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Holden Goal In Life

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Holden’s environment also had an effect on his personality. Holden would move from school to school and from place to place and would not feel a thing due to the fact that he would not become attached to anything. He states “This is about the fourth school I've gone to” (Salinger 9). This illustrates how Holden moves a lot which results in detachment due to on how he will leave it eventually. Holden tries to not become attached to things because he wants to avoid the future pain of loss. Holden implies “...when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it” (Salinger 4) which suggests that he wants to make connections with people and places but in order to do so this means that he must make an emotional investment that will probably end up …show more content…

This digression, which is expressed in Holden’s conversation with Phoebe, explains one of his ultimate aspirations. When Phoebe asks Holden what he would like to be he responds “I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.” (Salinger 173). Holden aspires to save children from their falls. His goal in life is to be there for people when they’re falling. Furthermore falling can be seen as not only physically descending down from an area but also falling in a sense of one’s emotional and mental state of mind. The fall that Holden is talking about can be classified mentally as one having a mental breakdown or just losing one’s …show more content…

Throughout the book it is clear the Holden has a love for Jane. The fact that Jane was the only one of three people he had in this address book demonstrates on how Jane is an important figure in Holden's life. Holden describes Jane as having a lousy childhood. After an interaction between Jane and her step father Holden states “Then she really started to cry and the next thing I know I was kissing her all over-anywhere-her forehead, her eyebrows and all her ears-her whole face except her mouth an all” (slander 79). This reflects Jane's fall and on how she is having a mental breakdown. Holden sees this opportunity as a chance to be the catcher in the rye, in hopes to save her from her fall. Holden describes Jane as innocent and from what the reader knows about Jane she does nothing to possess any traits that would characterize her as a phony. Jane represents the innocent child that Holden wants to save. Holden continues to project Jane. Once Holden suspects that his roommate, Stradlater has slept with Jane he attacks him. His desire to protect her is based on his goal to protect the innocent from

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874 Words | 4 Pages

Towards the end of the story, while having a conversation with Phoebe about what Holden wants to do with his life, he tells her, “I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff…That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye” (Salinger 173). With this, Holden further reveals his childhood fantasy of being a hero and saving everyone. In his soul, Holden is an innocent boy who does not want to grow up.

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963 Words | 4 Pages

During the narrative, Holden is irrealistic with what he wants out of life. “I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.” (ch. 22

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1067 Words | 5 Pages

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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1117 Words | 5 Pages

He considers her his one true friend and the only person he can truthfully confide in, since criticism is his parents middle name and his brother “prostituted” him self fin La. Jane Gallagher is a significant character in the novel because she is a character that holden unfeignedly liked and was attracted to. He is not afraid to be himself around her. For example, his brother Allie’s baseball glove is an object that holden holds incredibly close to his heart as he considers it a connection between him and his late sibling. Holden profoundly expresses how Jane is the only one besides him and his family who has ever seen the glove.

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1913 Words | 8 Pages

Holden clings to knowing the world around him will stay the same. That is the only thing that keeps him going and you can tell ( “the museum connotes ideas of both dynamism and stasis. However, to begin with, Holden clings to its associations with stasis.”) Holden’s mind is fighting between everything staying the same and not moving to he knows that everyone will change and become impure. He clings on to stasis because he is afraid of what the future will bring.

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656 Words | 3 Pages

The novel “The Catcher in the Rye” was about the journey of a adolescent boy finding his way to adulthood. In the book Holden Caulfield was unsuccessful in finding his way to adulthood. Holden’s attitude in the novel throughout his journey was very immature. He also can't accept the fact that innocence can’t be forever protected. Lastly, Holden calls everyone a phony when in reality he is the real phony.

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851 Words | 4 Pages

When Phoebe asks Holden what he wants to be when he is older, he says, “Thousands of little kids... What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and don’t look where they’re going…I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.” (173) Holden states that he wants to stand in the rye, and catch kids all day if they happen to run over the cliff. Keeping children sae is very important to him because he does not want to experience the death of a young child again, since it will bring back the sadness of Allie dying. Furthermore, the two people closest to Holden are both children, Phoebe and the late Allie.

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806 Words | 4 Pages

Jane would place her hand on the back of Holden’s neck, a gesture Holden thinks women reserve for “their husband or their little kid” (89). Holden loved this because it illustrated her feelings of connection and comfort with him. Reflecting on these moments Holden thinks, “it’s so pretty it just about kills you” (89). Holden strongly values the special relationship he shared with Jane and desperately wants to find such a connection again. He feels so lonely and remembering Jane helps him believe that by continuing to search, he may discover something similar.

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656 Words | 3 Pages

In Holden’s mind becoming “the catcher in the rye “means that he can still catch Allie from falling off the cliff. This is relevant to Holden’s depression because everything around him is telling him to grow up but instead he runs away from it in fear that is will pull him farther apart from his relationship with his brother Allie. Holden is on the edge of becoming an adult which creates more pressure and leads him to

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2150 Words | 9 Pages

And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff--I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them,” (Salinger 224-225). Holden finds comfort in this fantasy because he is saving children from having to encounter adult life. Holden cannot figure out adult relationships and wants to protect childhood relationships because these are the

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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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2008 Words | 9 Pages

Holden feels that most things in life are often best when left untouched and in its original state. Which is similar to how he feels about adolescence; it should not be tarnished by outside influences and continue to remain pure. Although he is enthralled with the idea of innocence, he cannot be the catcher in the rye because he is far too innocent himself. Holden naively believes that the lyrics of the song indicates the potential preservation of childhood innocence: “‘It's 'If a body meet a body comin thro the rye'!’ old Phoebe said.

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956 Words | 4 Pages

The sociological perspective encourages us to explore societies’ problems from a non-biased perspective. When investigating controversial issues it is quintessential to keep one’s opinion out of the equation. As C. Wright Mills stated in his 1959 essay “The Promise”, “Problems and their solutions don’t just involve individuals; they also have a great deal to do with the social structures in our society” (Leon-Guerrero, 2015). Eliminating personal experiences and self-perception creates an even playing field to determine fact from fiction.

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1433 Words | 6 Pages

Though Holden believes the world around him is phony and wicked, and while he wants to be the catcher in the rye, catching those who will fall over cliff; Holden does not only want to save those children but he also wants to save himself. Holden displays his desire to be the catcher in the rye by expressing his wish to protect the kids from falling off the cliff. Throughout the novel, Holden often states that everything around him seems to be phony; however, there is one thing in which Holden believes is real, and that is the children he encounters in the novel. Quite often does Holden show his desire to protect children from the corrupted adulthood that he

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281 Words | 2 Pages

The novel’s title, The Catcher in the Rye, is an allusion to Robert Burns’s poem, “Comin’ Thro the Rye”, which utilizes sexual imagery to suggest themes of adulthood. At first, the title appears cryptic and holds little meaning to the reader. However, later in the novel, Holden tells Phoebe that he dreams about thousands of children playing in a field of rye, while he stands near the cliff, ensuring that none of the children fall off. Throughout the novel, Holden expresses his contempt for adult world, which he believes corrupts and turns people into phonies, and as a result, his fantasy reflects his desire to be a hero.

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