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Catcher In The Rye Vs Pleasantville Essay

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Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger and the movie Pleasantville directed by Gary Ross are related in a variety of ways. For instance the main characters in both stories look at the world and see how phony it looks to them. Holden's first mention of phonies is with Mr. Spencer. "Phony" is a word Holden uses to characterize insincere people and their language. Phonies, like his fellow students, are more interested in playing a part or looking good than in doing or saying anything honest. Seeing that every single person in that town has a familiar routine to follow every day. They don’t change anything about their routine. It is something they have always stuck to, every day of their lives is what Pleasantville is all about. In addition, both the novel and the movie, the sexuality of the era is oppressed by society. All three of the main characters in both the novel and the movie look and the world that they are in and see how phony and fake it is. In the movie Pleasantville, the main characters are in a modern world and they get transported to a TV show in the past, all of …show more content…

Holden oppresses himself when the prostitute comes over by instead of having sex with her he tells her to leave and he will still pay for her fee, this proves that Holden pretends to be a sex maniac while oppressing his sexuality. Holden also states that with all of his girlfriends he could have “given them the time” but whenever they said stop, he would, thus sating his oppression and that he thinks that sex is morally wrong at his age. “I’ve had quite a few opportunities to lose my virginity and all, but I’ve never got around to it yet” (92). This shows that Holden oppresses himself form his sexuality. All in all the main characters of both stories at one time were sexually

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Another very common characteristic found in most teenagers, including Holden Caulfield, is obsession about sex. Throughout the story, Holden is always thinking about sex or in his own words thinking about “giving a girl a feel”. When Holden had a temporary stay at hotel in New York, he wanted to lose his virginity by calling a prostitute over his room, but after calling the prostitute over, he was afraid to have sexual intercourse with her since he never practiced it before, so he ended up rejecting the prostitute. The only thing Holden got from this experience was a punch in the stomach from a pimp. Holden also spends a lot of time fantasizing about sex with the girls he knew from school, which is very immature, but not surprising for a

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Chapters 18-19 Left Side Journal Holden is probably the most obnoxious in these chapters meeting up with Luce. The reason is because all he does is talk about sex even though he is a virgin. What I don’t understand is why does Holden care so much for others sex lives? I get that he is a virgin and he may be curious, but it is just really rude and uncomfortable not only to Luce, but also to the reader. The main thing I focused on in these chapters is the question that Luce asked Holden - “When are you gonna grow up?”

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Holden think about whether Jane and her "lousy adolescence" fills in as some kind of association amongst her and Holden. Given the circumstances, he later uncovers that he, as well, has had some "pervert" stuff transpire "around twenty circumstances since he was a child." On pages 87-88 Jane and Holden start to have dialogue and he begging’s to like her even more so does she. This allows Holden to have extreme confidence and maturity into making him a better person.

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Holden hates the idea of sex because he feels once people have it, they aren’t innocent anymore. When talking about sex Holden says “I don’t like the idea. It stinks if you analyze it” (Salinger 70). Holden then continues to analyze it for the rest of the paragraph. He comes to the conclusion that if you like a girl, then say it to her face.

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Rick Riordan once said, “It's funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality.” The difficulties of life mostly revolve around the battle of what people want to believe versus what is actually there. In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club, Holden Caulfield and Waverly Jong become puppets of their own illusions and fall to their realities which creates new internal struggles.

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In The Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield gets kicked out his school and is forced to go on a journey in New York searching for his purpose in life. Throughout the book he says many things he hates but later on he’s shown to like and enjoy them. In JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden can be described as a Hypocrite.

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I’ll pay you and all, but do you mind if we don’t do it?”’ (124-125). In this instance, it is apparent that Holden is fearful and nervous over the topic of relations. This makes it obvious that at least one motivation to not sleep with the prostitute could be that he is afraid. However, the actual motivations behind Holden’s actions in this scenario are that he is trying to protect both the literal and figurative virginity of himself and he is trying to save the prostitute.

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Holden’s failure to embrace the masculine stereotype is epitomized in his idealized and naive views on romance and sexulaity. When Holden enters the upscale Edmont Hotel and sees a young couple on a date, he remarks, “I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around with her at all …. It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes” (Salinger 70). Holden’s belief that a man should not engage in a casual relationship with a woman unless he truly loves her, stands in stark contrast to masculine standards which encourage and congratulate men’s sexual exploits. Holden’s asexual beliefs

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While reading this book, one may notice that the main character Holden calls almost every character that we meet phonies. Never once in the book did Holden call himself a phony. The word phony was used 48 times throughout this entire novel making it one of the top 5 words used in this book. The Catcher in the Rye is a novel written by J.D. Salinger. This book is narrated by the main character Holden Caulfield.

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In addition, he never actually does what he intends to do with her since he would rather talk than have sex (52). This is all made reasonable when one considers Holden’s conflict with adulthood. He feels pressured to grow up, but at the same time, he admires the innocence of childhood and does not want to acquiesce to the pressure. He would much rather have someone to talk to in his lonely stay at the hotel. This is the same attitude Holden has when he attacks Stradlater before leaving Pency.

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One of things that Holden really didn’t understand was sex. Holden never understood anything about it or what he had to do. Honden says “But the worst part was that you could tell they all wanted to go to the movies. I couldn't stand looking at them.’’ (Holden 61)

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1142 Words | 5 Pages

He talks quite a bit about sex, but his virginity is the last existing innocence to him. Holden pays for a prostitute to have sex with, but he cannot go through with it. He is very hesitant about losing his innocence. Holden wants to be “the catcher in the rye” (191) and save all the innocence in the world. He believes that that is what he wants to do in the future as he tells his little sister, Phoebe.

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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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563 Words | 3 Pages

Holden has had several opportunities to have sexual intercourse with another female yet he keeps avoiding it, therefore unlike the rest of the teen population who have had intimacy with another being, he is an outcast, an alien. In this case, Holden is alien to sex and what intimacy truly is; his little knowledge on this is causing him to avoid going through with having an intimate relationship or sex with someone, even a prostitute who will charge him more than what she was worth. Fear can also play a role in alienation from society. Holden has a fear of human behavior and arguably even sickened with the human behavior.

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Thesis Statement: The National Security Agency violates our constitutional rights by collecting data on our phone calls, messages, and Internet use without our consent. Introduction: I. Imagine a world where nothing is private. Every conversation had, every message sent, and everything you search for online can be seen or heard by a faceless entity at any given moment. In 2013, a man by the name of Edward Snowden revealed that this is a reality for Americans.

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