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Holden Caulfield Adulthood Analysis

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How can someone shield themselves from adulthood? In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is an antisocial teenager who is constantly flunking out of schools. Holden has a hard time socializing with others and finding people he likes. Flunking out of his third school in a row, Holden decides he needs a break from school before he returns home to disappoint his parents. Holden decides to go to New York City and try to have a good time before his parents realize he has flunked. During his stay there, Holden sees what it's like to be an adult and decides that he is not ready to grow up just yet. Although he doesn’t want to grow up, Holden knows he is and hopes for someone to to hold his hand into becoming an adult. Because no one can help guide him into his path to adulthood, Holden relies on his red hunting hat to do it by himself. Holden buys the red hunting hat in a store in New York and wears it in times of peril. He uses it after tough situations and after being rejected from adulthood. At the end of the book, Holden returns home to his parents …show more content…

Holden uses his hat to comfort him in challenging situations, when he messes up, or when he feels rejected from adulthood. Holden uses his hunting hat to provide that comfort to him when no one else is available. The hat serves as a way for Holden to feel safe after certain incidences in his life. In the beginning of the book, Holden buys the red hunting hat after he let his classmates down. “It was this red hunting hat, with one of those very, very long peaks. I saw it in the window of this sports store when we got out of the subway, just after I noticed I'd lost all the goddam foils.” - Page 17. In this situation, Holden buys the hat and wears it after he forgot the teams sports equipment in the subway. The whole team was mad at him and Holden needed something for comfort which leads him to buying the

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Salinger does a phenomenal job developing the red hunting hat into a symbol by emphasizing how important it was to Holden throughout the novel. When Holden is leaving the hotel, whilst walking out the door he grabs his coat from the hat check girl. He then proceeds to show her his hat. “I showed her my goddamn hunting hat and she liked it”(169).

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796 Words | 4 Pages

Jordan Serrano, English 10, Ms. Leonard 3/20/2023 The life of a normal teen The life of a teen has always been viewed as selfish, troublemaking, and having no important role in society, but that's not true; teenagers are the future of society and are the ones that are going to make a change for the better. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, the protagonist is Holden Caulfield, who is seen as an unstable teen with many problems, but at some times you might even relate to Holden. However, Holden had dealt with many challenges that changed his whole life's pathway. For instance, after losing his brother and having to grow up all alone during one of the most important peaks of his life, Holden is like every other teenager.

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1023 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the book, Holden Caulfield occasionally feel lonely and depressed. He hates how people are trying to pretend someone they are not. Holden Caulfield wears his hunting hat while he was in one of the biggest city in the world, which is unique. Caulfield’s red hunting hat made Holden

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593 Words | 3 Pages

Was Holden successful in his Journey This is an essay on whether or not Holden Caulfield is successful on his journey throughout the novel “The Catcher in the Rye” by Jerome David Salinger. This book shows how hard it can be for teenagers that are going from an adolescent to adulthood. Holden, who is sixteen years old, has been kicked out of several schools. Pencey Prep. was the latest.

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435 Words | 2 Pages

The red hunting hat represents Holden’s allure/endearment to unique qualities in objects and people, that normally go unnoticed by others. The hat also symbolizes Holden’s individuality and unwillingness to conform to society’s

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934 Words | 4 Pages

Holden Caulfield Is Mental Roughly three percent of the United States population, approximately 314,341,830 people, suffers from bipolar disorder. Holden Caulfield, from Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, has bipolar II disorder. This particular disorder is when an individual displays two extreme demeanors, yet not at persistent levels as shown in bipolar I disorders. This novel was written during an era that did not acknowledge mental illness very often; therefore Holden did not have the tools at his disposal to learn healthy coping mechanisms.

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1872 Words | 8 Pages

Throughout the book, he does not want to make any real grown-up decisions or set any goals for himself. He shows a lack of ambition and motivation and therefore is a constant failure at school. He refuses to associate himself with mature ways of living, and this is all because Holden his hanging onto the picture-perfect image he has of his childhood where he could be careless and free. He sees this particular period of his life as the only good thing that has happened to him so far in his life. He wants to hold on to it for as long as he can.

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1020 Words | 5 Pages

Stradlater was scared he broke Holden’s skull. They were both being childish. Stradlater fought him because Holden kept bothering him about a glove when it really wasn’t about it. It was more

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779 Words | 4 Pages

The heart of the story was Holden grieving over the death of his brother. Holden needs a solution to his problem. So he pulls out the mitt and confront his feelings to discharge all his grief and depression. Indeed, holden does not understand why his smart nice brother dies. He feels guilty that he who is stupid and inferior is still living.

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715 Words | 3 Pages

Holden tries to prevent the inevitable, but one must move on with their life, and that is, contributed to the loss of innocence. His hat keeps him safe from the societal horrors that steal one's innocence. So when he has finally comes to grips with the fact that he must become older, and make grown up decisions, he gives his hat to Phoebe when, she takes it out of his pocket and offers it to him, since it was raining, but he says “You can wear it awhile” (Salinger 233), he does this because he wants to protect her now and stop running away from his

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837 Words | 4 Pages

In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden demonstrates the struggle of transitioning between childhood and adulthood by revealing his hassle to grow up. Maturity comes through being an adult and growing up is all about becoming more mature. Throughout the book, Holden goes through numerous conflicts and problems. In the beginning of the book, Holden is gives information about himself.

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830 Words | 4 Pages

He has trouble growing up and accepting life as it is. Holden thinks adults are "phony" which makes him hate the fact of growing up and staying innocent as much as he can while he is old enough to become an adult. He is frustrated with the world and people which makes him act with anger. His innocent childish dream is to be the Catcher in the Rye, to catch the kids before they become phonies like Holden says about adults. The moment he realizes that he cannot keep kids from falling or in other words, from growing up and becoming adults, he, reaches adulthood, and takes a big step towards it at the end of the novel.

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693 Words | 3 Pages

Catcher in the Rye In the book Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, the narrator and protagonist Holden Caulfield a sixteen year old junior undergoes a series of changes. Holden learns multiple life changing lessons; one of them is you must grow up. In the beginning of the novel, Holden starts out as “that kid”; the one with the parents who expect him to get into an ivy league school, and end up with a kid with no intentions of doing so. At the beginning of the book it is very apparent that Holden lacks motivation; he also has hit rock bottom.

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1305 Words | 6 Pages

When the hat is pulled to the front, he cannot “see a goddam thing” and says he’s “going blind” (21). The pain from Allie’s death pushes Holden to seclude himself from a world he sees as cold and ominous. More importantly, it prevents him from looking at his own mind and realizing Allie is the reason he is lonely. As if losing own brother wasn’t enough, Holden also loses the presence of his older brother D.B.. The conflict begins when he leaves Holden by moving to Hollywood, and Holden says D.B. will only “maybe” drive him home after his therapy ends (1).

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1268 Words | 6 Pages

How Holden matured People go through rough stuff in their lives, such as losing a close sibling. It seems impossible to pull yourself out of the pain and guilt of your loss. It appeared Holden was in the same predicament, but through his experiences in the novel The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger he learns to grow up. Aside from being very immature, holden refuses to grow up and dislikes people who have grown up.

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