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Theme Of Archetype In Catcher In The Rye

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In J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, the coming of age archetype is inevitable, as the protagonist matures greatly throughout his physical journey. Holden started off as as sad as night, with aimlessness, pain and depression. He did not pretend the process of mourning was simple, and blind his eyes to the difficulty of accepting the loss of his brother. However, the truth is divulged here, proving to mourn, as painful and mentally agonizing. He could not easily move on with his life, go to school and make friends, when Allie was gone, forever. Dark thoughts spiraled out of control in the protagonist’s mind, constantly disrupting his state of tranquility, giving way to his physical journey. Grieve caused this dispatched sense of …show more content…

It's quite obvious that Holden is far from a normal character, but his obsession with sexual interactions seemed disturbing in nature. "In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac, you ever saw" (). After checking in the Hotel, Holden went to the Lavender Room tried to chat up 3 girls. He then ended up at Ernie's Nightclub with Lillian Simmons. When these girls proved to be uninterested he turned to a prostitute, to talk.Truth be told, Holden didn't even want coitus, he longed the attention of love, by somebody who finally understood him. After that, Holden kept moving forward, he had to; with the mindset that everything good was ahead, he had to leave all the bad,. When he met up with good old' Sally, he felt at peace again, like everything would be alright. Holden obviously lacked numerous communication skills, but he could never really relate with Sally. He really wanted “commitment”, but Sally could not move with him away from civilization she wanted something normal, practical. Holden could not cope with that. He felt all alone. The thing is, Holden pushed away everyone who cared about him, he was searching to find love, but when he found it, he backed down, that's why he couldn't even call Jane or reason with Sally; he was too depressed that he rather tolerate loneliness rather than bear the final, annihilating seclusion of losing another soul like his late brother. A glimpse of

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479 Words | 2 Pages

(chapter 13 pg 91) Holden admitted that he really didn’t want to have sex he just wanted to talk to somebody. He constantly said these lines. “Don't you feel like talking for a while. I just thought perhaps you might care to chat for a while. ”(Chapter 13

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1496 Words | 6 Pages

Holden originally attended Pencey Prep but could never connect with the people around him. He is always criticizing or fighting with others, which lead him to leave Pencey without telling anyone. Holden heads to NYC where he faces many challenges with others and himself, emotionally and physically. Holden finds himself in his hotel room with a prostitute and feels extremely uncomfortable with what he is doing so he pays her and sends her off. The next day he plans a date with Sally Hayes, an old girlfriend, to see a play where he calls her “a pain in the ass” and laughs.

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408 Words | 2 Pages

Holden had a on and off relationship with a girl

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1022 Words | 5 Pages

Change Can Be Good As one grows up they may experience dramatic changes in their life that they wish had never occurred. In The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D Salinger, the main Character Holden Caulfield, goes through loss as his life begins to change right in front of him. His brother Allie who Holden was very close with, passes away, and his family and friends are all moving forward with their lives.

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734 Words | 3 Pages

They quickly realized that Holden did not think it was funny or a joke. He perceives himself as the older man by kissing one girls on the forehead. When he does that she thinks it is weird and strange because she is much older than him. Again Holden is trying to connect but at times when it is not appropriate at the wrong times. This leaves Holden very sad and lonely.

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464 Words | 2 Pages

J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is considered a coming of age novel. Throughout the novel, Holden, a confused teenage boy, matures and understands more about himself. Salinger conveys Holden’s increasing levels of maturity by using a variety of symbols. The ducks in central park, the red hunting hat, and the carousel ring symbolize the the development of Holden’s adulthood.

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1617 Words | 7 Pages

Holden is victim to the desire of being someone he is not: a suave, sophisticated guy that gets all of the girls, a common stereotypical masculine portrayal in the movies that Holden claims to despise. Meanwhile, Holden also values staying

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881 Words | 4 Pages

As the novel goes on, we see a great issue between Holden and his troubling relationships with women, and pretty much everyone else. Holden sees women as easy to fall in love with for whenever they do something pretty, even if he thinks most of them are “stupid. Yet, even with his saying this, Holden cannot admit that he has some kind of feelings for Jane, an old friend whom he often thinks about throughout the book, and always wants to call but is never in the mood. If put through the eyes of Donald Hall, Literary and Cultural Theory, and his key principles based on Freudian theory, the reasons he does these things would be much clearer. He believes, in regard of Holden’s outburst with Sally confessing his love to her at an odd moment in chapter 17, that, “Holden has finally met a female willing to be with him and the very act enhances his feelings of rejection by his own mother.”

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600 Words | 3 Pages

Jessica Casimiro October 30, 2015 English 3/PayLea Short Story Essay Patrick Rothfuss once claimed, “The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.” The novel Catcher in the Rye focuses on Holden Caulfield, an angst-ridden teen conflicted between remaining in a state of prolonged innocence or transitioning into the world of adulthood, thus facing the corruption and phoniness that it correlates with. Through Holden’s dynamic character, J.D Salinger depicts how innocence is slowly lost when exposed to adulthood. Reluctant to the idea of growing up, Holden strives to protect the innocence of himself and the ones’ around him. Holden reminisces about the Natural Museum of History, a place he enjoyed going

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1142 Words | 5 Pages

Adulthood is when we mature into a person that continues to live life in reality as we let our childhood and adolescence become a faint memory. The memories, however, taught us lessons of acceptance as we cannot always shape the future. Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye takes a journey through the rite of passage by experiencing the innocence of youth and the phoniness of adulthood.

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915 Words | 4 Pages

In particular, an instance of Holden’s willingness to die for a noble cause rather than living is his encounter at the Edmont Hotel with Maurice and Sunny, the prostitute who he doesn’t even have sex with. When Holden is confronted by the duo to steal five dollars from him, he speaks out and refuses to pay. His efforts were to no avail though, as he not only gets punched but also his money taken away from him. After pretending to be shot, he finally reveals what he felt like doing, which “…was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window.”

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448 Words | 2 Pages

Through life you grow from a boy to a man or a girl to a women. You discover yourself in ways you never knew imagined. It is the begging of a journey to understand and evolve into the type of person you want to be. From J.D. Salinger 's, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield grows up from the immature person he was to a respectable man. Throughout the book, Holden begins to evolve and understand the prospect of life of realizing and mending mistakes made.

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1365 Words | 6 Pages

It takes the average person under a minute to compose an opinion about someone they recently encountered. This opinion will be the image inside your head until you genuinely get to understand that person., but judgement with still occur because humans do this for an eccentric reason. People have stereotypes that go along with judging through age class, for example, adults stereotype judging teenagers as persistently staring at their phones all day, rarely interacting with anyone face to face. This exhibits irony; children and teenagers perceive their parents to be infallible. There are many differences between adults and teens.

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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.

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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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