Holden's Impact On The Catcher In The Rye

If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own survival, and only worry about myself,’ I immediately felt ashamed of myself, ashamed forever,” (Wiesel, 111). This is just one example of the internal conflict going on endlessly within himself. When thinking of family, there are good times and bad times. When experiencing the moments that are extremely difficult for Elie and his father, he often thinks how great life would be if he could just get rid of his father’s dead weight. One evening when Elie’s father is very ill, the had of the block approaches Elie and tells him, “‘Don’t forget your in a concentration camp.

“Brother, brother, don’t leave me!” In the short story, “The Scarlet Ibis,” James Hurts writes about a child who is born with disabilities that cause him to be treated differently. Eventually, his older brother is so embarrassed by him that he decides to teach him to be normal and the ways of life. The author writes about how embarrassing feelings overcome people and force them to do strange things they would have never done before. Also, the leading results can impact someone’s individual life. Doodle’s disabilities affected him from birth so he was not treated equal and his brother wanted him to learn the things he should already know.

From his parents, he barely gained the warmth of being in a complete family. As Ponyboy said, “His father was always beating him up, and his mother ignored him, except when she was hacked off at something, and then you could hear her yelling at him clearly down at our house. He hates that worse than getting whipped…If it hadn’t been for the gang, Johnny would never have known what love and affection are” (Hinton P.12), we can clearly known that Johnny’s parents were extraordinarily violent to Johnny. Due to the charac- teristic of Johnny’s father, the hereditary gene of violence affected fixed some of Johnny’s personal- ity. Also, Johnny was only the one who serves as a vent to his parents’ anger.

It is packed with heart-wrenching moments that make the reader feel his pain. For instance, Sheff is always worried sick when his son disappears without saying where he’s going. One particular time, when Jasper asks where his older brother is, Sheff responds, “with more emotion than I intended to betray: ‘We don’t know.’ Jasper begins to cry” (Sheff 101). This moment makes the audience feel for Sheff and his family, because it is a new side of the common addiction story that has more impact emotionally than one may think. People hear the side of the addict themselves so much more often, that the parents’ point of view is more shocking and emotional.

Holden Caulfield experiences flashbacks to the traumatic events that have occurred in his life. Holden is constantly reminded of his younger brother Allie who passed away when he was 11 years old. “So what I did, I wrote about… did, and he had very red hair,” (Salinger 38). The reader can see that Holden is constantly thinking of Allie, and that Allie was one of the people in Holden’s life that made him happy. Holden’s ability to remember the vivid details of Allie and his life prove that these traumatic events, occurring upon those who brought him joy, will always be with him.

Cruise Control was interesting because you could feel what he was going through the whole book. He was angry at times and he couldn’t hold it back so he beat up a guy for almost hitting a little girl. He almost beat up his dad but instead something was holding him back. Paul was my favorite character in this book because he takes care of his brother and treats him like he’s normal. Even though he has anger issues he takes care of the basketball

Consider Holden acting like a child, at the age of 17. Throughout The Catcher In The Rye Holden shows that he doesn't act like an adult. He does some things that an adult would do but to be 17 he shouldn’t be wondering what the “time” feels like. Holden really cares for little kids for example, Allie his little brother. When he finds out about the death he punches all the windows out the garage.

As the book starts Holden describes his childhood and how he has been kicked out of several school and once more again from his currently school, giving a sense of irresponsibility and no care in the world. Holden later on mentioned slowly the loss of his brother due to leukemia and how he reacted outrageously by breaking the windows of his garage home. As a reader one would view that behavior as abnormal, but Peter Shaw descried it as a normal behavior for a fictional character in the 1950s and by mentioning that Holden, “is presenting in a somewhat different manner than are the sentimentalized young people in other novels if his period” (par. 3), admitting that Holden was somewhat of an outcast of a character even for its time he is still considered normal. Shaw also challenged the reader’s view of Holden by emphasizing that Holden is not a real person, but a fiction character developed in the 1950s and in fact a mad psychological character is normal and made the reading rather more interesting and acceptable during that time.

This resentment of phonies is what led Chapman to kill John Lennon on the 8th of December, 1980. To begin with, Chapman had a very unhappy childhood. Besides being the constant target of bullies, his parents’ anger towards one another infringed upon his childhood development (Mark David Chapman, n.d., para.49). “He lived in dread of his father, who would beat his mother”, and dreamt of killing him (Mark David Chapman, n.d., para.3). The reading of Salinger’s book brought a new light into his life.

Neil loved acting and his dad did not approve and acted like his dreams were not important. In the end, Neil took his own life because he was so hurt and tired of the pressure he was under from his parents. Parent pressure can be so much stress on a child and it obviously affected Neil so much that he did what he did. “You know what my dad called me when I was growing up? Five ninety-eight.

Have you ever had so much on your mind but no one to tell it to? The world renowned famous author Jerome David Salinger felt this way too. He used his writing as a way to tell people what was on his mind. More often than not, he based his characters on himself; especially Holden Caulfield from his book Catcher In The Rye, which was an instant bestseller. Holden Caulfield is a depressed, naive teenager who resents the adult world and hypocrisy in “phonies”.