1.Holden vs Self, Holden is in conflict with himself, being extremely angry and depressed, with the death of his little brother hanging over him, he wishes that he was the one who died, not his little brother, and he feels responsibility. 2.Holden vs Society: Holden hates the way children lose their innocence, and how they lose their innocence as they get older, and the way they are exposed to profanity and sexuality continually even as they are kids. He wants to be the catcher in the rye, who catches kids from falling off a cliff, in a children’s nursery rhymes. This rhyme is ironic, in that the poem itself has sexual connotations. Falling off the cliff, represents kids losing their innocence, and he wants to be the “catcher in the rye” who stops kids from losing their innocence. 3. Holden vs. people around him: Holden secretly hates most of the grown-ups, with a few exceptions, he hates almost of the adults he meets, believing them to be “phonies”, and hates them. He hates how fake they are, …show more content…
` Holden decides he wants to run away and pretend t be a deaf mute, because he can't handle life, and wants to run away from it. Before he does this, he wants to tell his sister and give her back the money. Holden doesn't want to deal with growing up and becoming an adult. He doesn't want to become a “phony” and is so depressed that he sees no reason to continue his life, which is why he flunked out of Pency Prep, and wants to run away. Holden meets up with her little sister in a Museum of Art, to give her back her money, but when he meets up with her in the Museum, she brought her things with her, and wants to run away with him. When she says she can't, she gets mad at Holden. After her Phoebe gets mad at him for not letting her go with him, Holden takes her to the Zoo. There, Holden watches Phobe play, and the children’s innocent. He begins to realize, maybe the world has a
At one point he thinks about heading out west where he would pretend to be a deaf-mute and live a quiet life. At another point Holden proposes to Sally to escape this world with him. It is finally to his younger sister Phoebe that Holden reveals his whole plan.
Holden begins to feel guilty for leaving the Antolini’s home and tries to distract himself by reading magazines. These magazines, however, make him more depressed as it makes him think that he has cancer and hormone deficiencies. Holden then describes the Christmas trees and shopping around him and thinks about the time he went shopping with Phoebe. As Holden walks down the street he becomes very worried every time he steps off the curb and begins to thank Allie when he reached the other side of the street safely. Holden decides that he is going to head West and start a new life where he pretends to be a deaf-mute so that he will never have to have another useless conversation.
Have you ever struggled with the thought of growing up, well Holden has the same problem. The Catcher in the Rye is a book based on the life of a teenage boy who is a very troubled individual. Holden refuses to grow up, and he struggles with the thought of losing his innocence. The way he chooses to deal with this is very strange. Holden is a very immature boy. He got kicked out of the high school he was attending. Since he got kicked out, he is now scared to go home and have his parents find out. He is also very immature in the way he lies about anything and everything he can. I think he is a compulsive liar and he lies for his own amusement. Something that you will notice about Holden is, he criticizes everyone he sees. He makes fun of people
When he’s watching Phoebe reach for the ring in the carousel, he sees “all the kids tried to grab for the gold ring…and I was sort of afraid she'd fall off the goddam horse, but I didn't say or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it is bad to say anything to them.” Yet another metaphor for falling off the cliff of innocence, Holden finally recognizes that he can’t stop Phoebe, or kids in general, from making their own choices and growing up. If they fall, they fall; it was their choice to become a part of the real world and leave their own behind. Holden almost gets close to rescuing himself from that idea, but by the very end of the novel, Holden still has the same view of the world had of the world before, ending his journey with “don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” His trauma of losing people he cares about most in his life after he gets close them, like his brother Allie, overshadows any discovery or change he had made throughout his journey. In conclusion, he stays the same and can’t rescue himself from his own
Holden is a very dramatic character. Holden took this girl Sally out on a date. They were having a very good time. He took her to an ice skating ring. After a while Holden started to complain about his life and says something disturbing. He stated, “here’s my idea. I know this guy down Greenwich Village that we can borrow his car for a couple of weeks. We could drive up to Massachusetts and Vermont, and all around there see. I have about one hundred and eighty dollars in the bank. I can take it out when the bank opens. Well stay in these cabin camps and stuff like that till the dough runs out. I could get a job or somewhere and we can live somewhere with a brook and, and later on, we can get married or something.” He is only 16 years old saying he wants to run
Holden was alienated by society because of society’s morals. In the book Catcher in the Rye, readers are able to watch sixteen-year old Holden Caulfield tackle everyday tasks while witnessing his deterioration in mental state. After being expelled from his school, Holden was left on the path of self discovery. This ultimately lead to Holden’s various mental breakdowns, as he had no one to reach out to in his time of need. The book was written in the early 1950s, and the content of the book was deemed ‘scandalous’. This lead many to question the true intentions of society’s morals. Catcher in the Rye suggest ideas alluding to society’s idea of a ‘perfect man’. Fresh off the heels of World War II, the ‘ideal man’ would have been considered confident with a degree from a prestigious school. Holden has neither confidence nor a highschool
“Catcher In The Rye”, is Holden’s dream. He stands in a field of rye, while catching children who are playing too close to a cliff. This represents his love of children’s innocence. When he sees kids who are innocent and how real it is, it makes him very happy. Little things upset him, such as bad words on a wall, because of how powerful pure innocence is to him.
Here, Holden desperately wants to escape the phony, corrupt world, so he proclaims his love to her, and asks her to runaway with him. She tells him that he is crazy and leaves him.
Holden is deathly afraid of conforming, growing up, and having to assimilate into the phony adult world. As a result he comes off as hypocritical as he is the most prominent phony in the novel. He constantly lies, refuses to connect with others and overlooks his own pain, letting it deeply impact his life. Holden is a compulsive liar; he does not have one honest conversation with anyone except his sister and Jane for the duration of the novel. When he is on the train with Mrs. Morrow, for instance, he claims his name is Rudolf Schmidt and preaches about what an amazing guy her son is, even though he is “the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey, in the whole crumby history of the school.” (61) This shows that Holden falls victim to the same social conventions as everyone else. He says exactly what Mrs. Morrow wants to hear, despite the fact that he
Holden then asks if it's possible to join a monastery without being Catholic, but Ackley finds that question annoying. Even as he tries to have company, Holden is talking about escaping society. His loneliness and desire for alienation are at themes that play a major role here. In the hallway, lonely and tormented by the suspicion that Stradlater may have had sex with his long-time friend, Jane, Holden then decides to leave Pencey and stay for a few days in New York until his parents find out he's been expelled. He packs and puts on his hunting cap. While crying, he shouts "Sleep tight, ya morons!" and leaves Pencey. I think Holden's loneliness and anger about Jane possibly sleeping with Stradlater drove him to leave Pencey and his society to be alone in New York. His crying may also indicate something more than just typical sadness, something more like
The irony of Holden detesting phoniness and adulthood is that he acts so much like an adult with his curiosity and experience with alcohol and sex that he misses his own opposition. Holden hates the responsibility, morality, and accountability of being an adult and embraces childhood. This contradicts everything that he desires and to want to take part in. This causes his own corruption and enables a failure to relate to himself.
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
Holden’s alienation is a result of how he wants to avoid the problems in his life and how he doesn 't want to acknowledge them.This character of a brooding adolescent is created to show the physical effects of events in his life. Throughout the chapters he frequently refers to the hardships in his life.These hardships include his brother’s death at a young age, his intimacy issues, and inability to form healthy relationships.Holden’s innocent manner therefore is caused by the impression that his brother’s death left on him.His unknown sense of identity has subsequently made him feel detached from his own family. As his elder brother and younger sister are considerably successful,Their successes have made the recently kicked out Holden feel
Throughout the novel, Holden attempts to find the true from of himself as he struggles with the social interactions around him. Due to the struggle and confusion that arouses from it,
He drinks, he smokes and rebel against both his teachers and adults. Holden is a very negative person and is constantly trashing other people, if not he is lying to them. He likes calling people ‘phonies’, even tough he acts like a phony himself. And this is his hefty scare, he is terrified of growing up, yet he realises it is time for his body is changing and turning him into a man. Holden has had an uncomplicated life if you disregard away from his brother’s death. He comes from a good family, has never lacked anything and has agreeable opportunities. An instead of using this to his advantage, he gets sucked down into a pessimistic and sad vortex. He never feels at home anyplace or feels a strong connection to people. Rebelling is an ordinary thing to go through in your adolescence and Holden has it bad. He is indeed a ‘rebel without a