Catcher In The Rye Phoebe Character Analysis

After his mother exits Phoebe’s room, Holden decides to leave and gropes around the dark for Phoebe and borrow money from her. Holden begins to cry when Phoebe lends him her Christmas money and he gives his hunting

means to him. Suddenly, they hear their parents open the door the apartment. His mother checks on Phoebe. Phoebe loans Holden her Christmas money, which makes Holden cry. He gives her his red hunting cap and leaves the building.

After about three days of drifting, Holden gets very excited fantasizing about how he will go out west and start life anew. However, before he leaves, he must say goodbye to Phoebe. This shows how Holden prioritizes Phoebe over himself, valuing her innocence. Holden writes a note telling Phoebe to meet him at the museum because he is planning to run away. Then Phoebe arrives at the museum with a suitcase and begs to run away with him. Holden responds harshly that she cannot go with him and she begins to cry. Then after a few moments Holden says, “I’m not going away anywhere. I changed my mind. So stop crying and shut up” (Salinger 207). Presumably he told Phoebe that he would not leave to make her stop crying, but he notes that Phoebe was

Phoebe says, “’Gimme the pieces. I’m saving them,’” (181). Holden comes to her for emotional support and comfort. Holden thinks the best way is to shut people out, but even though Phoebe still wants to be his sister, she is willing to make his life better; someone to pick up the broken pieces.

The relationship between Holden and Phoebe forms a major theme that the novel aims to deliver. The fact that he is having this conversation with Phoebe, a child who is anything but simple and innocent, reveals the oversimplification of his worldview. Holden himself realizes this to a degree when he acknowledges that his idea is “crazy”, yet he cannot come up with anything more pragmatic; he has trouble seeing the world in any other way. His “catcher in the rye” fantasy reflects his innocence, his belief in pure, uncorrupted youth, and his desire to protect that spirit. On the other hand, it represents his extreme disconnection from reality and his naïve view of the world. Phoebe exposes to Holden a living embodiment of childhood. And it is a scene with her where she exposes to Holden the illogical nature of his supervisory actions, indicating that his desire to preserve her innocence will only halt her own inevitable development. Phoebe is the Greek word for “protector of children” (Bloom 2009, p185). Within the novel she is Holden’s protector. She comforts him, provides him with financial security, and protects him from getting in trouble with their mother. Reiff describes this reversal of roles between Holden and Phoebe as “Now, instead of saving the world by protecting the children, Holden wants to reject the world and shut himself off from evil by becoming a ‘deaf-mute’ in the West. It is Phoebe who rescues him from this total withdrawal” (Reiff 2008, p71). Phoebe forces Holden to view her as a human—living and progressing— rather than as a forever preserved child, and it is this humanization that causes Holden to accept her eventual progression into

Foremost, before Holden continues on his plan to run away and live in a cabin, he insists on seeing Phoebe. He expressed no interest in saying goodbye to his parents or his brother D.B., only Phoebe. In order to accomplish this task, he sneaks into his family’s home in the middle of the night and heads straight to

The death of Holden’s brother also take a significant toll on him and his innocence. The death of his brother sparks off the road to the loss of Holden’s innocence, and Holden starts realizing the phoniness in people. Holden labels everyone who is “corrupted” and not pure to themselves as phonies. Holden depicts almost everyone as fake and not true to themselves, except Allie and Phoebe. When describing Allie Holden says “it wasn’t just that he was the most intelligent member in the family. He was also the nicest …. God, he was a nice kid, though”. In Holden’s eyes Allie represents innocence and this confuses Holden because how can something so innocent die so young? Another death that changed Holden is James Castle a boy that committed

Holden visits his parents apartment because he wanted to see his little sister. Holden has to sneak into the apartment because if his parents see that he ditched school his father will “kill him”. He talks to Phoebe but Holden can’t stay their for a long time because soon his parents will wake up. As Holden is leaving, he passes Phoebe the red hunting hat; “Then I took my hunting hat out of my coat pocket and gave it to her. She likes those kinds of crazy hats. She didn’t want to take it, but I made her.”(Salinger,198). Phoebe is a very mature girl for her age, she is very smart and initiative. She is also very aware of her surrounding and reality, slowly losing her innocence. Holden as a big brother wants to protect and try to save her innocence. Holden “makes her” take the red hunting hat because he doesn’t want what happened to him, happen to her. He wants her experience her childhood and not race to adulthood. Phoebe at first is hesitant because she wants to live her own life. However Holden is scared of her falling out the rye, meaning going to adulthood. The fact that he gave her his favorite hat that he uses for protection show how he also wants her to be protected from the corruption of the outside world. Holden doesn’t just the desire of innocence but to preserve his sister's

In chapters 16 to 20, from buying a record she liked to going to the park to see her and even taking the long walk home after being cold and drunk at Central Park just to see her, Phoebe is obviously very important to Holden. Even though she doesn't show up for a majority of the book, Phoebe's place in Holden's mind is what leads him to do certain things. Just a plain sight of looking at an old record had brought Phoebe unto his mind, which led on to him actually buying the record for her. This thought of buying a record for Phoebe drove him to look for Phoebe at the park he knew she liked to go to. Not being able to find her, he then risks it all by going to her house.

Holden Caulfield is a character who has been through rejection and wishes to protect others innocence. He is a teen boy who is the main character in Catcher in The Rye by J.D.Salinger. He has an older brother named DB, a younger sister named Phoebe, and a younger, deceased, brother named Allie. Holden retells his story on him, trying to be the catcher in the rye. Holden has been kicked out of different colleges. He has been rejected by different girls. Holden goes through his life story. He talks about being kicked out of Pencey, his friend Jane, his “acquaintance” Stradlater, and how, when, and where Allie died. Society is to blame for Holden Caulfield's decline in mental stability. Society does not help Holden. Instead, they ignore his

Holden Caulfield and Phoebe Caulfield are siblings in the novel The Catcher in the Rye. Being siblings, they have many similarities as well as differences. Holden is the main character in the novel, and the narrator of the story. Holden is writing from a mental hospital about his experience, “around last Christmas just before I got run down.” (Salinger, 1) He writes about his journey from Pencey Prep School, in Agerstown, Pennsylvania, to his home in New York City. Along the way he encounters many different important people to the story, one of the most important characters he encounters along the way is his sister Phoebe who teaches Holden what it means to be mature.

Not only does Holden feel great affection for Phoebe, Phoebe feels great affection for Holden as well. It isn't too hard to understand that she and Holden are especially close since one of their brothers is dead and the other lives miles from their home. It is also surprising on how quickly Phoebe realizes that Holden came home earlier than expected. It is obvious that Phoebe is much more mature and articulate for her age to realize something like that so quickly. It is as if she is Holden's older sister instead of the younger one.

Holden's younger sister Phoebe, is also in need of Holden's protection. He must protect her because he failed to protect his brother Allie from death. Holden feels that it is his responsibility to protect Phoebe from whatever may put her in danger, even himself: "I was glad. All of a sudden I wanted her to cry till her eyes practically dropped out. I almost hated her. I think I hated her most because she wouldn't be in that play any more if she went away with me." (207) He does not want Phoebe to turn out like himself. He wants

After Holden arrives in New York and takes a cab to his hotel, he "damn near gave my kid sister Phoebe a buzz, though. I certainly felt like talking to her on the phone. Somebody with sense and all," (66). Holden wants to talk to Phoebe as he has been isolated from her and feels because she is someone who he has a strong connection with, that she will make him less depressed shown by him saying that she had sense. Also while Holden is in his hotel room in New York, after his prostitute leaves, he "felt depressed," then he began "talking, sort of out loud, to Allie," (98). Allie's death made Holden isolated form someone who was close to him. Him attempting to talk to Allie shows how his loneliness and depression was caused by his isolation because he wants to try to reconnect with Allie to end his loneliness. While on his way to a bar from the hotel, Holden describes New York as making him feel "lonesome and depressed" and how he wished "[he] could go home and shoot the bull with old Phoebe," (81). Holden feels lonely and depressed in New York because of his isolation from Phoebe, someone he loves. This is proved by how he describes that he wishes he could go home and talk with her for a while. After getting to New York, Holden's feelings still follow him as he feels lonely and depressed thinking about Phoebe and wanting to see

“bye,” I said and went back to my dorm, I really wanted to talk to my principal about my grades so that I could find something to do about all the failing classes I had. After I finally got in my room and there was no one there for some reason, so I just laid in bed I wanted to call Phoebe to see how she was doing she's my little sister. I was thinking about going to talk to Mr.spencer because I was really bored so I got up and then my mom was calling me, I answered right away and said