Preview

Holden's Emotions In The Catcher In The Rye

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
232 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Holden's Emotions In The Catcher In The Rye
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.

An example of the negative effect

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    This passage clearly identifies Holden’s ego, where the readers can easily depict his concern about his mother spending time and money on a present, yet they were the wrong kind. The concept of his own mother buying him a gift when he is now being kicked out of school depresses him. However, he seems to contradict his own feelings because he makes it clear that he is ready to get away from school without thinking twice. This is exemplified as the id’s manifestation with the thought of knowing how disappointed his family will be known as the ego’s manifestation.…

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When Holden leaves Pencey Prep and goes out into New York to live in hotels, he has several moments when he had Jane on his mind and wanted to contact her. However, each time he decides to call her, he ultimately does not do so because he is scared of what Jane would think of him now that his innocence is no longer. The most apparent example of this is when Holden got drunk at the whisky bar after he met with Carl Luce, and old school mate of his. After getting so drunk that he could barely see straight, Holden went to the phone booth to call up Jane but he decided not to and to call Sally Hayes instead. “Finally what I felt like, I felt like giving old Jane a buzz and see if she was home yet. So I paid my check and all … But when I got inside…

    • 289 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There were recurring patterns Holden unconsciously fell into that contributed to his depression and then there were events that halted these depressions. The events that contributed to his depression were that he judged people, he judged himself and he did not take care of himself. Of course there were events that halted the depression such as the act of love shown by his sister Phoebe. Love is perceived as forgiveness, peace, living in the moment and happiness. His sister is the only person in the book who shows these characteristics. As for Holden he never doesn’t experience love at all, he is always depressed and is never really happy in the book. Except when he is with his sister, he feels happy and is in the moment.…

    • 1080 Words
    • 5 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
  • 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 so caught up in all the “phonies” and people around him that annoy him ,and he ends up having a hard time focusing and taking care of himself. Everyone around him annoys him except for those who truly understand him, like Phoebe and Jane. Many people in the novel do not understand that Holden is not being raised in the environment he needs to actually learn to grow up. He requires a stable unchanging environment, in which he is not receiving because his parents are not around to guide him. Instead, they continue to send Holden to schools in which he cannot completely handle because he is surrounded by tons of people who irritate him. He latches on to his memories though, which is why he is thrilled when Stradlater has a date with Jane, because Jane means the world to him. Holden has a hard time accepting the fact things are constantly changing around him. Part of the reason for why Holden is caught in his childhood is for the reason that he wants to revisit all of the good times that he had with Allie. This is described in, “Like everybody else in the book, Antolini fails to see what ails Holden is the death of his brother, Allie, plus parental neglect. (Marks 507).…

    • 1126 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Holden Caufield, either mentally unstable or too morally advanced for society, misses the innocense of his childhood. Holden's mentality, although confused and seemingly unstable, show the effects of exposed innocence. He becomes frustrated that he does not belong where ever he goes. He travels away from his school with no logial direction for a more internal desire to find his place. Holden has trouble understanding why he does not fit in anywhere and implies mental deterioration from stress. Holden Caufeild struggles with the contrast of society's standards of innocence, change and affection to his own intuitive values.…

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden is upset because he is such an underachiever. The past few days have been very tough on Holden, he was even beaten up by a pimp after refusing to give a stripper extra five bucks. “Only, this time I thought I was dying,” (103) Holden says after he is mugged by the pimp, Maurice. That experience is one of the most adult things he’s ever dealt with, or anyone can deal with for that matter. Anyone who would have to go through that must have some way to forget about it, and for a few moments Holden can focus on the fantasy in order to clear his head from that scenario. Although Holden is a terribly miserable character, he also hates change. He is seldom remotely happy throughout his journey, but one of the few times is when he is in Museum of Natural History. He goes to the mummy exhibit and it is just as he remembered it, he even describes it as “nice and peaceful.” (205) This is one of the only moments in the novel where Holden is calm. He explains what the problem is with the world, “You may think there is a place that is nice and peaceful, but when you’re not looking somebody’ll sneak up and write ‘Fuck You’ right under your nose.” (204) It seems here as if Holden is finding a way to upset himself. He is at peace for just a brief moment, but then once he starts to actually think, he ruins it, which is what he does with the fantasy. When he is lost and it seems like he is…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A psychological breakdown is like a hole. Once you fall in, it is hard to climb out. In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden’s view of the world remains the same, however, the world around him changes. Holden’s self-isolation and the realization that he cannot save childhood innocence leads to his breakdown.…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good 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 is quite a peculiar kid. He tends to change his mind on a lot of things. However, the one thing he changes his mind about the most is whether he is ready to grow-up or not. Throughout the book he tries to do such adult like things, because he is sick of his usual life style. Then he gets sick of the unusual adult life. He talks to his sister, Phoebe, one night about the poem by Robert Burns, and Holden gets to thinking about innocence. How he wishes he could be the catcher in the rye. Stopping all the kids from losing that sight of innocence. He begins to regret all the adult things he did and wishes he could go back to the way his innocent childhood was.…

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The novel The Catcher in the Rye takes place in New York during the 1950's. The main character is a fifteen-year-old boy Holden, he takes the reader through a story depicting the loss of innocence. Holden believes everyone is innocent, but they inevitably loose it somehow by the time they are adolescent. Holden believes innocence is lost in childhood. Holden is extremely concerned about this and believes he can stop the loss of innocence by becoming the "Catcher in the Rye."…

    • 761 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He repeats this several moments later," Boy, he could really be aggravating sometimes" (25). Holden appears to be affected by severe depression as well. Holden laments," I felt so lonesome... I almost wished I was dead" (48). He also states," [Ackley] always brought out the old sadist in me" (22). We can assume that Holden has been referring to himself as a sadist for a long period of time, which raises a red flag. I recognize that Holden's symptoms only appeared after the death of Allie. He describes the museum that he went to when he was young, before Allie's death," I loved that damn museum" (121). However, after the death of Allie and while Holden visits the museum, all of a sudden, Holden just "didn't feel much like going" (122). Now that we realize that Holden is grieving, we can take measures to help him. His past definitely hurts, but in order for him to move on to a better future, we must help him recognize his own symptoms and heal from such a hurtful…

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    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…

    • 754 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays