ipl-logo

Ideal And Reality In The Catcher In The Rye

2104 Words9 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The catcher in the rye coming of age

Ideal and Reality
Everyone has an idea of an ideal world, particularly children. When children grow up, they start to realize that the reality is different from their ideal world. While children go through the adolescent stage, they will act differently than normal and have to handle huge changes both mentally and physically. This is demonstrated by the main character Holden Caulfield, in the Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger. Holden Caulfield, a sixteen year old boy, grows up and he realizes that the real life is very different from his ideal world due to him going through his brother Allie’s death and his transition to adulthood. Holden goes through a serious grieving process by constantly observing people and calling them “phonies,” phoniness means talking and acting fake in front of people by his definition. He always talks hostile towards others and uses negative language because he can’t connect with surrounding people due to his high standard, which includes Holden’s comparison between his brother Allie’s genuine personality and other people’s phoniness. Holden grieves Allie’s death by resenting the world full of phonies and regrets that he couldn’t save his brother and tries to make up for his guilt by saving the innocent. …show more content…

He wants to save all the innocent people because of the guilt from his brother’s death. Even though there would always be phonies in reality, there would be the Catcher in the Rye arises. For example, when people meet each other for the first time, it’s not genuine because they just greet each other to be polite. Though the reality is different from what Holden imagines, God will give him a chance. What he imagines is an ideal world of people who are genuine and sincerely nice, where in reality doesn’t exist. As Holden grows up as an adult in future, he will have the ability to be the Catcher in the Rye, to protect those who need to be

Show More
Related
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

Read More
1025 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout a child 's life, sooner or later they get thrown into the teenage experience which starts their transition from childhood to adulthood. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the main character Holden Caulfield is stuck in his childhood and does not want to grow up. He is a very complex character and has an odd way of dealing with his emotions; he doesn 't. When Holden is faced with a problem, instead of facing it and slowly working his way through it, he tries to get rid of it entirely. He does not want to be thrown into the real world and will do anything to not be put in those “adult like situations”. I believe that Holden’s issues arose about the time when his younger brother Allie passed away due to leukemia when he was only eleven.

Read More
983 Words | 4 Pages

To expand upon, Holdens overarching fear of letting other people know the real him is rooted to his ideal that he is not desirable. Significantly, Holden subconsciously is aware of his sadness since he discusses the tumor in his brain, which the reader can connect to his toxic, bitter thoughts that filter through his mind daily. Therefore, every time Holden starts to uncontrollably lie to others, he is also deceiving himself as a way to try to convince himself that he is not as sad as his mind makes him believe. Above all, one of Holden’s origins of his depressive case is by reason of his compulsive

Read More
656 Words | 3 Pages

Holden says that all he want to do is be the catcher in the rye protecting children from falling. The whole novel Holden makes observation around him that are taking away from children's innocence. This is what upsets him the most the fact that everyone will eventually have to grow up. While he is trying to go get Phoebe he is reminded this in the following quote. “I went down by a different staircase, and I saw another "Fuck you" on the wall.

Read More
1841 Words | 8 Pages

In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger Holden Caulfield’s story is seemingly aimless and without any sense of direction. However, Salinger brings the novel into focus in the final chapters by introducing the idea of being the “Catcher in the Rye” from the poem by Robert Burns. Holden confesses to Phoebe his desire to be a “Catcher,” but the definition of this role is only given in a short exposition. A “Catcher in the Rye” can be defined unofficially as a person that is a savior of others and exhibits the qualities of control and bravery. The Catcher is meant to save people from going over the fictitious cliff that Holden imagines.

Read More
714 Words | 3 Pages

In conclusion, Holden is a phony because because he pretends to be someone that he is not, he contradicts himself, and he blames others for things that he is responsible for. Holden, making such a big deal about phonies ended up being one. This shows that no matter what you do, the society will always play a big role in influencing one’s behavior and the way that one

Read More
1475 Words | 6 Pages

By becoming the catcher in the rye, it allows him to have an excuse for not actually fighting phonies because he needs to protect kids. Holden believes that he is fighting the phony world by protecting kids from falling off this cliff which he mentions when Phoebe is telling him about being wrong. He pictures “little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around-nobody big” except for Holden who is “standing on the edge of some crazy cliff” and if the kids are not looking where they are going; Holden has to “come out from somewhere and catch them” (224, 225). Being the catcher in the rye metaphorically means that there is a very steep cliff, and at the top of the cliff, there are children playing around while Holden is at the edge of the cliff protecting them from not falling down.

Read More
1308 Words | 6 Pages

Holden’s obsession stems from his fear that he may become a phony one day. So, he spends the book running from adulthood by doing childish things and struggling to keep his life from changing. We see Holden’s fear of phonies shine throughout The Catcher in the Rye. Why does he have this fear?

Read More
656 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the book, Holden is struggling to get by. The death of his brother Allie has left him in a tough spot. Holden doesn’t exactly know how to deal with this. The different stages of grief are represented through Holden. Holden shows denial and anger when he flashbacks to one of his memories after his brother’s death.

Read More
1400 Words | 6 Pages

Purpose: To show how a small change in choice could affect holden’s life The Catcher in the Rye is about Holden Caulfield, a 16-year-old boy from New York. The novel starts with Holden, writing in his book, hinting that he is in some sort of mental facility .Even though he comes from a wealthy family,because of his loss of interest in studies,and low grades, he gets expelled from all schools he has studied in .Holden leaves his final school, Pency Prep and decides that he will stay in New York City until his parents learn of his expulsion and “cool down” .Most of the novel is dedicated to Holden’s time in the city, Holden lives in a hotel room for a few days during his stay .Holden then starts meeting with people that he used know, some strangers and goes to places with. From his conversations, he

Read More
1418 Words | 6 Pages

It is the “phoniness” he wants to blame. Salinger used “phony” this word many times in the book and is one of the most famous word from “The Catcher in the Rye” and it accurately describes the human nature of most adults’. During Holden’s three-day-trip in New York, he has met and encountered with many characters who are pretentious and fake, from Mr. Spencer to Luce and Sally. In society people have to lie or be “phony” just to socialize, or impress someone. Holden is a judgemental person who keeps observing other people’s phoniness but never notices them in himself.

Read More
712 Words | 3 Pages

Later Holden is talking to his little sister Phoebe. Phoebe asks him what he wants to be when he grows up and he replays “the catcher in rye…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 have to come out from somewhere and catch them [children]. That's all I would do all day. I’d be that catcher in the rye and all.

Read More
61 Words | 1 Pages

When Holden gets older he wants to protect children, specifically he wants to protect his sister, and in order to he aspires to become a catcher in the rye. He wants to defend the virtues of children by being a catcher in the rye, and because of that it becomes one of the ways that Salinger demonstrates the effects of trauma.

Read More
858 Words | 4 Pages

This means that he wants to protect children from the nasty adult world, and to protect their innocence. " 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. That 's all I 'd do all day. I 'd just be the catcher in the rye and all " (p.156).From this quote you can see, this is what his purpose is. Due to alienating himself, he finds out that he want to help kids and protect them because they are the only real people in the world according to Holden.

Read More
837 Words | 4 Pages

In The Catcher in the Rye, the author J.D. Salinger, introduces the protagonist; Holden Caulfield. Holden feels the sense that he cannot choose between the two worlds. For example, he makes it seem as both of them are complete opposites from each other. In the book, Holden wants to keep his innocence, but he also wants to grow up and toss that innocence away. He still keeps his childhood personality by constantly obsessing over things that shouldn’t matter.

Read More

More about Ideal And Reality In The Catcher In The Rye

Related Topics

Open Document