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Catcher In The Rye Adult Analysis

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Does smoking, drinking, having sexual thoughts and living on your own make you an adult? Depending on one’s interpretation of J.D Salinger’s realistic novel, the Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s behavior can perceived one of two ways: as being more of a child or being more of an adult. Going through Holden’s 3 day escapade, he encounters various situations that challenges the reader to examine his maturity. Most of Holden’s actions displays a variety of child-like behavior. For one thing, Holden tries to grow up to much when in reality he doesn’t even understand what he is doing. At the same time, he just does things to make himself feel older. Holden shows himself in many ways throughout the book to be hypocritical and that is a child like attribute. One reason that Holden is more of a child than an adult is that he tries to hard to grow up and is ignorant and just does things without knowing what's going on. Holden is only 16 and he already drinks and smokes like a 30 year old man. He even smoked and tried to drink with a mother of a kid that went to school with him, “ ‘Would you care for a cocktail?’ I asked her. I was feeling in the mood …show more content…

Holden basically is very immature for what he did and he kind of deserved it. In the book it shows him getting beat up, “I didn't let go, though. I had a pretty good half nelson on him. ‘Liberate yourself from my viselike grip," I said. ‘Jesus Christ’. He put down his razor, and all of a sudden jerked his arms up and sort of broke my hold on him.” (pg 39) Holden is really a hypocrite also from the research paper, “This establishes Holden’s own sense of hypocrisy: although he condemns the behavior of the class to which he belongs, he shares their behaviors and even accepts this value system as reasonable.” (pg

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His most common acts of defiance are running away and being a liar. Holden ran away from Pencey, and avoided going home just to avoid the punishment his father would dish out upon him. Phoebe says exactly what he would do to him: "Daddy's going to kill you." (173) Holden lied many times, broke many laws, and is a general hypocrite in this sense. He attempts to get sympathy quite a few times throughout the story, going so far as to claim he has a “tiny little tumor on the brain” (58) when asked why he was getting out of school so early by Ernest Morrow’s mother.

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He tries to give himself up for this cause of saving children but he shows that he is not mature enough be able to make a meaningful impact in this perceived problem. It is clearly shown that Holden believes that there is a problem in society. He believes that children need to keep their innocence. He feels that loss of innocence negatively impacts people and feels that he has to save them. We can first see his personal issues about the lack of innocence when he discovers that Stradlater and Jane Gallagher had sex casually with no intention

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Was Holden successful in his Journey This is an essay on whether or not Holden Caulfield is successful on his journey throughout the novel “The Catcher in the Rye” by Jerome David Salinger. This book shows how hard it can be for teenagers that are going from an adolescent to adulthood. Holden, who is sixteen years old, has been kicked out of several schools. Pencey Prep. was the latest.

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Holden Caulfield lives his life as an outsider to his society, because of this any we (as a reader) find normal is a phony to him. Basically, every breathing thing in The Catcher in the Rye is a phony expect a select few, like Jane Gallagher. What is a phony to Holden and why is he obsessed with them? A phony is anyone who Holden feels is that living their authentic life, like D.B. (his older brother). Or simply anyone who fits into society norms, for example, Sally Hayes.

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Holden is a very judgemental and immature character and often has vulgar language. Holden often criticizes everyone he comes in contact with and does not try to comprehend the mindset they may have. His childish nature and vocabulary are what make most of his comments laughable. “It was funny. You could tell the waiter didn’t like her much, you could tell even the Navy guy didn’t like her much, even though he was dating her.

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In the Catcher in the Rye, Salinger depicts the immature mentality of typical teenagers through Holden’s childish curiosity. Teens experience

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The Coming Of Age Many people struggle to grow up and, being adults, but many do grow up. Phoebe and Stradlater teach about coming of age to Holden. They teach him things like not being childish and growing up, and how it 's okay to grow up. In the book Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger, Stradlater, and Phoebe help develop the theme of coming of age by teaching Holden that he should himself and not be childish, accordingly how it 's okay to grow up. Holden struggles to grow up so Phoebe and Stradlater teach him some things about maturity and the coming of age.

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However in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield, the main character in the book, criticizes almost everyone for things that they can’t control. In this book, Holden acts to be older than he is,by drinking, smoking, and even hiring a prostitute (which he doesn’t end up doing anything with). The reason that Holden does this because of his insecurity about where he fits in the world.

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This scene is extremely important in revealing more about Holden’s character. We know that he feels like an outsider in his own world. He associates himself with those “on the other side” which highlights the isolation he seems to feel. With further analysis, it is clear that Holden feels as though no one understands him and may be even against him. He seems to bring about a sort of hatred for the “hot-shots” who I perceive as the materialistic adults Holden tries to avoid becoming, hence him not wanting to grow up.

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The idea of having a character that struggles to find themselves is quite a common idea in many books. This is seen in the Catcher in the Rye where JD Salinger puts Holden the main character through different struggles throughout the book to finally realise what his purpose is and what he aims to be. There are many different situations that Holden is put through but they all aim to the same purpose, being a catcher in the rye. Two of the main struggles are his journey into adulthood and to retain his innocence. The second is how he is almost alienating himself from others and very rarely opens up to anybody, and his relationships with people are not great because he thinks of many of the people he meets are phony.

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Furthermore, Holden starts to hate all the adults or loses faith in them, calls them phony. Holden has a second thought of becoming an adult he loses hope in his future and it seems to him nothing in the world matters to him anymore. We can see that throughout the book. He smokes, gets drunk, and does daring acts like getting a prostitute in his room. He also tries to escape all this guilt and grief by wasting time with unnecessary people he calls phony.

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Holden’s personality shows that his age doesn’t determine how mature he is. He states “I was sixteen then, and I am seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I’m about thirteen” (Salinger 9). Holden knows that he can become more mature and have a better attitude but he just chooses to stay an immature teen. He acts like a thirteen year old because he choose to. He has the opportunity to act like his age.

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He has trouble growing up and accepting life as it is. Holden thinks adults are "phony" which makes him hate the fact of growing up and staying innocent as much as he can while he is old enough to become an adult. He is frustrated with the world and people which makes him act with anger. His innocent childish dream is to be the Catcher in the Rye, to catch the kids before they become phonies like Holden says about adults. The moment he realizes that he cannot keep kids from falling or in other words, from growing up and becoming adults, he, reaches adulthood, and takes a big step towards it at the end of the novel.

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Catcher in the Rye In the book Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, the narrator and protagonist Holden Caulfield a sixteen year old junior undergoes a series of changes. Holden learns multiple life changing lessons; one of them is you must grow up. In the beginning of the novel, Holden starts out as “that kid”; the one with the parents who expect him to get into an ivy league school, and end up with a kid with no intentions of doing so. At the beginning of the book it is very apparent that Holden lacks motivation; he also has hit rock bottom.

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Holden refuses to take life seriously and is almost proud of it. He's rude to most people he talks to and is unnecessarily fake with who he's civil with. He has some major growing up to do, but who doesn't? Holden Caulfield is not an honest person.

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