Catcher In The Rye Character Analysis

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. Although Holden is a very intelligent character he finds the hypocrisy and ugliness in the world around him and quickly associates it with the adult world.

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. Holden has the choice to either act like an adult or play like a child when he comes across a problem. But not surprisingly, he can’t choose which path to follow, so he stays stuck in the middle. This middle grey area of transitioning from childhood to adulthood for Holden is what is causing his problems and what is making his choices and decisions a lot harder.

Tragic events can affect your mindset in irreversible ways, causing self-destructive behavior, low self-esteem, and devious actions. Jerome David Salinger in his novel, The Catcher in the Rye, he develops the character of Holden Caulfield, an adolescent boy who is living a tragedy, causing suffering and deep pain within him. According to Mary Klages from the University of Colorado, she incorporates Warren Hedges and Freud through a psychoanalytic lens and they come to a conclusion that psychoanalytical approaches reveal how and why people behave as they do, which helps clarify Holden Caulfield’s actions in the novel. Holden is presented as a troubled adolescent, facing discontent of his childhood in which he desires not to describe much in

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. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden demonstrates the struggle of transitioning between childhood and adulthood by revealing his hassle to grow up.

How would you feel if you were outcasted by society, looked down upon by everyone else around you, never to fit in. This is the life that Holden Caulfield has to live. Holden Caulfield is a character in the book, The Catcher In the Rye, that is viewed as a misfit but assigned this label by society around him. Holden just has a different perspective on the world than everyone else, causing him to be seen as lower than everyone else. Holden doesn't believe in how materialistic things make you happy, he doesn't agree with people pretending to be someone that they truly are not, and he wants to protect children from the world and keep their innocence for as long as he can. It is not Holden Caulfield who is a misfit in our society, but society

In J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the ongoing tension between maturity and innocence helps show the simultaneous presence of youth’s purity and adulthood’s corruption in Holden’s mind. In his bildungsroman, Salinger illustrates the all necessary struggle of adolescence that strives to balance purity and corruption as Holden comes to terms with the indefinite nature growing up.

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.

Many people harbour a desire to accomplish something specific in life. Sometimes this desire stems from the background of a person, and sometimes desires are developed over time and with age. “The Catcher in the Rye” narrated by Holden Caulfield, who is an overly disturbed teenager, is about the change from childhood to adulthood. Holden, like many, has a burning desire to protect the innocence of children; this desire is tied to the themes of relationships, intimacy and sexuality which are carried throughout the novel. In a stroke of genius, the author, J.D. Salinger, sums up this desire in the title, which is taken from a poem by Robert Burns: Comin ' thro ' the Rye ( 1796).

Holden Caulfield, the main protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, embodies the classic teenager in the process of discovering himself, and how the world works. But, regardless of Holden 's rich, prep school lifestyle, the series of events that have mapped out his life up to this point have utterly affected his emotional well being and perception of the world. Many traumatic events such as the death of holds brother Allie, the death of a class mate, and countless numbers of awkward incidents with adults have all added up to affects Holden 's well-being and detach him from reality.

In J.D Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye, loneliness is the main topic of the book. The main character Holden Caulfield is an outsider from the beginning, which makes it easier for him to feel lonely. In the book he talks about the things leading up to him getting expelled from Pencey Prep, a private school, and the events that occur after.

Society as a whole is something you make of it. If one wants to denounce the society they live in because it is “phony” that is because they’ve made the world around them phony. The character of Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye is a prime example of someone being stuck in the idea that society is unchanging. Society is just how a person perceives the world in front of them. The eye of the beholder is the one that creates the society of their choice. Therefore, in the end of Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield is the problem, not society, but this is not a surprise because Holden is the most overly narcissistic and selfish characters to ever have the unwarranted and unnecessary fortune of having an entire book written about him.

Holden Caulfield’s story traces psychological/moral development and maturation. The conflicts that Holden deals with, shape him into a new adult. Holden learns so much on his journey, and finally accepts what society has to offer him. Society accepts him back, and Holden is rebirthed into an adult with new knowledge to benefit society.

The challenges Holden prevails overemphasize his diligence and highlight the committed route he embarks on as a hero. Salinger utilizes Holden’s hardships to portray the struggle he encounters while battling against his adverse odds during his escapade. Through Salinger’s interpretation of a hero, he depicts Holden as a character who persists to pass the obstacles that confront him; to illustrate, Holden’s constant feeling of loneliness consumes him along with his demoralizing background, providing an unstable foundation for Holden to grow and mature: "…I had this feeling that I 'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I 'd just go down, down, down, and nobody 'd ever see me again…I 'd make believe I was talking to my brother

In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger portrays a fascinating juvenile misfit character extensively named Holden Caulfield. Holden goes to school at the age of sixteen and is said to be a misfit in society. However, even though society is corrupt in some ways, Holden Caulfield is a misfit no matter if people say he is misunderstood in the eyes of society.

Holden Caulfield lives his life as an outsider to his society, because of this any we (as a reader) find normal is a phony to him. Basically, every breathing thing in The Catcher in the Rye is a phony expect a select few, like Jane Gallagher. What is a phony to Holden and why is he obsessed with them? A phony is anyone who Holden feels is that living their authentic life, like D.B. (his older brother). Or simply anyone who fits into society norms, for example, Sally Hayes. 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.