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Describing characters on catcher in the rye
Describing characters on catcher in the rye
The catcher in the Rye essay about Characters
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In Chapter 9-14 Holden Caulfield leaves Penecy Prep and heads to New York City. Where he will stay for a couple days before winter vacation starts and he will head home. Delaying breaking the news to his family he got kicked out of school for as long as possible. These chapters are where Holden’s loneliness becomes abundantly clear. The reader is subjected to many long rants by Holden about the company he wants, though he attempts to settle several times.
Rhetorical Précis 1: In his essay, “ Love and Death in The Catcher in the Rye” (1991), Peter Shaw claimed that Holden behavior and way of thinking is due to common abnormal behavior in a certain time for teenagers (par. 10). Shaw supported his assertion of the young Holden by comparing the literary culture of the 1950s and how Holden’s fictional character fits within the contemporary Americans novels as a, “ sensitive, psychological cripples but superior character” (par. 3). Shaw’s purpose was to show that Holden’s sensitive and psychological behavior is not abnormal, but such like stated by Mrs. Trilling that,” madness is a normal, even a better then normal way of life” (par 4). Peter Shaw’s tone assumed a highly educated audience who is
The Catcher in the Rye In the novel The Catcher in the Rye J.D Salinger writes about a teenager struggling to find his place within the existence of the reality of others. Salinger creates shocking events that lay out the foundation of the the main character Holden Caulfield’s life in the novel. Salinger uses Holden’s characteristics throughout the novel such as Holden’s stubbornness to establish a much bigger theme in the book along with many other symbols.
1. Holden Caulfield is a seventeen-year-old boy from a wealthy family, who doesn’t care about many things and enjoys lying to other people. Holden makes a point throughout the first half of the book to show how skilled he is at lying to other people; however, he also hates when other people are phony. Therefore, Holden is a hypocrite, he holds other people to higher standards and considers them phonies, when Holden in fact is a phony considering his tendency to be dishonest and spin tales about himself. Even Holden doesn’t always seem to enjoy or be in control of his lying, for example, he states “Then I started reading this timetable I had in my pocket.
On pages 120-122 in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden proved that he tried to hide his insecurities and deep thoughts under profanities. When Dick Slagle, Holden’s former roommate, put his suitcases out to make it look like Holden had inexpensive suitcases, Holden found it comical. Holden later continues on to say that Dick was a “funny guy, that way,”(121) though demonstrates that he revealed more about himself than he would have liked. Just three sentences later Holden states that bourgeois was Dick’s “favorite goddamn word,”(121) which quickly changes the tone of this passage from playful to serious and judgmental. ‘Goddamn’ is the key word in that sentence and is used twice in this paragraph alone.
Lying and deception are the most obvious and hurtful elements of the larger category of phoniness. Holden’s definition of phoniness relies mostly on a kind of self-deception: he seems to reserve the most scorn for people who think that they are something they are not or who refuse to acknowledge their own weaknesses. Isolation Throughout the novel, Holden seems to be excluded from and victimized by the world around him.
He takes the reader on a journey over a few days from him leaving the school to roaming the streets of New York. The question is Holden a Phony often pops into the minds of the reader. Holden is a phony because he is a hypocrite who does things that he criticize others for. He is a phony because he pretends to be someone that he is not,
The novel The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, delves into the theme of alienation as a form of self-protection, through three main motifs which are embodied by the protagonist, Holden Caufield. Holden is a teenager struggling with finding “real” relationships, resulting in him continuously retreating into loneliness and frequently lying to most people he encounters daily. These actions carried out by Holden reflect the three main motifs of the story which are loneliness, relationships, and lying/deception. The nature of Holden’s actions within the novel displays his enigma of emotions, as he wants to speak to others and create relationships with them, but also says they are “phony” which pushes him back into his shell of isolation.
Shouldn’t someone who acts tough and often brags know that they will never become a phony? The answer would be yes if Holden wasn’t so insecure. Holden’s childish ways cause him to never mature and figure out who he is as a person. We see many signs of Holden insecurities throughout the book, like the fact that he contradicts himself. An example of this would be when Sally and Holden are in the taxi and he tells her he loves her, he then counties to say, “It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it” (Salinger 139).
While the woman was managing the home, the man was maneuvering through the workforce. The 1950’s saw a steadily increasing ratio between blue-collar to white-collar workers. These men were suits and fedoras, worked in dimly lit offices, and absent mindedly working to achieve success. Sloan Wilson’s 1955 bestselling novel, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, captures the image perfectly. Most of these grey flannel suited men worked for large corporations.
Throughout the novel of Catcher In The Rye the readers can pick on Holden's way of thinking because it feels as if the reader is listing to Holden talk and thus this reinforces the novel’s themes. Themes like youth, phoniness, loneliness and innocence are present due to Holden’s use of character and the way he presents himself out in the story. Holden’s thoughts and diction reflect all of the themes in the story because his thoughts often become reality in which he puts out on himself. Holden is always complaining about people being fake to the point where it makes the reader feel like as if Holden is calling the reader fake. “One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by phonies” Holden views almost everyone as phoney.
The purpose of my essay is to explore how different social backgrounds and the social norms that follow affect the personality of two fictive characters and encourage them to break out of their station to find an identity. The protagonists Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye and Tambudzai in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel Nervous Conditions are both victims of social norms. Therefore, the foundation of this essay was to analyze the character’s social background, which has influenced their personalities, behavior and aspirations, and consequently their opposing actions against society. Holden Caulfield is an American adolescent during the period after the Second World War.
In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Mr. Antolini gives Holden Caulfield advice when he is at one of his lowest points. Already aware of Holden’s mental state and position on school, he quotes Wilhelm Stekel, a psychoanalyst, “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” (Salinger 188). Although Holden fails to grasp Mr. Antolini’s message, the quote applies directly to his life because of his relationship with death as a result of his younger brother, Allie’s, death. Mr. Antolini uses this quote specifically because he wants Holden take a step back and try to live for a noble cause instead of resorting to death.
This describes Holden to-a-t, because of his alienation problem, his conflict with “phoniness” and his struggle of growing up and leaving his small problems behind him. Throughout the novel,
Society as a whole is something you make of it. If one wants to denounce the society they live in because it is “phony” that is because they’ve made the world around them phony. The character of Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye is a prime example of someone being stuck in the idea that society is unchanging. Society is just how a person perceives the world in front of them. The eye of the beholder is the one that creates the society of their choice.
