Preview

Examples Of Struggles In Catcher In The Rye

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
754 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Examples Of Struggles In Catcher In The Rye
Throughout the book The Catcher In The Rye, Holden Caulfield faces many struggles due to the fact that he does not like dedicating himself to certain ideas or people. In the book Holden finds it extremely difficult to devote himself to other people and is constantly finding reasons to push people away. Holden even calls almost all the other characters in the book “phonies” because he wants to find reasons not to care about other people due to the fact he is afraid of losing people he cares about. Holden had gotten kicked out of multiple schools which shows how he does not want to become connected to anyone, and even though Holden’s attitude can be seen as lazy, I believe he failed his classes because does not want to stay in one place to long and create any …show more content…
He was also sort of a nasty guy. I wasn't too crazy about him, to tell you the truth.” Holden most likely hung out with people he did not like so that if he got kicked out of school he would not miss anyone he would leave behind. Throughout the book Holden also stated many times how he wanted to go out West and live in a cabin in the woods. The details in his fantasy of living in the West were constantly changing since he sometimes wanted to live in a cabin with Sally but other times he wanted to live as a deaf mute showing how he is not able to even commit to an imaginary future. At the end of the book Holden is walking in the street and can barely make it to each side of the road while he thinks about his dead brother Allie. This symbolizes Holden’s life since he only focuses on the present and struggles to make it through day-to-day life since he cannot commit to a future. Holden’s little concern for his future makes it more apparent that he cannot devote himself to a certain life style and even had a hard time maintaining a certain attitude due to the fact that he constantly reassured himself and said things like: “really” or “for

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    When he is at the carousal with Phoebe, he says, “if they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them” (211). What Holden means by this, is that you cannot stop people from growing up. The only way to stop aging and stay a child forever is death. Holden was so caught up with Allie’s death because Allie no longer is growing up, and he does not have to face the hardships of being an adult. Allie does not have to live in a society “surrounded by phonies” (13). Holden finally comes to terms with the fact that he must grow up and move…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Imagine having the world at your fingertips, having the opportunity to learn what you need to know, and the ability to shape your own destiny, but refusing to do so in order to avoid change because all you can think of is what is to be lost than what is to be gained. Holden Caulfield is that exact same way, he refuses change therefore refuses to progress. The Catcher in the Rye, a novel published in 1951 by J.D. Salinger, is about Holden who after being kicked out of a prep school for failing most of his classes goes to New York for a few days. Throughout his time there Holden encounters many problems as he struggles with the idea of having to grow up. In addition, Holden tries to fabricate wild escape plans in order to avoid the inevitable reality of maturing. Although The Catcher in the Rye is a very elaborate book…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Throughout the story, Holden isolates himself from everyone else. One way he isolates himself is by wearing a red hunting hat, which he bought all by himself in New York. A red hunting hat alone is an odd and unique hat for a teenager to wear, but Holden even wears it in a weird fashion. Today’s teenagers strive to be different from each other, and one way they express themselves is through their clothes. Another reason for Holden’s isolation is his impulsiveness throughout the whole story. In the beginning of the novel, Holden thinks that his roommate Stradlater took advantage of Jane and gets into a fight with him. After getting a hard hit in the face, Holden tells Stradlater “to go wash his own moron face – which was a pretty childish thing to say, but [he] was mad as hell” (45). Today’s teenagers often get into fights and become impulsive because of the anger built up from their fights. After Sally refuses Holden’s request to run away with him, he becomes annoyed and calls her a “royal pain in the ass” (133). He quickly regrets it, but he is unable to take back what he said. Holden’s inconsiderate words show the trouble he has communicating with others, and give a reason to why he is isolated and friendless. Even today’s teenagers have situations when they say careless things and lose a possible friend. On the night that his little brother, Allie, died, he slept in the garage and “broke all the goddam windows with [his] fist, just for the hell of it” (39). The loss of a loved family member is something everyone can relate to at least once in their lifetimes, and surely it will be a painful experience that will drive one to do impulsive things. Everyone will, is, or has been a teenager in their lives so they are able to relate to…

    • 1244 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Much of Holden’s separation from society is due to his standing between childhood and adulthood. Holden does not have the maturity to become an adult, and expresses his many weaknesses by talking about how “phony” or “ignorant” people are. “It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques” (Salinger 131). Holden expresses his desire for being different from others and does not want to live by societies norms. Much of Holden’s confusion and lack of desire to be involved with other individuals is caused from the pain and disappointment received by it. Holden finds himself being lonely for much of the novel, and whenever he finds a companion, he will lead him/her on resulting in pushing a possible new friend away. Due to Holden’s lack of friends and involvement with other groups, he does not participate in common events that other kids his age would. “I remember around three o’clock that afternoon I was standing way the hell up on top of Thomsen Hill…You could see the whole field from there” (Salinger 2). Caulfield lives his life as a “spectator” standing far away from the events that are happening, just watching the…

    • 867 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    He sees adults and friends who succumb to these norms, and he outwardly looks down upon them and call them phonies of society. As an author, J.D. Salinger created Holden Caulfield as a character to challenge the expected norms of this time period, and as a whole, the novel addresses the challenge of accepting societal norms and diverging from norms to create a different lifestyle. For Holden, although many other reasons attribute to his refusal to accept society, he mainly believes that the 1950’s American Dream culture valuing marriage, family and education is not one that he wishes to be associated with. It is also crucial to note that by the end of the novel, Holden ends up in a mental institution, the location from which he narrates Catcher in the Rye. This element of the novel is crucial to our understanding of Holden as a character; he seems to have rejected the values and views of the post-war era so intensely, he is literally unable to function and has been…

    • 1991 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    When Holden gets older, he cannot seem to snap out of such a subconscious focus on Allie. Depressingly, Holden has often said, “What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window” (117). From this, he means he wants to stop transitioning into adulthood by giving up all together. Holden views this as a good outcome because he thinks no one could fault him for being a phony if he never lived long enough to become one. He also uses words like “that kills me” which can go so far to say that he wants to join Allie in death. Likewise, Holden often used self-degrading words towards himself which is also a symptom of depression. Interestingly, Holden seems to have a focus on Allie or Phoebe even when he faces more adult scenarios such as alcohol and potential sex encounters. From the moment Allie dies, Holden is stuck in a state of focusing on the purity in things which is why people like Jane and Allie seem so nice. Holden also has trouble growing up because he has no male role models in his life due to his lack of a father-son relationship. At the time, it was normal for more wealthy families to send off their boys to some prep school. From there, he never fully connected with any teacher or any older boy of whom he could shadow the healthy behaviors. Perhaps his father sent him away because he did not want to bond to…

    • 1410 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden is constantly trying to surround himself with other people, but isn’t able to form real connections with anyone. Holden socializes with girls multiple times throughout the book. He makes an effort to engage in conversation with them, but they never seem to want to reach past small talk. This leaves Holden frustrated with the lack of connection made. Holden goes into a club with the hopes of drinking, but is not allowed due to lack of identification. He searches for girls, only to find a group of three who he does not like very much, but dances and flirts with them anyway. He tries to create conversation, only to deem them stupid as a result of their lack of interest in him. When Holden meets up with an old friend, Sally, he rants about New York and the phonies at his school, eventually digressing into a proposal to run away to different states. Sally rejects his proposal and tells him she does not see what he means with his ranting, and he begins hating her, even going on to tell her she gives him a pain in his ass. Holden thinks of the girls in the club as very stupid because he has to force the…

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden's Downfall

    • 549 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the dynamic novel, The Catcher in the Rye created by J.D. Salinger, portrayed Holden as a dishonest boy with sloth, pride, and wrath that caused trouble for him. With this thought in mind, Holden did not care to apply himself in school; soon you see sloth in him and his grades suffer because of that. Holden wrote about his life, school, and how he failed most of his classes. He even said, “I was flunking four subjects and not applying myself and all. They gave me frequent warning to start applying myself… but I didn’t do it” (Salinger 4). Holden only passed english, but he did not care about school so he did not work hard to learn new ideas and thoughts. His laziness resulted for him to fail subjects in school which will not help him in the future. Holden was kicked out of Pencey, one of his old…

    • 549 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Throughout the story Holden has been given many opportunities to show his mature side. He helped children by marking out the graffiti at his sister's school. He also talked to his sister about wanting to be The Catcher in the Rye is because he wants to help kids who are rushing into their adulthood and not enjoying their childhood. He wants to catch them before they make the jump into adulthood. Holden himself is a very unique character. He occasionally shows that he cares even though it is thought that he doesn’t care about anything. Holden often tries to hide his nice side in order to portray as if he doesn’t care. All of these are shown in the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger he goes into detail to…

    • 2510 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    He reveals his fondness of Allie which suggests there was a strong connection which is something that Holden doesn’t have in his life anymore. . ‘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.’ The irony of his brother’s death is that the only person Holden had a connection with, passed away leaving him alienated. Through Allies death it also becomes evident that Holden can’t deal with change. His stream of consciousness continues to explain how he reacted to Allies death. “I broke all the windows in the garage.” He confirms his emotional dysfunction to such a vast change and reveals how alienation took over his life. Holden speaks using a puzzled sense of emotive language. “He’s dead now. He got leukaemia and died when we were up in Maine, on July 18, 1946. You’d have liked him.” He suggest that the reader would have liked Allie and though the rest of the scene he speaks fondly of him, though to talk of his death in such an emotionless way begins to contradict everything he is saying “He’s dead now.” Later during a conversation with his sister Phoebe he reveals that he is in fact isolated from people and the one true person he was close to has died “Just because somebody’s dead, you don’t just stop…

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden feels that he must find himself alone with no one else's help. Holden expresses his rebellious side when he gets kicked out of school, again. Holden doesn't like school because he doesn't like doing activities that he loses patience for and sees no point in doing them. Holden also is rebellious in the way that he smokes and drinks when he is a minor. He is an excessive smoker and turns to alcohol to suppress his feelings of depression, which are signs of alcoholism. This behavior is not unheard of, but is rare for a 16-year-old to become an alcoholic. From this rebellious attitude Holden becomes isolated from those around him. His first act of isolation with a combination of rebellion is when Holden…

    • 692 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    All humans make mistakes, unfortunately, Holden Caulfield is notorious for committing one too many. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye appears to be a long string of consecutive failures for the protagonist. The novel describes his attempt to reconcile with these failures and find a path that suits his qualities and desires. However Holden can not find a way to succeed and even Mr. Antolini says, “This fall I think you’re riding for – it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling” (187). This whole fall that Holden is heading on seems to have started with the flunking out of school. Holden’s largest failure appears to be his inability to apply himself at school and achieve an educational degree.…

    • 825 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story Catcher in the Rye begins with the main character, Holden Caulfield, giving us a brief description of himself and about this so called "madman" stuff. He also talks about how he hates phonies and fake people. Throughout the book Holden gives many examples of what makes him unhappy and depressed. He doesn't really seem to like anything. His sister, Phoebe, even confronts Holden and tells him that it really seems that he doesn't like anything. " "You don't like anything that's happening." It made me even more depressed when she said that." ( Salinger 220). Holden got depressed from anything, even just thinking of how old his teacher; Mr. Spencer was, made him depressed. These small events may lead to Holden's ultimate breakdown,…

    • 486 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden delivers his story in a passive voice and to end the story he decides to stop speaking of his past because of the intense emotions that come over him. Holden delivered his life story in a unique style because of his rare emotions. One of the many unique emotions Holden has is sadness this is clear in the book because of his constant declaration of depression and overall negativity. Holden is not only sad he is also angry but instead of expressing his anger he just wears his red hunting hat and walks with "confidence." All of these extremely unnecessary and exaggerated emotions come from the death of Allie. The death of Holden's little brother Allie affected Holden's actions and attitudes negatively.…

    • 232 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    He often referred to his younger brother Allie and his sister Phoebe, specifically mentioning the hospitality with which they treated Holden. Phoebe’s kindness, in part, is why Holden made such an effort to visit their apartment after getting kicked out of school. He might have seen children as a safe haven from his perceived harshness of the world, which would explain why Holden was at ease whenever he spent time with them. On the contrary, he was tense and anxious whenever he was with adults. As expected from the strong relationship he had with his younger brother, Holden experienced a large amount of loss after Allie died: “I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it.” (Salinger 44). The experience was likely the start to Holden’s disconnection with reality, as it was decimating for him; it is plausible that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder because of this. His parents likely worsened his issue was by sending him off to a boarding school instead of dealing with his emotions at home. Holden’s extensive idealization of children was because of his belief that all kids are pure, mostly due to his past experiences with his younger siblings. Holden wants to take on the unrealistic profession of being the ‘Catcher in the Rye’, because he wants to preserve the purity he sees. The circumstances…

    • 1459 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays