book, I feel as though a theme is that Holden is so judgmental about everyone else, yet he never criticizes himself. He thinks he is better than everyone else. Also, I think he tries to create strong relationships, but, like in his date with Sally and at Mr. Antolini’s
It also illustrates the benefits of a social lifestyle via Holden 's negative interactions with many other characters in the book, including Mr. Spencer and Mr. Antolini, who act as voices of reason for him yet are almost entirely ignored. Salinger also conveys a message of the dangers and consequences that come with poor decision making through Holden’s desire to act both older and younger than his age. By combining these three elements of the novel, Salinger helps to create its aforementioned
... In the book Holden is hurting himself with his need of contact with people but with his consent pushing of them away. Even though it is happening in a book it is still a valuable life lesson that one shouldn’t push others away just because they are scared. Even so, isolation still occurs, it could be something as simple as a kid not trying out for a group in fear of rejection or not joining a club because they are afraid of embarrassing themselves. In both cases the kid is keeping to themselves, scared that they might get hurt. The Catcher in the Rye shows real issues within its pages that are still applicable today. That is one reason it is considered a classic.
Dejection can affect the emotions a person can be feeling, “this can mean feeling down, irritable, pessimistic, guilty, [...] empty, etc,” (“Depression”). Holden feels very downhearted. He experiences loneliness and he tries to keep talking to people, but few hear what he has to say. “I’m a moron,” Holden says to Mr. Spencer, his history teacher, (Salinger 14). Holden felt sad and empty. Throughout the book, Holden keeps saying he wants to call Jane Gallagher, an old friend, because he needed to speak to someone to share his feelings. Also, Holden seems very pessimistic towards a lot of people by calling them phonies. About 35 times the word phony was used in the book (“Catcher in the Rye: Student Resource). Holden had the option of expressing his feelings on how he appreciated or loved certain people, but most of the time Holden had a sad and negative view of the world. Moreover, Holden observes small details, which seem very irritable to him. For example, ‘“Absolutely nothing,” he said over again. That’s something that drives me crazy. When people say something twice that way, after you admit it the first time,” (Salinger 10). Holden did not quite like it when Mr. Spencer had repeated a phrase and it may have drove Holden crazy because Mr. Spencer’s remark, stating Holden had done nothing, only made him feel more downhearted. In addition, Holden remembers a time where he excluded Allie, Holden’s deceased younger brother, from a BB gun game. In his hotel room, Holden’s mind swift 's back and remembers this incident. He feels absolutely guilty because Holden said “So once in a while, now, when I get depressed, I keep saying to him, “Okay. Go home and get your bike and meet me in front of Bobby’s house. Hurry up,” (Salinger 99). Because Holden still tells Allie to meet him in front of Bobby’s house and because he stills remembers this event even though time has passed, it indicates Holden’s
“The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.” This is an excerpt from “In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz”, a poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeat’s. Eva and Con were two sisters whose beauty had entranced a young Yeats. They are remembered in the poem as “Two girls in silk kimonos, both/beautiful.” As both girls become active in politics and the women’s suffrage movement they become exposed to the corrupted reality of life. The problems the two sisters endure eventually strip away their physical and spiritual beauty. Yeat’s poem indicates that time brings new and bad experiences. Experiences that strip beauty and innocence away from people. This is a recurring theme in the classic novel, The Catcher in the Rye, by
Lies, failure, depression, and loneliness are only some of the aspects that Holden Caulfield goes through in the novel The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger. Salinger reflects Holden’s character through his own childhood experiences. Salinger admitted in a 1953 interview that "My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book.… [I]t was a great relief telling people about it” (Wikipedia). Thus, the book is somewhat the life story of J.D. Salinger as a reckless seventeen-year-old who lives in New York City and goes through awful hardships after his expulsion and departure from an elite prep school. Holden, the protagonist in this novel, is created as a depressed, cynical, and isolated character and he expresses this attitude through his dialogue, tone, and diction.
J.D Salinger’s novel, Catcher In The Rye is about a teen, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the narrative. Holden is full of unique problems and most of the time lost in his own world, that can’t face reality. The psychoanalytic theory arranges a lens of definition when working at Holden Caulfield. Holden is seen as a lonely, rebellious teen who flunked out of an all boys private school, Pencey Prep. Failing school exemplifies how Holden controls his own decisions in the real world. As stubborn Holden is, opening up his persona and experiences to people is very hard for him, “I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me…” (Salinger 1). From a Freudian psychoanalytical perspective Holden would seem to keep all his thoughts all bottled up, not speaking, and opening up to people. “The preconscious holds information we’ve stored from past experience or learning. This information can be retrieved from memory and brought into awareness at any time.” (Nevid 469). Holden is one step closer to becoming a better changed person by speaking to his psychiatrist, and there is only way to find out if he did.
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.
... has to go away. He runs to Phoebe’s school to leave her a note to meet him. While he’s waiting he notices “Fuck you” (201) on the wall. “It drove me damn near crazy,” he thought. Holden sees Phoebe with her suitcase as she tells him, “I’m going with you. Can I? Okay?” (206) Holden’s response was “No. Shut up”. Phoebe got angry and didn’t let up until Holden agreed that he wouldn’t leave. She went on the carrousel in the park and while she was going around and around, Holden felt so happy that, “[he] was damn near bawling”. (213)
Holden Caulfield, throughout the novel, excludes himself and seems to be victimized by the world around him. His isolation is a form of protection for himself, but it is also the source of his problems. Holden’s sense of superiority is a cause of his isolation; he is trying to prove to others that he is above interacting with them. His alienation is the cause of most of his prob...
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.
...minutes or so.” (Pg. 59) As Holden was going through his mind listing each person in his life he could possibly call, he began realizing the extent of his lonesomeness. Holden could have contacted anyone of those people he listed, however he chose not to because he felt as if he was simply an outcast with a burden and did not want to disrupt the orderly lives of others. Holden’s mentality diversifies so greatly compared to others that very few people in the world actually understand him. Holden’s need to physically isolate himself from others is linked directly with his sense of abnormality. His thoughts and actions are consistently misunderstood by everyone around him as he has not yet found his place in the world, a place where he truly believes he belongs. Holden therefore uses his outlook on society and the people in it as being “phony” to justify his seclusion.
His parents return home while he is still in the house. Holden asks Phoebe for money and she gives him all her Christmas money. This made him break down in tears and he could not stop. Again he mentions the word “edge”. “I was still sitting on the edge of the bed…” (193) He was still on the edge of an emotional breakdown… The red hunting hat plays an important symbolic part in the novel. For Holden it symbolises protection. Before he leaves he gave it to Phoebe. Suddenly he did not mind his parents seeing him - he is standing on the edge of surrendering. “I figured if they caught me, they caught me. I almost wished they did, in a way.” (194)