...Catcher in the Rye is a coming of age story that tells the tale of Holden Caulfield, a troubled young man who throughout the novel, is presented with various symbols. The symbols are clearly made evident by Holden’s (J.D. Salinger's) constant repetition of their importance. The symbols are so important and their symbolism is directly related to the major themes of the novel. Three symbols seemed to have a higher president over the others, those are the central park ducks, the museum of natural history and Holden's brother Allie himself. These are very important objects that carry a higher meaning with them.Allie, Holden’s younger brother who died several years before the events of Catcher in the Rye, was a key symbol throughout the story. When Holden remembers incidents from his past involving Allie, his attitude changes, such as when he writes the composition about Allie’s baseball glove or when Holden brakes his hand from punching all of the windows after Allie died. He feels that Allie was one of the few people who were not phony in a world full of phonies. More importantly, Allie represents the innocence and childhood that Holden strives to find throughout his journey. In Holden’s opinion, Allie represents the purity that Holden looks for in the world. Holden admits that he admires Allie more than he admires Jesus, and even prays to Allie at one point, rather then the latter. Allie is Holden’s role model, whom he judges the rest of the world according to. When Allie dies,...
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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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...A Catcher in the Rye: Essay!!! Feelings are difficult, everyone who has ever experienced; love, pain, rejection, happiness etc. honestly doesn’t know what is causing that feeling or why they feel that way. We react to events with things called emotions, which are types of feelings; they are pretty different from things that happen to you physically. They can make you feel empowered, beat up, stupid, important and many other things. Physical feelings basically go just as fast as they came. Whereas, mental feelings linger and have much more of an effect on how you look at yourself as a person. They can weigh on your mind for hours, days, sometimes even years. This is why being able to talk to people is important. You need to be able to express yourself with confidence. Mainly because if you don’t know how to talk to someone you won’t be able to speak about how you feel and will eventually drive yourself mad. But the important thing is that we speak to the ones who build us up and not knock us down. We never really find out who or what type of people they are until they reject us in our time of need, and then we recognize their true colors. In this novel “The Catcher in the Rye,” Holden has this MAJOR mixture of emotions that he simply cannot handle alone. First off pick the time and correct place to be venting to someone about your feelings so that they aren’t overly shocked by what you are telling them. What Holden could have done, considering he has been getting “the axe”...
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...In the novel, "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D Salinger, the main character, Holden, is a teenager who refuses to grow up because he is naively fixated on childhood. Throughout the novel, Holden struggles through teenage life because he cannot accept the given responsibilities that come with growing up. Holden is obsessed with childhood because he chooses to be wedged between a world of the innocence of children and the complex world of adulthood. Holden deities his two younger siblings as if they're candidates for sainthood because of his fixation. Holden is a teenager who refuses to grow up because he is afraid of gaining the responsibilities that come with it. So, Holden struggles hard to stay childish. For example, throughout the book, he does not want to take responsibility to communicate with others that may want to help him. He refuses to go home and confront his parents and face the consequences. Along with this, he also pulls the childish silent treatment toward his parents; because that's the only knife he has to hurt them: ."..she wouldn't've been the ones that answered the phone. My parents would be the ones. So that was out." (pg. 59) He is afraid to talk to people close to him because they'll be critical to him. This would also explain his lack of interaction with Jane Gallagher: ."..I kept standing there, of giving old Jane a buzz- I mean calling her long distance at B.M... The only reason I didn't call him was because I wasn't in the mood." (pg. 63) Since he is...
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...Should the Catcher in the Rye continue to be read in schools ? The Catcher in the Rye should continue to be read in certain schools, it shouldn’t be a problem reading that type of book in high school because that is when young teens should becoming more mature and young teens can relate to this type of book. Most teens are matured by the time they go to high school, because when they are young they can learn from all their mistakes. Older siblings can also let their young teen siblings know ahead of time what can happen or the possibilities while in high school. As you get older, things that entertained you as a child might not entertain you anymore, and you would want to get your own things like a house, car, job, or a family. Another way teens mature as they get older, they will most likely be around older people that will be doing adult like things and young teens can learn from that. Young teens can relate to The catcher in the Rye because most teens have been in the situation the main character has been in. The problems the main character has faced is some of the problems teens face today, real life situations like losing family members, having problems with school and other people. Can also relate because the type of position the character been...
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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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...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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...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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...Multiple Critical Perspectives ™ Teaching J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye from Multiple Critical Perspectives by Stephanie Polukis ™ Multiple Critical Perspectives The Catcher in the Rye General Introduction to the Work Introduction to The Catcher in the Rye S ince The CaTCher in The rye was published in 1951, the book has received mixed reviews. While sev- eral critics commend Salinger’s thorough development of the narrator, the realistic use of vernacular in the narration, and the accurate portrayal of post-World War II teenage life, others feel that the novel is perverse and immoral. In fact, The Catcher in the Rye was on the public school’s banned book list for its use of profane language, depiction of underage drinking, and sexual allusions. However, regardless of the challenges to the novel, the book was a New York Times Bestseller for thirty weeks, and remains popular in the twenty-first century. While the novel in its present form is roughly 214 pages long, the story evolved from short stories published by J.D. Salinger in the 1940s. “I’m Crazy,” published by Collier’s magazine in 1945, developed into the conversation with Mr. Spencer in Chapter 2 and Holden’s visit to Phoebe in Chapters 22 and 23. While the story features Holden, the Spencers, and Phoebe, it also includes Jeanette—the housekeeper— and Viola—Holden’s youngest sister, who have both been omitted from the novel. Salinger’s “Slight Rebellion Off Madison...
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...Catcher in the Rye Essay Innocence Themes in literary works are recurring, unifying subjects or ideas, motifs that allow us to understand more deeply the characters and their world. In The Catcher in the Rye, the major themes reflect the values and motivations of the characters. Some of these themes are outlined in the following sections. As its title indicates, the dominating theme of The Catcher in the Rye is the protection of innocence, especially of children. For most of the book, Holden sees this as a primary virtue. It is very closely related to his struggle against growing up. Holden's enemy is the adult world and the cruelty and artificiality that it entails. The people he admires all represent or protect innocence. He thinks of Jane Gallagher, for example, not as a maturing young woman but as the girl with whom he used to play checkers. He goes out of his way to tell us that he and Jane had no sexual relationship. Quite sweetly, they usually just held hands. Holden comforted Jane when she was distressed, and it bothers him that Jane may have been subjected to sexual advances from her drunken stepfather or from her date, Holden's roommate, Stradlater. Holden's secret goal is to be "the catcher in the rye." In this metaphor, he envisions a field of rye standing by a dangerous cliff. Children play in the field with joy and abandon. If they should come too close to the edge of the cliff, however, Holden is there to catch them. His attitude seems to shift near the end...
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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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...afternoon. He eats breakfast at sandwich bar, where he starts a conversation and donates ten dollars to two nuns. 8. Holden passes by an old museum that he use to visit every year. He remembers how nothing in the museum ever changed except for himself. 9. Holden and Sally go to the theater, where Sally runs into an old friend. After the play, Hodlen takes Sally ice skating. where they get into an arguement because Holden wants Sally to run away with him. 10. Holden becomes intoxicated after a night at the bar with Carl Luce. He wanders through Central Park and decides to visit his sister Phoebe. 11. Phoebe finds out that Holden was kicked out of another school and she is disappointed. Holden tells Phoebe about his dreams of becoming a catcher in the rye and he gives her his red hunting hat. 12. Holden leaves...
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...In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden experiences difficult challenges in his daily life. He has no friends and thinks that the exhibits are humans. Holden enjoys seeing the exhibits and it would be the one place for Holden to go if he wanted everything the same during his childhood. That is what makes it so strange. The museum never changes and helps Holden escape from his reality life. “You could go there a hundred thousand times, and the Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish” (121). Holden liked knowing that the glass cases in the museum would never judge him from his mistakes in the real world. He visits the museum to escape from all the chaos in his life. He likes the glass cases that the museum places all their exhibits in. He desires to place parts of his life in glass cases because they won’t change. He decides not to go in the museum. He is afraid that the museum and Jane Gallagher has changed. Holden knows that if the museum has change, then it would hurt him, so he doesn’t enter. He remembers happiness and laughter when he was with his friends and family. Holden wishes to live a simple and uncomplicated life. “Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you’d be so much older or anything. It wouldn’t be that, exactly” (121). The Museum of Natural History symbolizes the world Holden would love to live in. For example, he says,“ The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything...
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