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The Mentor Of Holden In Into The Wild By Jon Krakauer

819 Words4 Pages

Holden meets few prominent mentors throughout the novel, who offer ephemeral relief to his problems, allowing for itinerantly to the past instead of living in the present. Allie, Holden’s brother, is a significant mentor who makes Holden reminisce on positive experiences with him before he passes away. Furthermore, Holden struggles long-term when Allie passes away and violently reacts, displaying his impaired judgement due to the stress of losing a family member ( Salinger 38-39). Holden admires his brother for being able to work past hardships and emotionally express himself through his unique poetry on his baseball mitt, which becomes a symbolic item to Holden when remembering Allie. Holden’s other prominent mentor is his sister, Phoebe, who sticks by his side, …show more content…

Holden is able to face his problems because he has met the psychological “need of belonginess and love needs” when reaching his goals (Maslow’s Hierarchy). After forming a stronger relationship with Phoebe, more of his psychological needs are met; Holden feels safe trusting his sister and becomes more affiliated with others instead of using isolation as a defense mechanism. Holden’s bohemian ideology on people around him is very similar to Chris McCandless from Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild. They both struggle to form connections with others and have relationship issues with their family. “He acted like it was it was hard for him to be around people...It was pretty obvious he didn’t get along with his family” (Krakauer 63). McCandless, like Holden, possesses a negative relationship with his family that causes him to isolate himself from family which is similar to Holden wanting to run away after being kicked out of school to avoid facing judgement. Furthermore, Holden and McCandless both obtain stronger relationships with their sisters and undergo difficulty when faced with social situations, preferring to isolate themselves from

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1118 Words | 5 Pages

Arrested development works in more than one fashion for Holden Caulfield, as not only does he desperately cling to the past, but his five stages of grief are similarly slowly processed—namely denial. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye follows Holden as he adapts to life alone in the city, and is forced to deal with the consequences of living in the real world. After projecting his issues onto others throughout the novel, only by accepting his own shortcomings does Holden finally start taking steps towards changing his life for the better. Holden’s little brother, Allie, passed away some years before the story takes place, and is one of the biggest factors in his refusal to let go of the past.

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217 Words | 1 Pages

In this quote, Holden describes his younger brother Allie 's baseball mitt. The quote is significant to the novel because it provides context on Holden 's past and the reason for his behavior and apathy towards life. In the quote, Holden addresses Allie for the first time while discussing the details of his baseball mitt. Holden describes his brother 's baseball mitt as having "poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere",the quote shows the similarities they once had and their shared passion for reading and literature. Allie 's baseball mitt serves as a symbol of Holden 's love for his brother as well as the sorrow that he has experienced since his passing.

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1081 Words | 5 Pages

While Holden does not always directly tell us, he implies that he has not had the best childhood. The events that Holden has gone through, have caused him to act up and look at life in this way. As a child, Holden’s brother, Allie died resulting in Holden smashing the windows in the garage, and being put in a hospital and missing the funeral. Allie’s death really shook up Holden. While not directly telling us, Holden has dropped some hints that there has been some form of abuse in his childhood, “That kind of stuff’s happened to me about twenty times since I was a kid.

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1024 Words | 5 Pages

Through Holden’s complicated journey of attempts to reach out to find companionship, or even just someone to talk to, someone he commonly mentions seeming to bring him a sense of comfort is his little brother, Allie, who passed away during Holden’s childhood. Allie is someone Holden deeply cares about, if not the person he cares about and loves the most. One way this is demonstrated is through a writing piece he did for a friend at his old school, Pencey, in which he described the only thing he has left of Allie: “I wrote about my brother Allie’s baseball mitt… You’d have liked him. He was two years younger than I was, but he was about 50 times more intelligent… He was also the nicest, in lots of ways” (49).

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1117 Words | 5 Pages

When attempting to comprehend an adolescent such as Holden Caulfield, one must always consider how he is a high born, lost, confused and an immature young man. That explains why his bewildered perception of women is greatly targeted and expressed throughout the novel, The Catcher In The Rye. J.D salinger, the author of the book, exemplified tremendous effort to objectify most women in the text. This created vast controversy between societies outlook on women in the book versus Holden’s perception of them.

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462 Words | 2 Pages

He is unable to embrace the challenges and responsibilities of adulthood because he is fixated on the innocence and purity of childhood. His interactions with Phoebe, his younger sister, demonstrate this. When Phoebe asks Holden "you know what I'd like to be? I mean if I had my goddamn choice?", he starts to talk about being "the catcher in the rye" (173). He sees himself as the protector of childhood innocence, Holden also imagines scenarios showing his resistance to adult responsibilities and challenges.

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942 Words | 4 Pages

Holden represents the typical teenager. He demands his independence and refuses to view himself as anything but invincible. In his mind, he has life figured out and everyone around him is simply stupid. He fails out of multiple schools and cannot manage to find friends because he is looking for his environment to cater to him. He does not want to put in the time or effort required to succeed.

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447 Words | 2 Pages

He continuously expresses his desire to run away with Sally, he seems quite obsessed with Sally even; he explains to her as what he sees as the "phony" aspects of the world, “I hate living in New York and all. Taxicabs, and Madison Avenue buses, with the drivers and all always yelling at you to get out at the rear door, and being introduced to phony guys that call the Lunts angels, and going up and down in elevators when you just want to go outside, and guys fitting your pants all the time at Brooks (Salinger, 17).” There are many other instances/examples of Holden withdrawing from society, but I see these as the three most important to his character; Isolation, Poor anger management, and runaway attempts. I do not believe that holden suffers from a mental disorder, I believe that his reaction to a traumatic event is fairly appropriate but this does not justify most of his poor actions such as drinking and smoking. Holden feels as if he is better off alone which results in him isolating himself from

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1325 Words | 6 Pages

He knows that the school doesn’t want him to be there anymore, his roommate almost beat him unconscious, and his parents will only be disappointed when they know that he has been expelled from yet another school. For Holden, it seems like there is no one else to turn to, except his younger sister Phoebe who he can’t see unless he goes home. Teenagers all across America feel this same sort of detachment from the rest of society. Only one thing going wrong could cause the rest of our worlds to collapse. Holden ended up trying to live on the streets when he ran out of money, and as the story progressed, he dug himself into a larger hole of loneliness.

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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.

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322 Words | 2 Pages

After reading the novel “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger, there is one connection between Holden and I. Holden mentions his sister Phoebe in a few times and whenever he talks to her, he is happy and grateful that his sister always understand him. It shows that he has a close sibling bonding with her. I have a brother that is four years older than me, he is the one who spent most of his time to listen my nonsense complain of everything that I can’t deal with and patiently solve my problems. I’m really glad that I have him to be my old brother and in the novel, Holden shows his loves to his little sister. Reading him, I found that it is easy to forget that he is just a sixteen-year-old boy.

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1449 Words | 6 Pages

And this leads Holden to almost cement himself in isolation and loneliness, because he can’t help but shut out people who try to help him. You can tell that he felt this in the real life, due to the structure of the novel. The author very rarely

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1378 Words | 6 Pages

The only motivator that Holden has to continue living is his younger sister, Phoebe, who is extraordinarily intelligent for her age. After he gets kicked out of Pencey, Holden is lost in life. He speaks to many people, seeking advice and comfort, but they are not able to help him find a human connection. Holden’s depression increases throughout the novel, almost to the point of suicide. He criticizes many people and ideas, labeling them as ‘phony’.

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423 Words | 2 Pages

One of the reasons Holden like many teens has all these issues of loneliness and of being surrounded by phonies is because of his attitude towards the world. How he’s always complaining about his life and were he lives in. Holden quotes “Finally, what I decided I’d go away. I decided I’d never go home again

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779 Words | 4 Pages

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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