Comparing Catcher In The Rye And Ordinary People

Holden Caulfield values his brother, Allie. When Allie died of Leukemia on July 19, 1946, Holden was left devastated. However, Holden always thought that Allie was the most interesting person that he has ever met. Allie was one person that

In this paper I will being comparing Holden from the Catcher in the Rye, and Conrad from the Ordinary People. Holden and Conrad are kind of the same people and I will be talking about it in this essay. After reading the book and watching the movie, I realized that they were more alike than I thought.

Holden Caufield emphasizes on the loss of innocence in children. He feels that once they lose their innocence, they will soon turn into phonies like everyone else. The loss of innocence is very common in the development in human existence. It is caused by many factors. Past a certain age, children are either forced or led unintentionally into a pathway of corruption. A child is also known to lose their innocence by desires, fantasies, and attention. But once they lose their innocence, they tend to desire to go back and pretend to be young again. In the Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden discusses the importance of innocence in children's lives. He feels that once a child loses his/her innocence, he/she will soon be leaded to a

Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye exhibits unusual behavior during the course of the novel. His actions resemble those of one who suffers from Post-traumatic stress disorder. After his younger brother, Allie, dies of leukemia, Holden’s feelings toward the world change drastically. He begins to isolate himself from others. Even when he feels a connection with someone, he finds something to dislike about them and pushes them away. Holden also experiences frequent flashbacks to times when Allie was alive. He holds on to these memories and blocks Allie’s death from his mind. His PTSD also causes Holden to endure anxiety attacks. These attacks further push away the people he loves and makes it difficult for him to cope with his feelings.

In the article “The Five levels of Maslow 's hierarchy of needs” by Abraham Maslow explains the basic needs that a person wants to achieve during his or her lifetime. Cherry states that there are 5 basic needs a person wants to achieve, which are physiological, security, social, esteem, and self actualization being the highest of these needs. The needs go up as a pyramid and the higher you go the longer and harder the needs are to full fill. Then higher needs become more important than the needs below it. Maslow also explains in the article how the needs will not necessarily appear in the same order depending on the type of person. In the book “Catcher in

J. D. Salinger, in his novel, “Catcher in the Rye,” reveals how Holden’s life and relationships are affected by the death of his brother. Holden’s brother, Allie, died on July 18, 1946 from leukemia. Before Allie died, the relationship between two were inseparable. Being the younger brother, Allie wanted to be like Holden. Holden often reminiscences times when Allie wanted to spend time with him. “I remember once, the summer I was around twelve, teeing off and all, and having a hunch that if I turned around all of a sudden, I’d see Allie. So I did, and sure enough, he was sitting on his bike outside the fence.” (explain).

The exciting novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger expresses the free will of choice. Salinger cleverly conveys how decisions can alter a person’s perspective of their peer. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, is a young teenager who has emotional instability and behavioral concerns. Holden acts immaturely extensively throughout the book. Holden invents a world where adulthood is the emblem of superficiality and “phoniness”, while he chooses to convey childhood as a world of innocence. Holden’s observation of himself being the catcher in the rye is highly symbolic. When Holden states he wants to walk off beyond the cliff and catch the

The Catcher in the Rye and The Things They Carried compare how the two main characters are Isolated and in Exile. Each book the two charters are Isolated and Exiled in different way but in some way also similar. Two young men trying to find a way to be accepted in the adult world is still a mystery to them. The loss friends, family along the way and they can’t seem to find trust in relationships. When you’re young you do not know what is out there in the world. Who would think that growing up would be so hard. My comparisons are about the main characters Holden in “Catcher in the Rye”, and O’Brien in The Things they Carried.

Holden experiences extreme difficulty accepting his current realities and one of the main factors causing this is the lasting negative impact his brother Allies death had on his life. Firstly, when Holden decides to leave his school, he tells readers , “I don’t care if it’s a sad goodbye or a bad goodbye, but when I leave a place, I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse” (Salinger, 4). Holden’s need for closure is evident in this quote. When Allie died, it was very unexpected and he was not prepared to let him go, resulting in his denial that his brother is actually

On July 18, 1946, Holden Caulfield suffered the loss of his younger brother, Allie, beginning his life of despair and grief. It is often understood that grief consists of seven emotional stages: shock, denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, depression, and acceptance. In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger's utilizes death as a motif so as to show how the grieving process affects an individual throughout all aspects of his or her life. The stages of coping are represented during the course of the book, appearing whenever death is mentioned. As Holden’s journey starts with shock and denial, it comes to a close with acceptance of what he has gone through.

In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Yann Martel's Life of Pi both main characters Pi and Holden have an equal amount of grief and pain, so they can relate to each other. Pi is more mature than Holden Caulfield, but they both have not found that fulfilment that makes them feel whole. They search for two different things to find satisfaction and coping methods with their problems in life. Pi seeks the spiritual world through God and religion for help with his struggles. Holden takes the logical approach through materialistic things such as money to cope with his own set of troubles. Both characters seek happiness, they come from two different backgrounds and have two different ways of approaching adversity to try to achieve the same goal.

“I swear to God I’m crazy. I admit it.” It is very easy to automatically assume that Holden Caulfield is crazy. It’s even a logical assumption since Caulfield himself admits to being crazy twice throughout the course of the book. However, calling Holden Caulfield crazy is almost the same as calling the majority of the human race crazy also. Holden Caulfield is just an adolescent trying to prevent himself from turning into what he despises the most, a phony. Most of Caulfield’s actions and thoughts are the same as of many people, the difference being that Holden acts upon those thoughts and has them down in writing.

The Catcher in the Rye is a novel by J.D. Salinger. It is narrated by Holden Caulfield, a cynical teenager who recently got expelled from his fourth school. Though Holden is the narrator and main character of the story, the focus of Salinger’s tale is not on Caulfield, but of the world in which we live. The Catcher in the Rye is an insatiable account of the realities we face daily seen through the eyes of a bright young man whose visions of the world are painfully truthful, if not a bit jaded. Salinger’s book is a must-read because its relatable symbolism draws on the reader’s emotions and can easily keep the attention of anyone.

"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of

The novella that I chose to do my literary analysis on is called Animal Farm.