...Alexandra Small AP Language & Compositon The Catcher in the Rye and Impulse both have similarities between their narrators and characters. Impulse is a very powerful book with mature subject matters, but even so, it related very well to The Catcher in the Rye. The three characters in Impulse are all admitted into the Aspen Springs psychiatric hospital for all wanting to end their lives with different motives. Holden can relate to the three characters and mostly their lives before the psychiatric hospital. Through quotes, texts, songs and pictures The Catcher in the Rye and Impulse play out and compliment each other through similarities. In slide one, Tony and Holden are compared through their anger and outburst after losing a loved one. Tony, a character in Impulse was dating an older man named Philip. Philip became very sick and passed away. The only way for Tony to feel better was to turn to pills. He was hospitalized for trying to overdose and was put into the psychiatric hospital. Holden goes through a struggle when his brother Allie dies. When Allie died, Holden broke all the windows in his garage and had to be hospitalized. Holden ends up regretting this because he was still hospitalized during Allie’s funeral and couldn’t attend it. While Philip was alive he sent Tony a baseball glove and a ball for his birthday. This compares to The Catcher in the Rye because Allie had a baseball glove and he would write poems in green ink all over the glove...
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...Madrigal Professor Hendricks English Composition 2 1 December 2014 Bibliography Salinger, J.D. “The Catcher in the Rye” Little, Brown and Company. Boston: 1945. This source is the actual book The Catcher in the Rye which was written by J.D. Salinger. He writes of a boy, Holden Caulfield, the narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is a troubled teenager who switches between having a pompous attitude and feeling as if he is superior to others and then being aware of being alienated from his peers, to beginning to protect his innocence and that of other people. He begins to isolate himself from others because he doesn’t want to get hurt after losing a little brother, Allie. Other students looked down upon him and that is why he has possibly developed a dislike for other people. At first his isolation is more negative than positive. Holden is kicked out of the third school due to having poor grades. After being kicked out of school, he goes on a journey filled with various incidents that cause him to make grown up decisions. The story is narrated in first-person by Holden from a psychiatric hospital where Holden is for treatment. A quotation I will be using in the book is “I am always saying ‘Glad to've met you’ to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though” (Salinger 87). Madrigal 2 “Catcher in the Rye the Alienation of Holden Caulfield” Humanities 360 Print. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2014. Humanities 360...
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...In “Catcher in the Rye” Holden hypocritically points out the phonies and wickedness around him throughout the novel. Holden thinks everyone is phony, because adulthood creates a “phony” world in his eyes. Holden idolizes Phoebe, because he believes she is the only one besides Allie, his younger brother, who is not fake. Hopeless, lonely, bad and beat are Holden's labels. Depression, longing, emptiness, anger and cynicism were his true emotions and attitudes. He doesn't have a filter, because he would talk badly about others. (“Her son was doubtless the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey, in the whole crumby history of the school. He was always going down the corridor, after he'd had a shower, snapping his soggy old wet towel at people's asses… I told her. I didn't feel like giving her my whole life history. Rudolf Schmidt was the name of the janitor of our dorm.”) (Holden 30) This demonstrates that although he had these thoughts, he lied to his mother, which showed the phoniness within himself. Holden expresses this hypocrisy by complaining about others while doing similar actions, and sinking in his childhood after his brother died, which is the emotional scaring we see as a trend in the novel. In the “Catcher In The Rye” we know that Holden came from a mental hospital, we then understand that he mentally...
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...Catcher in the Rye essay After reading “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D Salinger, it is clear that the main character, Holden is a “phony” himself and his negative attitude reveals his psychological problems. In the story, whenever Holden sees a person he doesn’t like that makes themselves out to be something they’re not, he calls them phonies. He strongly dislikes phonies and despises any type of interaction with them. Holden continues this negative attitude towards everything in his life revealing some of his issues and keeping him from growing up. Holden encounters many phonies throughout his travels from boarding school to boarding school. He claims most of his “friends” to be phonies because of their lying but he has yet to realize that the biggest phony amongst them is staring at him in the mirror. On his train ride to New York, after being kicked out of Pencey, Holden meets the mother of one of his acquaintances from Pencey, Ernest Morrow. According to the story, When Mrs. Morrow asks Holden his name, he tells her his name is Rudolf Schmidt. Holden had no reason to lie to her, he just felt the need to. He has never met her before and probably will not see her ever again and still feels like he need to lie to her. As the conversation continues, Mrs. Morrow questions why Holden is leaving for break so early, Holden states “I have to have this operation…I have this tiny tumor on my brain” (58). Instead of explaining to her that he had gotten kicked out of Pencey due to...
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...May 17, 2010 English 10 H The Individual in The Society The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of the word individuality is: total character peculiar to and distinguishing an individual from others. The novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, play The Crucible by Arthur Miller and the poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy all have underlying themes of the society influencing a character’s individuality. In each text, each character struggles with the difficulty of the society’s impact on their lives. Through each text we see the struggles and stress “the society” puts upon people. In “Barbie Doll,” the main character struggles with her self image, whereas in Catcher, Holden struggles with the society’s pressure to become materialistic. In The Crucible, every character is under the microscope and pressured to stay in order and not to step out of perfection. If they do not do as told or what is thought to be the correct way to act they will be accused of witchcraft even if innocent. The society has such a large impact on each and every one of these characters, that without a doubt each character has been influenced one way or another. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden faces the pressure of the society alone and struggles with the ability of keeping his individuality from slipping out of his grips. The society in this novel brings upon the pressure of having everything, even if it means really having nothing at all. Holden feels he cannot be himself in the society surrounding...
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...Both Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and J.D Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye are bildungsroman novels about a young character’s growth into adulthood. Written 67 years apart, both novels feature unusual protagonists who are somewhat innocent, naïve and desperate to reject the process of maturity and being ‘sivilized’. Twain focuses on a key moment in American history to ask readers to reassess the definition of “civilisation”, freedom, justice and social responsibility. Published in 1884, the novel relates to the pre-civil war years when the controversy over slavery corrupted America. Twain set his novel in 1860 prior to the abolition of slavery in order to criticise racist attitudes and uses the Mississippi River as the centre point of his novel. It symbolises the route toward freedom and escape for Huck and Jim providing the setting for the growth of both a young boy and a country struggling to understand definitions of freedom, individualism and civilisation. Salinger, however, uses his protagonist Holden to explore the materialistic, conformist society he saw developing after WW2. The first extract I chose is from chapter 22 of Catcher in the Rye where Phoebe accuses Holden of hating everything and everyone. Holden reveals here his fantasy of becoming ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ protecting children from falling into the adult world. This links with chapter 31 of Huckleberry Finn where Huck decides to write a letter to Tom Sawyer to tell Miss Watson where Jim...
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...you are born between your parents and siblings? How could this everyday phenomenon, which drives our will to live and excel, be so simple? “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger and “The Dark Knight” directed by Christopher Noland are my chosen examples to explore themes such as hatred, mortality and deceit, which consist of various factors affecting relationships like self-isolation, our psychological health and propaganda. “The Cather in the Rye” explores these themes in a Dark, cynical but somewhat compassionate tone, accompanied with moments of humor. “The Dark Knight” is similar and explores the themes in a dark and disturbing tone, with the addition of action. “The Catcher in the Rye” demonstrates the theme of hatred with Holden’s hate towards the adult world around him, however as a consequence this causes personal, social and mental isolation from the world and an inability to create meaningful relationships. This is the main factor for Holden’s isolation from the world, and is symbolized throughout the novel with Holden’s red hunting hat. The majority of the people he encounters are deemed as ‘phonies’ for Holden as they do not follow with his view of the world, this generalization further prevent him from making relationships and reflects upon his immaturity. The last page of the novel and more importantly the quote, “All I know is I sort of miss everybody I told about”, through the use of colloquial language shows us Holden’s realization of his isolation as...
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...A creative work that has influenced myself and my ways of thinking has to be given to a novel by J.D. Salinger titled Catcher In The Rye. This book is a classic American novel that tells that tale of a boy named Holden Caulfield who through the period of 3 days experiences the epitome of teenage rebellion, confusion, and isolation. The reason this book has influenced my life so greatly is mainly the simplicity of the book and how it speaks so true to the realities of life. I first discovered this novel when I was in the 7th grade. I was currently going through a phase where I wanted to read all the classics and The Catcher In The Rye was on that list. There was many classics that I was reading that almost put me to sleep or that just didn’t...
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...In the novel Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, I believe Holden suffers from several psychological mood disorders, because of this, Holden’s decisions and thoughts affect himself, and everyone around him. He seems to think that all adults around him are considered phonies, and he continues to push them away to protect himself. Holden is deemed to be an outsider to everyone else; Salinger captures the whole story of an undeveloped teenager living in the big scary world. Because of his perception of the world, Holden uses isolation as a way to protect himself. We will cover the possibility of separation being a mental disorder, how Holden would rather spend his life solitary and how characters in other stories deal with isolation, and how Holden discerns the world around him. Throughout the story, Holden seems to have a negative perspective of the world around him. This is caused by a mood disorder such as Post-traumatic stress disorder or Borderline personality disorder. At the beginning of the novel, Holden experiences a traumatic event of the loss of his brother Allie. In the story Catcher in the Rye, Holden struggles to cope with Allie’s death. I was only thirteen, and they were going to have...
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...Holden's obsession with innocence: In J.D.Salinger's the catcher in the rye Thinking childish in its simplicity can lead anyone to the path of innocence. The protection of innocence is something that holden searches for in J.D. Salinger's novel the catcher in the rye which shows that he believes that the innocence of childhood is very valuable and should be protected from the adult world. Holden is wanting to protect the innocence of those people who he thinks are really innocent. In addition, holden himself is innocent. As, he does many things that show that he is still not mature enough and should protect himself. Finally, he is willing to save his younger sister phoebe’s innocence from the world of phonies. Holden’s desire to save...
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...THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. SALINGER I. Content of the Book Holden Caulfield is a very weird and interesting young man who likes to do things on impulse or because as he said 'he got such a bang out of it'. He has a brother, D.B. who is a writer in Hollywood, a little sister named Phoebe and another brother Allie, who has already died before the story even began. In the beginning of the story Holden narrates that he'll be leaving his school, Pencey Prep (a school full of Phonies from Holden’s point of view), because he flunked out in the four out of five subjects he was taking, the only subject he didn't fail was English. Holden tells the readers that he had come back to Agerstown, Pennsylvania though he was traveling with his team for a fencing contest, he lost all of the foils in a New York Subway, and so the match was cancelled instead. Holden even mentioned that on the way home his mates treated him to silence and he found this very amusing. Though there was a football game going on, Holden didn't go down and watch it, instead he went to visit his old history teacher, Mr. Spencer. Mr. Spencer is a very old man who wants to help Caulfield in his studies (since Holden has also been expelled in a few other schools as well) and at some point Mr. Spencer even read out Holden's examination paper and the little note that Holden had written in the end saying that if Mr. Spencer would like to flunk him then he'd be all right with it, Holden explained to the readers that the...
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...Stefani Arcadi C. Centorame ENG 2D March 24, 2015 The Catcher in the Rye The transition from childhood to adulthood is a huge journey. In the novel the Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is on his own journey and cannot accept the fact that his childhood is slipping away and that he has to grow up and face reality. Holden is having a difficult time doing so because he is afraid that if he grows up he will become a phony and will not be himself. Holden is poised between two worlds; one he fears to enter and one he cannot return to. Holden's refusal to face the adult world leads him to isolation and the realization that he has to mature. The museum of natural history displays how Holden is stuck between childhood and...
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...The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is a novel published in 1951. Holden Caulfield is the sixteen-year-old protagonist in the novel. He's a cynical character who has allowed grieving from his eleven-year-old brother’s death from leukemia to form the way he thinks about life, society, and himself. After getting kicked out of Pencey, a boarding school, he goes on a journey to New York City where he tries to connect with people he knows, like Sally Hayes, Carl Luce, and Mr. Antolini, and people he meets, including girls at the bar, the prostitute Sunny, Maurice, two nuns, taxi drivers and little kids. He protects himself a lot and prevents himself from connecting by using critical cynicism. He alienates himself from other characters through this misanthropic view on life, but he connects with readers through a conversational and informal style and his sense of humor. Though Holden has a...
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...J.D. Salinger's repeated use of the word "phony" to describe characters illustrates the protagonist's internal conflict toward accepting adulthood. Holden Caulfield perceives reality with a cynical point of view. For example, he deems Mr. Spencer's remark, "Life is a game that one plays according to the rules," as shallow and superficial (Salinger 11). Through indirect characterization, readers ascertain that Caulfield is repulsed by hypocrisy and disingenuous appearances. In addition, Caulfield is critical of the banal social formalities that adults partake in. For instance, Caulfield delineates headmaster Mr. Haas' behavior of shaking hands with parents and giving them a "phony smile" (17). Caulfield's condemnatory tone is manifested when...
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...‘THE CATCHER IN THE RYE’ AND ‘IGBY GOES DOWN’ – NON-CONFORMITY Both J.D Salinger’s 1951 Bildungsroman novel The Catcher in the Rye and Burr Steer’s film Igby Goes Down, demonstrate that regardless of context, the youth will choose not to conform to socially held values. We can see that this is the manifestation of the vulnerability and hesitation experienced as adolescents like us grow up. Ultimately both these texts explore the search for identity and individualism as a cause for non-conformity. The Catcher in the Rye was written during a post war era and a time of drastic social change. However, many of its conservative values remained and most importantly, the notion of youth conformity was held in high regard. On the other hand, Igby Goes Down is set in the 1980s -1990’s American era, a time of expanding multi national corporations, materialism and commercialism. Salinger and Steers utilise the characterisation of their young, sardonic and rebellious protagonists, Holden and Igby to epitomise non-conformity. The composers allude to the recurring theme of isolation and alienation in both texts. As a result of their non-conformity, the protagonists experience rejection and depression as they search for their selfhood. Similarly, the national ethos of the American Dream is explored as a mere fallacy, and both composers portray this through their protagonist’s wealthy backgrounds and opulent upbringings and yet money doesn’t bring them happiness. Salinger, through literary...
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