Holden’s Social Path to Maturity Holden interacted with many strangers throughout the book The Catcher in the Rye. He struck up conversations with just about anyone he could talk to, but was very selective when deciding if he would keep the conversation going. He was only interested in the conversation if the person had a good first impression on him, otherwise he would walk away. Also, he hated talking to people who were fake or phony, and he could tell when anyone wasn’t sincere. The conversations
The phone booth and phone calls represent Holden’s desperation to talk to someone. When he states, “I was going to say her aunt had just got killed in a car accident and I had to speak to her immediately,” (71) it shows that he would do pretty much whatever it took to talk to talk to Jane. Although he doesn't actually do it, he shows that he is desperately trying to get to talk to her on the phone. When he sits in a chair at the hotel, he says, “Then, all of a sudden, I got this idea… It was the
Holden understands the first part of Empathy, he understands the emotional make up of people. Holden knows what most people feel, he knows when people are sad and he knows the certain situations that might make people sad. He then goes out of his way to make sure he doesn’t harm anyone’s personal feelings, like before mentioned he explains to his History teacher Mr. Spencer that he shouldn’t feel bad about failing him, saying: “Dear Mr. Spencer. That’s all I know about the Egyptians. I can’t seem
Throughout the "coming of age" novels, a major similarity between the works is the impact of adulthood on the main characters, who are all children. The adults in the books dispose of their own anger and sadness on the children counterparts. In the Catcher in the Rye, we are told Holden's brother recently died, instead of his parents consoling their living child, he is sent to a boarding school. Holden needs comfort and involvement of his parents, but he gets none. In The Bluest Eye, Pecola is the victim
extremely disastrous because untreated depression can have many side effects including insomnia, low self-esteem, and thoughts of suicide regardless of the cause of depression. J.D. Salinger demonstrates this issue in his fictional novel “The Catcher in the Rye” where a teenage boy attempts to deal with his depression. This intriguing story explores how the protagonist Holden Caulfield struggles with alienation and cynicism as
Discovery is a state of mind that challenges an individual's values by changing one’s perspective. Both Ernesto Guevara’s, “The Motorcycle Diaries” (TMD) and J.D. Salinger’s, “The Catcher in the Rye” (Catcher) utilise their reflective forms of text to reveal that one only achieves this state of mind by reflecting on one’s confronting experiences. Through diverse literary techniques, discovery is uncovered as a complex process that involves personal growth. As such, confronting discoveries can lead
Learn, Adapt, Conform According to Hans F Hansen, “It takes nothing to join the crowd. It takes everything to stand alone.” Is that true? Well, the author of Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger, and the author of Antigone, Sophocles, certainly think it is. Both stories feature a protagonist who goes their own way and is isolated from society as a punishment. In their stories, the authors show that by teaching people not to stand out society can exercise a lot of control over individuals. Holden’s
Contrass Holden is criticizing phoniness while Charlie becomes phony through the book. In The Catcher In The Rye, Holden mainly talks about how people are phony, how they become phony and how this affects their education, desire of learning, approach next to the girls and behavior next to people. However, in The Perks of Being a Wallflower Charlie becomes an example for the message of The Catcher in The Rye with the change in his educational thoughts and behaviors. “An inferiority complex is a lack
articles in general. Even though these works may handle the concept in different ways, they still touch upon it similarly. So similar that parallels can often be made. An article by Mental Health America and the famous realistic fiction novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger have parallels that form. While the article directly talks about depression, the novel indirectly involves the disorder and its symptoms. The disorder is brought into the book by the main character, Holden Caulfield, who is
J.D. Salinger and Sylvia Plath craft the protagonists of The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar, Holden Caulfield and Esther Greenwood respectively, to each battle mental illness and society's expectations in their relative social spheres in order to find their own identities, but with varied outcomes. For Holden it results in a slow and steady mental breakdown that worsens as he continues to observe elements of a society he cannot and will not fit into. Esther has a slightly different experience