In today's world people get irritated by people who are different from them. Readers can see this in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Holden suffers from depression and he has many different problem in his life that he has to deal with. Although Holden is a troubled boy who is trying to find where he fits in, readers see him as irritating because he is judgmental, immature and a hypocrite.
Holden is quick to judge people before he even knows anything about them. Holden after leaving Pencey is staying at a hotel. He has nothing to do and no one to call so he goes down to the lobby. When he gets down there he sees a group of people and says to himself, "except for a few Pimpey-looking guys and a few whory blondes"(77). Holden is
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Readers can find this irritating because he has many questions about sex and he does not know how to act mature. Holden at the hotel was looking at the window across into other people windows watching what they were doing. He saw a lot of strange things going on. One thing he saw was a man and a women squirting water all over each other. Holden thought that the girl was good looking and he said " I mean that's my big trouble. In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw" (70). Holden is very immature and he is always thinking about sex. He also always is asking people about sex while talking to him and it is very immature. Later on in the story when Holden is at the bar talking with Carl Luce, Carl says " Not so loud Caulfield. If you can't manage to keep your voice down, let's drop the whole ---" (162). This is not the first time that he has been asked to be quiet by Carl. Holden is acting very immature because he is yelling instead of talking to Carl at the bar and he is the only one doing that. This is very immature to do because he is at a place with all adults that are sitting and talking while he is yelling. Both quotes clearly show that Holden is immature and he does not act his age. Readers can see another reason why Holden is irritating in the …show more content…
Holden just found out about how Stradlater was going out with Jane Gallagher. He really likes Jane and he has not seen her in a while. Holden says " I oughta go down and say hello to her at least " ( 37). Holden keeps on saying this but he knows that he will not do it. He calls other people phonies but he is the real phony in the book. Later on in the story, Holden was walking back to the hotel and it was a very cold night. He put his hunting hat on but he didn't have gloves because they were stolen at Pencey. Holden said " If I'd found out at Pencey who'd stolen my gloves, I probably would've gone down to the crooks room and said how about handing over those clothes " (99). Holden is being a hypocrite here because he knows he would not actually do this. He says he will do something but he never actually does it. Holden never follows through on what he is going to say he is going to do and he always makes up excuses for why he does not do
The tone or attitude in which Holden speaks is based on sarcasm and rudeness which shapes him as a character. He uses sarcasm throughout the book such as on page 71. He says, “I told her, ‘you’re really lucky. You know that?’ She was a real moron. But what a dancer” (71). Here, Holden is being very sarcastic and rude with this girl which forms Holden into his character. His tone towards the world and to the people in it is just careless because he doesn’t care about being nice to anyone. He continues to act this way, even to people that matter, such as on page 13, he says, “You mean about my flunking out of Pencey and all? ‘ I said. I sort of wished he’d cover up his bumpy chest. It wasn’t such a beautiful view” (13). Mr. Spencer is one of Holden’s teachers at Pencey and he doesn’t appreciate that at all. When Mr. Spencer is being sincere towards him, all Holden can think about is the fact that Mr. Spencer’s chest is “bumpy”. This truly defines Holden as a character and what kind of person he is; a sarcastic and cynical individual, all shown through his tone of voice.
In J. D Salinger 's novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist, Holden, goes through many hardships in his journey to self-knowledge. In the beginning, Holden has to deal with being kicked out of school and not having any place to call home. He is also struggling with the unfortunate tragedy of the death of his beloved younger brother Allie. At the same time, Holden is trying to deal with growing up and accepting the adult world. Throughout the novel Salinger addresses the conflicts faced by a young man struggling with the trials and tribulations of growing up while also confronting personal loss and loneliness along the way.
Despite Holden Caulfield’s passionate hatred of “phonies,” he himself acts like one throughout the book. Holden dislikes phonies because he sees them as charlatans, or people who fake, cheat, and scam their way through life. They pretend to be someone they are not for their personal gain. For example, Holden observes his roommate at Pencey, Stradlater, to be a lazy slob who occasionally requests Holden’s assistance with homework. However, in the presence of the opposite gender, Stradlater becomes an immaculate gentleman, capable of coercing his dates into sex.
There is another lesson Holden had to learn. He needed to learn how to be satisfied with his company. He was always looking for someone to call or someone to talk to. When he finally did have some company, he did nothing but criticize them. For example, Sally Hayes went out with Holden, and throughout the entire time he complained and criticized her. He
Roberto Villalon Holden Caulfield is a teenage boy who struggles growing up. Throughout the book Catcher in the rye by J.D. Sallinger, Holden Caulfield is a teenage boy who experience struggles growing up and facing the real world he is living in. Holden unable to accept growing because he is not mature enough to take responsibilities. Holden is a teeanger who refuses to grow up because of his sad childhood and he does not understand people around him.
Especially Gleeson 3 when he sees a group of people Holden only can see the bad “Everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques. The guys that are on the basketball team stick together, the Catholics stick together, the goddam intellectuals stick together, the guys that play bridge stick together. Even the guys that belong to the goddam Book-of-the-Month-club stick together. ” To conclude, Holden is a judgmental person which makes him to h=genuine, which proves his phoniness.
As humans we sometimes seek isolation rather than human interaction for fear of being overwhelmed emotionally. For some people, comfort comes with the knowledge that alone, they are the masters of their own emotions, free from the pain of the world's occasional bitterness and sting. In the coming-of-age tale "Catcher in the Rye," J.D. Salinger explores this phenomenon through the voice of the narrator, Holden Caulfield. Although Holden possesses a voice of intelligence, sensitivity and insight he is also bitter with the hypocrisy and ugliness that he perceives in the world around him. The vividness with which he expresses his discontent is seen manifested in the criticisms that Holden aims at various characters throughout the story. As the
There have been 25 people Holden interacts with in the story and most have been adults. There has been a pattern for him with adults though at first he was genuine towards them but as the story progresses Holden’s state of mind changed, because he started treating adults differently he was more brutal and less truthful. But his interaction also had another pattern because although most of the story consisted of adults, with those few children involved Holden related to them. With the children he was more of like a child again they both went together and Holden really did not have any problems with the children. Furthermore the interactions with Holden involved a pattern. This pattern consisted of treating adults like crap and treating the children as if they were
In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger tells a story of a young boy, Holden, who never quite understood his stance on life. Throughout the novel, Holden struggles to adapt to the inevitable transition into adulthood, often worrying more about others than himself. In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger uses connotative diction, repetition, and specific diction to convey Holden’s struggle of accepting life changes that led him to becoming mentally unstable. To start off, Salinger illustrates Holden’s nature by using connotative diction.
He tells us that the hotel was full of “lousy perverts” doing “crumby stuff” (Salinger 33). The scathing remark isn’t unfounded, because in two different rooms Holden see a crossdressing man and two adults spitting water on each other. Though he admonishes the people he sees, he goes on to describe in vivid detail exactly what he saw. Later on, he orders a prostitute named Sunny (who’s a minor) to his hotel room, only to back out when things get too hot. As intelligent as Holden is, he’s incredibly immature when it comes to intimacy or relationships. While he welcomes “brief and isolated instances of kindness” (Edwards), he tends to avoid any type of emotional investment. Unfortunately for him, this is a major part of growing up, something Holden refuses to
In J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden Caufield, describes in detail the parts of his life and his environment that bother him the most. He faces these problems with a kind of naivety that prevents him from fully understanding why it is that he is so depressed. His life revolves around his problems, and he seems helpless in evading them. Among others, Holden finds himself facing the issues of acceptance of death, growing up, and his own self-destructiveness.
Holden’s immaturity causes him many problems throughout the story. Although he is physically mature, he acts more like a child. “All of a sudden I
The critical lens presented in the Catcher in the Rye is very evident in the main character Holden. Using the psychoanalytic lens to read The Catcher in the Rye shows the struggle Holden has trying to deal with the "Phonies" in his everyday life that he just can't relate to. This inability to connect with the people around him reveals his emotional instability and personal flaws. The majority of his issues lye within his subconscious and he doesn’t realize the way he treats people.
J.D. Salinger 's "The Catcher in the Rye" portrays a troubled teen in New York City. Over the few days the novel depicts, the boy displays his critical and unhealthy mindset. Eventually he has a mental breakdown. Through psychoanalysis of Holden Caulfield, one may suggest that Allie 's death, social development, and an identity crisis are large contributing factors in Holden 's mental breakdown.
Many Americans think that people who are different than them in some way or another are inferior. Holden embodies this need for judgement with his feeling that all adults or other adult-like students are “phonies.” He thinks that because they are different than him, they are less than him. Holden rarely sees an adult that he does not think of as a phony, “It was very phony- I mean him being such a big snob and all” (Ch.12 pg. 110). Even though Holden admits that this piano player is very talented and humble he thinks that he is still a phony. This gives good insight into how Holden sees people around him. Like many people in America, Holden jumps to conclusions and judges people who are different than