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Catcher In The Rye Reflection Essay

1066 Words5 Pages

The Cather in the Rye This essay will be a psychoanalytical reflection based upon the protagonist in the book The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield. I have chosen to reflect upon the psychological state Holden is in the majority of the story, and why he finds himself in such a state/that state. The book “The Catcher in the Rye” is almost entirely based on the difficulties 17-year-old Holden faces in his modern civilisation, which he frequently meets with a cynical filter latched onto his eyes. The protagonist of the story recounts his week in New York during Christmas break following his expulsion from Pencey Prep, the boarding school he attended to. Throughout the novel we get to know Holden and his negative ways. Some people pass him …show more content…

In that way, Allie is the one acting like the catcher in the rye: because of his perpetual death he remains eternally innocent and somehow keeps Holden from going over his own cliff—from going “down, down, down.” See how those roles are reversed? Holden wants to be for someone what Allie is to him. The death of Allie also affected Holden’s relationship with his parents. In the very beginning of the novel, Holden says, quote, “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” Holden does not intentionally discuss his relationship with his parents any further in the book. But if you read the chapter when Holden sneaks into his apartment to see Phoebe where she cleverly figures out why he is in New York earlier than he should be, and Phoebe continuously tells Holden that their father will kill him because of it and Holden responds “No, he won’t. The worst he’ll do, he’ll give me hell again and then send me to a goddam military school. That’s all he’ll do to

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