...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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...paying job or a high ranking position. Holden Caulfield and Chris McCandless seek a unique future; one involving days filled with wonder and tranquility, one away from the hustle and bustle of society, one away the greed that consumes most people. The Catcher in the Rye tells the story of Holden Caulfield, who is a teenage boy that ventures to New York City after being expelled from private school. On the other hand, Into the Wild recounts the adventures...
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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 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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...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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...In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, authored by J.D. Salinger, a main theme shown throughout the novel is “Growing up”. However, Holden does the exact opposite. Holden isn’t a bad person, but he doesn’t show that he can handle the real world. Therefore, that does not show that he can be mature. Holden shows an extensive amount of immaturity throughout the book. He lacks the ability to act his own age, understand the consequences of his actions, and be able to face reality. The novel explores the idea of growing up by relating Holden's’ issues to the theme. Holden starts off in the book by acting mature for his age. However, he is not mature. He is only acting. Holden even claims to be acting older than he is when he shares, “ I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am—I really do—but people never notice it. People never notice anything.” Therefore, Holden has not really grown up, nor is he grown. Especially, since Holden is the one admitting to this problem. Specifically in the novel, J.D Salinger illustrates how holden is immature when she writes about how Holden gets so offended by the the “F” word written near an elementary school. Holden imagines, “ I kept picturing...
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...Stelmach ENG4U Stelmach: 1 October 30th, 2015 Struggles With Change in The Catcher in the Rye: New Literary Criticism Approach Time and time again it has been proven that resisting change is impossible. The famous saying of “the only constant in life is change” is true in society and is shown in The Catcher in the Rye. For instance, in the novel the protagonist (Holden Caulfield) is clinging onto childhood, but despite his fears, change is inevitable . After reading the novel through a new literary criticism lens it is argued that author J.D. Salinger is informing his readers to avoid being overly attached to childhood because growing up is natural. Salinger engraves this message in his audience’s minds through the use of stylistic devices such as hyperbole, symbolism as well as indirect characterization. Salinger’s message of clinging onto childhood and resisting change is enforced on many occasions throughout the novel. Using hyperbole, in the first chapter of the novel, Holden emphasizes how tall he is and how he has gray hair, yet he admits that he still acts young for his age. “It’s really ironical, because I’m six foot two and half and have gray hair...The one side of my head...is full of millions of gray hairs...And yet I still act sometimes like I was only twelve.” (Salinger, 9) Salinger uses this hyperbole to really highlight to his readers that even though Holden might look like he is getting older on the outside, on the inside he still acts...
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...most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It’s awful.”, The catcher in the rye is a novel based on a boy named Holden Caulfield which he is afraid of adulthood written by J.D Salinger. Holden feels that all adults are phonies. As well as the teenagers his age that pretend to be adults or mature turn out to be phonies as they grow up. Also they feel they have to be a certain way to be portrayed as an adult. Caulfield is portrayed as a kid to most people, he is constantly told to grow up. From being kicked out of Pency to sleeping from hotel to hotel he discovers himself continuously having the feeling of being lonely. Furthermore, Caulfield holds all of his feelings in to where he needs to talk to someone about it. Holden is going through the stage every teenager goes through. When Holden says, “I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden I almost wished I was dead.”.This reminded me to today's society because there are many teenagers that just need someone to talk to or even just express how they feel or are to someone who will hear them out and not judge them or...
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...Coming of age is a life-long process all humans inevitably go through. This process of maturity can often be examined from fictional characters, such as Scout and Jem from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, and Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsb by Scott Fitzgerald. Each of these characters encounters different processes of coming of age. When these characters process of maturation and coming of age are compared, the most relevant coming of age best exhibited by Holden from The Catcher in the Rye, following with Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird and Mr. Gatsby from The Great Gatsby; however, differences in coming of age are apparent in the different time periods of each novel setting, practicality, and present social issues. Holden Caulfield, the main character in The Catcher in the...
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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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...The Catcher in The Rye Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in The Catcher in The Rye is a sixteen year old boy who is distressed between the corruptness of growing up, and the beauty of staying innocent. Holden can not withstand the thought of adulthood, he constantly emphasizes and intends to protect innocence in children. He fears that once a child loses their innocence they will become a “phony” like everyone else (Salinger 84). Holden tries to protect Jane Gallagher an old crush, Phoebe Caulfield his virtuous little sister, and all children who still have their innocence. Jane Gallagher is a not so beautiful girl that also happens to be Holden Caulfield's former crush. Jane Gallagher is...
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...His little sister is smarter than a drop out Holden's sister phoebe talks about the consequences about getting kicked out of Pency and how it would effect others and himself while Holden didn't think about it. Also she acts much more mature than Holden although she is many years younger than him. In many ways it seems that his little sister is much wiser than him. An example of this is when he returns home(page 158)he met and talked with his little sister, they got into an argument and phoebe was winning while he was trying to "weasel" his way out of it. Adulthood Holden is afraid of becoming an adult but he does everything an adult would do. He puts on a teenage act but really deep down he knows hes becoming an adult. He doesn't want that...
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...How does Salinger present Holden’s attitude to ‘childhood’ and ‘growing up’ in your three chosen extracts? [Draft Essay] ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ was written by J.D. Salinger and published in 1951. Throughout the novel a number of different themes and issues are addressed, however in this essay I will focus on ‘childhood’ and ‘growing up’ and how Holden feels about them. The theme I shall be focussing on is addressed several times in the novel but I shall only focus on three times the theme is referred to. A significant point where Holden has an unusually positive outlook related to the theme is in chapter 12. Holden is taking a cab; it was “a vomity kind of” cab that he gets if he goes “anywhere late at night.” It is clear that Holden is being his usual cynical and negative self, indicated by the word choice of the adjective “vomity”. He thought that the cab was so disgusting that it could cause him to vomit. This is a vulgar term typical of Holden’s vocabulary which generally shows his blunt and rude point of view. His mood did not improve when he noticed “a bunch of hoodlumy-guys and their dates, all of them laughing like hyenas at something you could bet wasn’t funny.” Sallinger has adapted a noun, ‘hoodlums’ to be an adjective. It reflects that Holden thinks that the people he is seeing are nothing but petty gangsters or ruffians that are of no importance; this is an example of when Holden judges people and believes he is better than them. Furthermore, the use of the simile...
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...Rita Acosta Advanced U.S. Literature B 26 January 2015 Krueger Catcher Essay In The Catcher In The Rye By J.D. Sallinger, a young Holden Caufield is refusing to grow up. There are many symbols of his youth throughout the book, such as his curiosity about ducks. "I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go. I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away. (pg. 13)" Holden Caufield is a 17 year old boy who deals with the issue of growing up. Holden is at his time in age where he is forced to grow up, even though he doesn't want to. Holden has been trying to protect his innocence for quite some time, as he does not like the idea of growing up. Holden’s misunderstanding of the ducks is one example of his innocence. Knowing where ducks go during the winter is a simple fact that young children learn as they grow up. We do not know for sure how much Holden knows about the ducks, but we can conclude that this little fact, which is common knowledge, shows how Holden is protecting his innocence. Holden is trying to prevent himself from growing up by protecting himself from simple childhood facts. ""Hey, listen," I said. "You know those ducks in that lagoon right near Central Park South? That little...
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...Salinger’s The Catcher is the Rye, the protagonist Holden Caufield emerges from a trying and emotional series of events and does not grow emotionally but remains as immature as he was at the beginning of the novel. The story is about the difficulties of growing up. Most people come out of their teenager years as more responsible and mature people. Holden goes through many stressful events during the weekend, but instead of coming out more mature and grown up, he still has the same childish views on life; he is violent minded, depressed, confused, and irresponsible. Throughout the whole novel, Holden fantasizes about killing people, he is baffled by sex, and he does not think out his actions. During the beginning of the story, Holden thinks about killing people many times. He wanted to kill Stradlater, his roommate, for dating Jane Gallagher, his old friend. Holden knew what kind of guy Stradlater was and he was afraid he took advantage of Jane. Holden actually does fight Stradlater but gets hurt pretty badly. He then puts his hunting hat on and says it is a “people shooting” hat. Later on in the story, Holden again thinks about killing people. When Maurice, the pimp, hurts Holden and steals his money, Holden pretends that he had been shot in the stomach and his guts were falling out. He then pretends that he is staggering down the stairs with a gun to shoot Maurice and get revenge. Holden does not actually do this, but it shows how he is immature and violent. Also, while Holden is visiting...
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