Rhetorical Analysis Of The Catcher In The Rye

In day 4 of the reading, Holden takes a cab drive and once again brings up the question of where the ducks go during the winter, symbolizing his childlike curiosity and how he wants to be free from society just like the ducks. Holden brings up the question about the ducks, asking "does somebody come around in a truck or something and take them away?" (Page 82). This shows Holden's childlike curiosity is still prevalent, asking a question that is obviously untrue but an ideal solution to the question. It also symbolizes how he is like a duck, who does not know what he wants to do, whether it is to transition into an adult and fly away, or stay in the lake and freeze in childhood. Also, This is shown again when he asks about the fish. He asks

In the novel “Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger, the main character, Holden acts very immature. He shows this through running away from home as well as Pency Prep, his school, in which he failed most of his classes. Holden changes his mind very quickly, and is incredibly fast to judge. He also shows immaturity by acting like a blind woman on the street. When people come to contact with problems, they face them head-on. Holden however, runs from them, but lies to himself that it was the right thing to do. Holden on top of all his immaturity, is calling anyone who isn’t him or his siblings a phony.

In the novel, “ The Catcher in The Rye”, written by J.D. Salinger, uses symbolism, cruelty, and deception to help convey a very strong portrayal of loss of innocence. This novel tells the story of a teenager named Holden Caulfield and his crazy journey on how he ended up in a mental institution. Caulfield starts off by describing how he flunked all of his classes in his private school and was going to get expelled. He decides to run away to a hotel in New York City where he then calls up a prostitute to try and lose his V-card to. He ends up not doing anything with her and realizes that she is about his age and he just wants to talk to her instead. He still pays her in full in spite of this, but is later confronted by her pimp and is mugged of his remaining cash. He then feels it would be a good idea to go and kick it with his little sister, someone that he’s always able to speak his mind to. He then tells her arguably the most important saying in the book, “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing in this

His constant stream of lies and deceptions keep everyone around him in the dark as to what is really going on and to the truth. Even in the most innocent of places, where it is so much easier to tell the truth he will still lie. “I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It’s awful. If I’m on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I’m going, I’m liable to say I’m going to the opera. It’s terrible. So when I told old Spencer I had to go to the gym and get my equipment and stuff, that was a sheer lie. I don’t even keep my goddam equipment in the gym”. He has become such an avid liar, over his lifetime, that he can not help but lie at every opportunity. Holden even lies to one of his classmate’s mother while on the train to New York. “But I’ll bet, after all the crap I shot, Mrs. Morrow’ll keep thinking of him now as this very shy, modest guy that wouldn’t let us nominate him for president”. He lies about his name, her son’s behavior, and even tells her that he is on his way to get a small brain tumor removed. At this point, Holden is simply lying to amuse himself at another’s expense. Holden’s deceitfulness spares no one that he comes in contact with, if one were to have a conversation with him it is safe to assume that he is not telling the

Holden is a very introverted character who hesitates throughout the book to share information about his life . J.D Salinger makes sure to portray Holden that way to

What is phoniness? According to the Merriam Webster dictionary a phony is a person who is not honest or sincere who says things that are meant to deceive. Therefore, phoniness is someone who doesn 't act as themselves, they deceive people by acting like someone they aren’t, even themselves. Holden describes phonies all throughout the book, he keeps calling out people for being fake. "The waiter was waiting for her to move out of the way, but she didn 't even notice him. It was funny. You could tell the waiter didn 't like her much you could tell even the Navy guy didn 't like her much even though he was dating her. And I didn 't like her much. Nobody did" (41). In the quote above Holden calls out the Navy guy for being phony because he is dating Lillian Simmons even though he didn 't like her much. Therefore, he is being someone he isn 't and lying to himself.

The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger in 1951, is the story of an angst-ridden sixteen year old Holden Caulfield as he learns to deal with growing up. The story follows Holden through his three day experience through New York as he learns about the truth about innocence, sex, and mortality, making The Catcher in the Rye one of America’s most notable coming-of-age stories. One of the largest influences on Holden’s life was his younger brother Allie who died from leukemia at age eleven when Holden was thirteen. The death of Holden’s brother had a profound effect on Holden emotional state, which eventually caused his complete mental breakdown by the end of the novel.

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.

The diction of this passage appears to be the key in unraveling Holden’s mood swings. Whenever Holden comments on other people, he calls them “phony” in order to distance himself emotionally and isolate his feelings. Even when talking about his sister Phoebe, with whom he holds the strongest emotional bond, he simply says she would “feel pretty bad if [Holden died]. She likes [Holden] a lot.” (173). In the instances Holden finds himself unable to insult a particular relationship to discourage himself from becoming attached, he

It is the “phoniness” he wants to blame. Salinger used “phony” this word many times in the book and is one of the most famous word from “The Catcher in the Rye” and it accurately describes the human nature of most adults’. During Holden’s three-day-trip in New York, he has met and encountered with many characters who are pretentious and fake, from Mr. Spencer to Luce and Sally. In society people have to lie or be “phony” just to socialize, or impress someone. Holden is a judgemental person who keeps observing other people’s phoniness but never notices them in himself. He lies intensely throughout the course of the novel, starting from lying to Ackley at the very beginning of the book. From his sarcastic tone in his conversation with other people, readers can denote his own cynical view on the world. Holden views adulthood as phony, hypocritical and fake while childhood in his mind is a world of innocence, honesty, and joy. That is the main reason why he wants to be a “catcher in the rye” to protect and save all the children from falling into the phony adult world. Holden Caulfield’s despise of fakeness causes his resistance of growing into a more mature person, with the lack of ability to interact with other people, make him a

Holden considers everybody who doesn't have the same personality traits as him, a phony. He also considers everything he doesn’t like phony. For example he doesn’t like this word so he says “Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.” Another example of phony is when Holden started to talk about him getting a cabin and not coming home till he is at least thirty-five. He went on and said “I'd have this rule that nobody could do anything phony when they visited me. If anybody tried to do anything phony, they couldn't stay.” Basically, Holden is saying that if anyone did anything he didn’t like or approve, they would be asked to leave. Holden’s grumpiness is an attributing factor to why he calls everything phony with the other factor being personality. Holden's parents haven’t been there for him much while he has been growing up. Holden has been to three private schools and just got kicked out of his third one, Pencey Prep. He doesn’t want to go back home until his parents receive the letter that he has been kicked out. When Holden was talking about his parents, he said “I thought of maybe hanging up if my parents answered, but that wouldn't've worked, either. They'd know it was me. My mother always knows it's me. She's psychic.” This quote explains how Holden is too afraid to even talk to his parents nevermind go

In the beginning of the novel Salinger portrays Holden as a antisocial person who is often seen alone and describes the world as a “ world full of phonies” one example of this is at the beginning of the book wherein the

Throughout the novel, J.D. Salinger uses slang as a method of style to not only show the time period when this book was written, but also the intelligence of Holden and his accompanying characters. In chapter two, Holden’s slang is especially evident when describing Mr. Spencer and the way he lives his everyday life. This chapter also depicts Holden’s feelings about Mr. Spencer and shows that Mr. Spencer is the only known father figure around Holden at this time and Holden just continues to disappoint and push Mr. Spencer further away. The author uses this passage and passages like it to further develop the characterization of Holden and show how he views the world and its inhabitants. This style is evident in the paragraph “They each had

Though there is some verbal irony and situational irony present as well, the dramatic irony overshadows them. Dramatic irony is used in almost every chapter of the novel. In several moments in the book, Holden claims that everyone is a phony, whereas the readers can easily tell that Holden is the real phony. The audience can mostly tell that by seeing Holden is hypocritical of almost everything. Holden states that he is the “The most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera” (Salinger 16). This shows how fake and similar he is to, if not more fake than those he often criticizes. Revealing that Holden Caulfield as a hypocrite though he is repulsed by such fakeness, but in reality is no better than those he ridicules for being someone other than who he assumes them to be. Likewise, Holden cannot stand how unreal and artificial movies are, and as a result loathes them, however, he ends up attending them anyway. An example of verbal irony in the book can be seen when holden says “I'm the one that's flunking out of the goddam place, and you're asking me to write you a goddam composition”(Salinger 28) This is verbal irony because what holden is trying to say is he is the one failing for not being smart enough yet Stradlater is asking him to write a composition. He is basically

In The Catcher In The Rye by J.D Salinger, the character Holden Caulfield shows his dislike towards other characters in the novel by characterizing them as “phonies”. People who are dishonest when self representing themselves for their own self interest are usually judged by Holden. Holden has high standards for other people especially adults and often characterizes other characters who do not meet his standards as “phonies” but he often behaves similarly to them. He is critical towards most characters and holds high standards when determining who is a phony and who is not. He also often has the same characteristics as somebody that would be called a “phony” would have. His hypocrisy is shown in many ways including his continuous lying, and his behavior with different characters