...Catcher in the Rye: FLE In J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield expresses his love of innocence as he sees it in others, in numerous ways. He demonstrates this through the way he talks about others and the way he acts around them. We learn that Holden lost his own innocence at an early age after his “perverty” (193) encounter with Mr. Antolini. Because of this, he cherishes, and wants to protect innocence in others. This is really a reflection of his desire to be innocent himself. Allie is a paragon of innocence to Holden. 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 a thousand times nicer than the people you know that’re alive and all (171). Innocence is lost in adulthood. Since Allie never becomes an adult, he is for Holden the epitome of innocence, consequently, Holden’s love for him is very deep. Holden’s memories of Allie will always be of an innocent Allie. Holden says that he will not stop liking Allie just because he is dead. The other people he talks about are the adults that Holden sees around him. He does not like any of them because they are phony, and have lost their innocence. Mr. Spencer is one person in the book who definitely has lost his innocence, but Holden does not dislike him. Although Holden says he likes Mr. Spencer, he does imply that Mr. Spencer is a phony. There are other...
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...The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, like many other great works, was met by scornful criticism and unyielding admiration. However, many literary critics also admired Salinger's use of language, which is used to make Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, extremely realistic. Such language includes repetition of phrases, blatant cursing, and bold statements in order to capture the informal speech of the average, northern American adolescent. Through Holden's thoughts and dialogues, Salinger successfully created a teenage boy that changed the literary world. The language used in The Catcher in the Rye has long been a topic of controversy to literary critics. Holden Caulfield's thoughts and comments serve to deepen his personality and to provide entertainment. Salinger wants to create a typical teenager while keeping Holden as an individual at the same time. Like most teenagers, Holden speaks in trite sentences. However, he also uses words in places that were then uncommon. Holden often leaves his sentences dangling with words like "and all" and "or anything." Salinger intentionally used such speech repetition to individualize Holden, and, at the same time, make him a believable teenager of the early 1950s. Moreover, Holden has other expressions that appear consistently throughout the novel. In some places, the expressions only serve to make Holden more realistic, while in other places Holden is trying to reinforce his values. Holden repeatedly comments on his hatred towards...
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...The Catcher in the Rye, a novel written by J.D Salinger, is about a sixteen-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield who is troubled and misunderstood. He is critical and skeptical about the world he lives in, and only respects his deceased brother, Allie, and his younger sister, Phoebe, because of their innocence. Phoebe isn't “phony” like everybody else is to Holden, and because of this he truly admires and trusts her with his inner thoughts. In a way, Holden and Phoebe are each other's heroes without even knowing it. Holden yearns to live in a world that is genuine, and it's clear that Holden is fighting a psychological battle within himself, which makes depression and conflict major themes throughout this novel. Salinger's novel is extremely controversial because of the teenage angst displayed and the language used by Holden, but it is an accurate look inside the mind of someone who feels alienated. The literary critic, Michicku Kakutani, mentions that Salinger gave Holden “a voice that enabled him to channel an alienated 16-year-old's thoughts and anxieties and frustrations, a voice that skeptically appraised the world and denounced its phonies and hypocrites and bores.” Holden fails out of school and goes to New York where he interacts with people, but he thinks they are all phony, so he spends a lot of time feeling like a failure. Past events that occurred in Holden's life definitely make him judgmental, such as when his former English teacher, Mr. Antonlini, pats him on...
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...The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. Originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage angst and alienation. It has been translated into almost all of the world's major languages. Around 250,000 copies are sold each year with total sales of more than 65 million books. The novel's protagonist Holden Caulfield has become an icon for teenage rebellion. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2003, it was listed at number 15 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. The novel also deals with complex issues of identity, belonging, connection, and alienation. Plot summary Holden begins his story at Pencey Prep, an exclusive private school in Agerstown, Pennsylvania, on the Saturday afternoon of the traditional football game with rival school Saxon Hall. Holden misses the game. As manager of the fencing team, he loses their equipment on a New York City subway train that morning, resulting in the cancellation of a match. He goes to the home of his History teacher named Mr. Spencer. Holden has been expelled and is not to return after Christmas break, which begins the following Wednesday. Spencer is a well-meaning but long-winded middle-aged man. To Holden's annoyance, Spencer reads aloud Holden's History paper, in which Holden...
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...T he Catcher in the Rye is set around the 1950s and is narrated by a young man named Holden Caulfield. Holden is not specific about his location while he’s telling the story, but he makes it clear that he is undergoing treatment in a mental hospital or sanatorium. The events he narrates take place in the few days between the end of the fall school term and Christmas, when Holden is sixteen years old.As Holden goes out to the lobby, he starts to think about Jane Gallagher and, in a flashback, recounts how he got to know her. They met while spending a summer vacation in Maine, played golf and checkers, and held hands at the movies. One afternoon, during a game of checkers, her stepfather came onto the porch where they were playing, and when he left Jane began to cry. Holden had moved to sit beside her and kissed her all over her face, but she wouldn’t let him kiss her on the mouth. That was the closest they came to “necking.” Holden leaves the Edmont and takes a cab to Ernie’s jazz club in Greenwich Village. Again, he asks the cab driver where the ducks in Central Park go in the winter, and this cabbie is even more irritable than the first one. Holden sits alone at a table in Ernie’s and observes the other patrons with distaste. He runs into Lillian Simmons, one of his older brother’s former girlfriends, who invites him to sit with her and her date. Holden says he has to meet someone, leaves, and walks back to the Edmont. Maurice, the elevator operator at the Edmont, offers to...
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...Title: The Catcher in the Rye Author: J.D. Salinger Setting: Time: A long weekend in the late 1940s or early 1950s Place: Holden begins his story in Pennsylvania, at Pencey Prep. He then recounts his adventures in New York City. Themes: Alienation as a form of self-protection; the painfulness of growing up; the phoniness of the adult world Characters: • Holden Caulfield- he protagonist and narrator of the novel, Holden is a sixteen-year-old junior who has just been expelled for failing from Pencey Prep. Although he is intelligent and sensitive, Holden narrates in a cynical and jaded voice. He finds the hypocrisy and ugliness of the world around him almost unbearable, and he tries to protect himself from the pain and disappointment of the adult world. The criticisms that Holden aims at people around him are also aimed at himself. He is uncomfortable with his own weaknesses, and at times displays as much phoniness, meanness, and superficiality as anyone else in the book. • Ackley- Holden's next-door neighbor in his dorm at Pencey Prep. Ackley is a pimply, insecure boy; he often barges into Holden's room and is oblivious to Holden's hints that he should leave. • Stradlater- Holden's roommate at Pencey Prep. Stradlater is handsome, self-satisfied, and popular. • Jane Gallagher - A girl with whom Holden spent a lot of time one summer. Jane is extremely important to Holden, because she is one of the few girls whom he both respects and finds attractive. • Phoebe Caulfield...
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...Tyler Ryan Professor Wheeler English 101 April 22, 2015 Catcher in the Rye Jerome David (J.D.) Salinger was born on New Year’s Day in the year 1919, in New York City, “the second and last child of Sol and Marie (Miriam) Jillich Salinger” (Alexander 1). As a young boy, Salinger was interested in theatre and dramatics. Growing up, he attended a public school on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. He was always a very quiet and polite young man. His parents, Sol and Marie, thought he would fit in perfectly in a private school – seeing how well-mannered that young Salinger was – they “enrolled him in McBurney School in Manhattan in 1932” (Alexander 2), but, just as one of his most famous characters, Holden Caufield, he did not fit in very well in the private school, struggling to keep his grades satisfactory. Concerned, Salinger’s parents sent him to Valley Forge Military Academy when he was just 15 years old. “There he was active in drama and singing clubs. He sometimes wrote fiction by flashlight under his blankets at night and contributed to the school’s magazine” (Alexander 3). Salinger graduated in June of 1936 from Valley Forge, and then went on to pursue a brief, but significant college career. He began his education at New York University, but quickly dropped out “to try performing as an entertainer on a Caribbean cruise ship” (Alexander 4). When he was 20 years old, he worked toward his college career once again. He enrolled in a class at Columbia University to learn...
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...Ena Mišković Leonarda Lovrović Modern English Practice 1 15 January 2013 J. D. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye The Catcher in the Rye is a novel written by the American author Jerome David Salinger. From its first publishing the novel has arose a lot of controversy. Salinger wrote his novel in the first person, addressing the readers in its very beginning, so the readers have a feeling that he speaks directly to them. Furthermore, sequences follow the exact thought processes of the main character, which brings him, as well as the complete novel, even more close to the readers. The story takes place mostly in New York in December 1949, just before the Christmas holidays. The plot follows a seventeen-year-old boy protagonist Holden Caulfield who retells several days in his life, giving his personal opinion of the society that surrounds him after being expelled from the third school in a row. The novel is presented as his own monologue written in a subjective style, which reflects the teenage colloquial speech of that period of time. A drop-out Holden has attracted a wide audience of adolescent readers, yet gained many negative critiques due to his rebellious way of thinking and acting, and his common use of street language; he expresses himself in slang, in a very witty manner, also using curses and swearwords quite often. However, the Catcher in the Rye has experienced a great success, and has been translated into many languages. It was and still is very influential book...
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...J. D. Salinger's notable and esteemed novel, Catcher in the Rye, reflects the hypercritical views of a troubled teenager, Holden Caulfield, towards everyone around him and society itself. This character has a distinguished vision of a world where morality, principles, intelligence, purity, and naivety should override money, sex, and power, but clearly in the world he inhabits these qualities have been exiled. Holder desperately clings to and regards innocence as one of the most important virtues a person can have. However, he son becomes a misfit since society is corrupted and he yearns for companionship, any kind of connection with another to feel whole and understood again. Ironically, despite his persistent belittling and denouncing of others, he does not apply the same critical and harsh views on himself. In Holden's eyes, society has influenced people to lose themselves. He is outraged by how easily citizens would bend to the ways of society to fit and prevail in it. He claims his own brother, D.B.--a talented writersold out his potential to Hollywood. In his mind, D.B. could be viewed as a prostitute that would sell himself, or his services, to whoever was the highest bidder. Ernie is too portrayed in such a way as D.B. is, as the accomplished and gifted pianist was depicted as using his talent to gain fame and money. Holden found himself disgusted by Ernie's corniness and the way of showing off his talent when passionately playing the piano to entertain as well as amazing...
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...Every human being has a different view of the world, a different view of those around him or her. Some may have a positive view, while others may think oppositely and have a negative view. Holden Caulfield, the main character in J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1951) is a peculiar teen boy with a pessimistic view on life, who sees other people in the world as “phony”. He goes through his life judging others, putting himself above them by distancing himself and not connecting with them. Holden’s characterization as a peculiar, judgmental, insecure teen boy helps exemplify how one’s false perceptions of others may lead him to distance and alienate himself from those around him, in order to protect himself from becoming like those whom he finds different. Holden is a teen boy who is extremely judgmental of everything and everyone around him. He sees those around him as phony, acting like or trying to be something that they are not. Holden says of his roommate, “Stradlater was more of a secret slob. He always looked all right, but for instance, you should’ve seen the razor he shaved himself with. It was always rusty as hell and full of lathers and hair and crap. He never cleaned it or anything… he was a secret slob anyway, if you knew him the way I did,” (27). He is very judgmental and critical about something so simple as a man’s shaving razor. In a way, Holden sees Stradlater as phony because he appears well-groomed and handsome...
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...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 is a...
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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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...The Catcher in the Rye Essay The usage of symbolism within the text, The Catcher in the Rye, enhances the reader’s understanding of Holden’s characterization, life, and past. All of which can be known through one specific symbol very close to Holden’s heart, Allie’s baseball mitt. Allie’s baseball mitt unearths a different side of Holden that not many people see; however, this is a difficult side of Holden to see because of how little he shows it. To understand why Holden is so attached to Allie’s old baseball mitt, the should first know who Allie was, and why he is so important to Holden. Allie was Holden’s younger brother who, at a young age, passed away from leukemia. Allie and Holden had been close when they were growing up; therefore,...
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...What does it mean to grow up? To Holden, of The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger, growing up means having to lose your freedom and becoming ‘phony’. J.D. Salinger also explores other aspects on what it means to grow up, including the many trails one must go through in order to become an ‘adult’. Although Holden explores the idea of growing up, he doesn’t actually change throughout the novel. The Catcher In The Rye is a tragic hero novel because Holden never actually changes even though he has plenty of opportunities to do so, he remains stubborn to his cause of not maturing and letting himself fail at yet another thing. Holden has lost all of his ambitions, he has flunked four out of his five courses. This is the next in the long line of schools that Holden has been flunked out of. But even though Holden has flunked so any ties, it is not intelligence that he lacks but the motivation. He in fact is very intelligent, but doesn't apply himself because he doesn't want to. By doing this he disappoints his family and his teachers who all know that he could be very successful. The fact that his teachers believe in him in shown when Holden visits Mr. Antolini. Mr. Antolini he states to Holden, “I think that one of these days, you’re going to have to find out where you want to go. And then you’ve got to start going there. But immediately. You can’t afford to lose a minute. Not you.” (Lines 29-33, Page 188) This illustrates that he truly believes that Holden has a bright future ahead...
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...The dismissal of materialism and wealth is a common value that is explored thoroughly in both texts. The protagonists of both texts come from upper class, wealthy families. However they both reject the idea of materialism. Salinger demonstrates materialism through the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, a non-conformist adolescent. Salinger displays this value through his 1950s context. The 1950s, following World War II, saw a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years, resulting in a boom in consumerism. Salinger constructs Holden to show the responder how society acts towards money and materialistic objects. “He’s got a lot of dough, now. He didn’t use to…Now he’s out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute.” Through this quote the responder can see Holden’s cynical attitude towards money and materialism. Holden does not agree with his brother’s choice to sell-out to Hollywood and is contemptuous towards D.B as he believes his pursuit of money is being untrue to himself and to his ideals. Salinger uses a metaphor to compare D.B’s job as a writer with prostitution. Through this technique Salinger engages the audience and shows how people in society change their ethics for money. In Igby Goes Down, Steers explores the value of materialism and wealth through the character of D.H. D.H is an extremely wealthy and hardworking man, “his mind functions only to make money”, according to Igby’s brother Ollie. Through the costuming of dark clothes, and repeated low angle...
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