Catcher In The Rye Essay

Catcher In The Rye Essay Catcher In The Rye Essay Koby Hinnant Leiknes 1 January 13, 2013 Holden Caulfield: Smart or Stupid? Many people, after reading The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger, may think that Holden Caulfield is not a very bright person. They may be right in thinking that, but the author was trying to show throughout the book that he actually was very intelligent, just maybe not scholarly way. This novel gives investigates the ideas of many different themes to help show what life was like for Holden Caulfield over the period of a few days. Furthermore, Salinger creates many different kinds of symbolism throughout the story to signify the character of Holden Caulfield. All of these items in this story about Holden Caulfield hint at how he finally comes to grasp with his life, how much of hole he is in, and that he needs start applying himself to life. Within the start of the book, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden’s character consisted of him being horrible in school (except in English). He considers all of those around him in the school to be phonies , and â€Å"one of the biggest reasons [he] left Elkton Hills was because [he] was surrounded by phonies† (13). Likewise, Holden’s character was also very isolated throughout the course of most of the story. He never really had many true friends that he talked about where he loved them and had to be with them. Sure, he had a date for a little while, and there was Jane, but it never implied that he wouldn’t be able to live without them, so he led somewhat of a lonely life other than those few people mentioned. But when the story was coming to a close, that all changed when he found out how much his sister truly cared for him and loved him. When she said â€Å"I’m going with you† (206), although he may be mad at her, he is forever transformed from a lonely person to a man who will never be isolated again because his sister will always be there for him. In addition, for most of the story, Holden was always depressed because of other people’s m isfortune. After seeing his sister ride the carousel, this part of him is changed too. Although the story ends just a little after that part, it foreshadows that Holden will enjoy his life more than he used to in the future to come. Salinger brought many themes into this story and developed them over the course of a few days of Holden’s life. The storyline of The Catcher in the Rye is highly centered on lies and deceit. Holden is always talking about how people were the â€Å"phoniest bastard[s] [he] ever met in [his] life† (13). This signifies that everyone is not being themselves, they are putting on another act when they around people, so they are deceiving each other. This particular idea also fits within the theme of youth. Most of the adults in the storyline are portrayed as being very phony, whereas on the other hand, the children in the book are all depicted as caring and kindhearted. Take Allie, or Phoebe, for example. Both of them were kind to everybody and c aring, as it was showed when Holden asked to borrow some Christmas money and she said â€Å"You can take it all† (179). By saying that, it shows how compassionate she truly was by letting him take all of her money. The idea of innocence is shown many times throughout this book and the novel would be lacking without it. Holden shows his innocence when he has a prostitute come to his room, yet he changes his mind and only wants to talk with her. This shows that Holden catcher in the rye Essay catcher in the rye Essay English 4 27 January 2014 Holden Caulfield is a very insecure, jealous teenager. Throughout The Catcher and the Rye Holden consistently shows us through insults that he is indeed, insecure. J.D Salinger institutes Holden’s insecurity by having Holden judge everything and everyone in the story which growing up I have been told people judge others because they are insecure about themselves. Holden is always calling someone a moron, or an ass, to make himself feel better. There is no doubt that Holden acts the way he does for no reason other than besides the fact that he is an insecure kid. Holden is in a school in which he does not have many friends so he picks apart the kids with friends to make himself feel normal and make it seems as if it is the others who are in the wrong. During his interactions with his roommates and his day to day life, you realize that Holden is so insecure and lacks self confidence majorly. Holden comes off very negative as the book begins, as the first line of the story references his so called lousy childhood, which to me immediately stood out as a kid with no confidence and someone who will be insecure. That was the string of a large amount of lines in which Holden was negative and or insulted someone else. Holden got into a fight with Stradlater who he continuously insults, about his date with Holden’s crush Jean Gallagher. After a brief scuffle Holden says â€Å"All morons hate it when you call them morons† (pg 44, Salinger). Holden says this to feel good about himself again after being beat up a bit by Stradlater. Holden always had said how he cannot stand Stradlater and does not know how he gets girls, which is the direct result of Holden being insecure about his appearance, and having no confidence. He is incredibly insecure about his own body because calls Stradlater fake and takes so long to get himself ready to go out. If he really did not like Stradlater he would not be worried about what he was doing, but he pic ks him apart because than Holden can feel better about himself. Holden insults people that he does not even know either, like the entertainers at Ernie’s. When the entertainers were finished with a song, naturally everyone began to clap, but Holden says â€Å"people always clap for the wrong things† (pg 77, Salinger). Holden says that because he is jealous that he cannot perform like the one performing the music and he is insecure about his talents, or lack thereof. Holden has no reason to cut apart the performers in fact, he should be grateful of these performers giving everyone at Ernie’s something to listen to. However, Holden is so insecure and jealous that he feels the need to cut apart someone who is doing nothing wrong. Holden is known for going on rants. His rants vary from complaining about how phony the school is, to the people he despises, and judging people who he does and does not know. Holden is on a downward spiral which are shown by his rants and rambling (Costranovo, David). This is a true statement, due to the fact that after every rant, Holden seems to get more and more against the world. Holden goes on more rants during the story such as when he says â€Å"mothers are all slightly insane† (pg 55, Salinger). While he seems to mean this in a positive way, he is always brining out some derogatory statement. He simply could have said that mothers are always there for their children and it is impressive. Instead I believe he uses the word insane to make himself feel like he does enough for other people and that mothers go overboard. He is insecure about the amount of work he puts into his life. I believe he calls the work they do insane, because he puts no effort into schoolwork so by him using the word insane, he feels as if he is more normal. It seems extreme to have Holden go this extreme to insult a group, but Holden has proved he will do anything to make himself feel better. Holden’s goal throughout the en tire story is to feel better about himself however it does Catcher in the Rye Essay Catcher in the Rye Essay Themes and Motifs 1. 2. 3. Holden’s central goal is to resist the process of maturity. He is frightened because he is guilty of the sins he criticizes in others, and because he can’t understand everything around him. But he refuses to acknowledge this fear, expressing it only in a few instances- for example, when he talks about sex and admits that â€Å"[s]ex is something I just don’t understand. I swear to God I don’t† (Chapter 9). Instead of acknowledging that adulthood scares and mystifies him, Holden invents a fantasy that adulthood is a world of superficiality and hypocrisy (â€Å"phoniness†), while childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty. Nothing reveals his image of these two worlds better than his fantasy about the catcher in the rye: he imagines childhood as an idyllic field of rye in which children romp and play; adulthood, for the children of this world, is equivalent to death- a fatal fall over the edge of a cliff. His created unders tandings of childhood and adulthood allow Holden to cut himself off from the world by covering himself with a protective armor of cynicism. But as the book progresses, Holden’s experiences, particularly his encounters with Mr. Antolini and Phoebe, reveal the shallowness of his conceptions. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. â€Å"Phoniness,† which is probably the most famous phrase from The Catcher in the Rye, is one of Holden’s favorite concepts. It is his catch-all for describing the superficiality, hypocrisy, pretension, and shallowness that he encounters in the world around him. In Chapter 22, just before he reveals his fantasy of the catcher in the rye, Holden explains that adults are inevitably phonies, and, what’s worse, they can’t see their own phoniness. Phoniness, for Holden, stands as an emblem of everything that’s wrong in the world around him and provides an excuse for him to withdraw into his cynical isolation. Though oversimplified, Holden’s observations are not entirely inaccurate. He can be a highly insightful narrator, and he is very aware of superficial behavior in those around him. Throughout the novel he encounters many characters who do seem affected, pretentious, or superficial- Sally Hayes, Carl Luce, Maurice and Sunny, and even Mr. S pencer stand out as examples. Some characters, like Maurice and Sunny, are genuinely harmful. But although Holden expends so much energy searching for phoniness in others, he never directly observes his own phoniness. His deceptions are generally pointless and cruel and he notes that he is a compulsive liar. For example, on the train to New York, he perpetrates a mean-spirited and needless prank on Mrs. Morrow. He’d like us to believe that he is a paragon of virtue in a world of phoniness, but that simply isn’t the case. Although he’d like to believe that the world is a simple place, and that virtue and innocence rest on one side of the fence while superficiality and phoniness rest on the other, Holden is his own counterevidence. The world is not as simple as he’d like- and needs- it to be; even he cannot adhere to the same black-and-white standards with which he judges other people. 12. Holden’s loneliness, a more concrete manifestation of his alienation problem, is a driving force throughout the book. Most of the novel describes his almost manic quest for companionship as he flits from one meaningless encounter to another. Yet, while his behavior indicates his loneliness, Holden consistently shies away from introspection and thus doesn’t really know why he keeps behaving as he does. Because Holden depends on his isolation to preserve his detachment from the world and to maintain a level of self-protection, he often sabotages his own attempts to end his loneliness. For example, his conversation with Carl Luce and his date with Sally Hayes are made unbearable by his rude behavior. His calls to Jane Gallagher are aborted for a similar reason: to protect his precious and fragile sense of individuality.