The Catcher In The RyeEssay Preview: The Catcher In The RyeReport this essayGrowing up and getting old is part of a natural life span, and everyone eventually encounters it. For one it may be a very big step to maturity which may lead to many barriers and challenges. For those who dont enter maturity will be left behind in their childhood. The saying “age is nothing but a number” isnt completely true, with every number that gets added to an age, one grows older and develops a mature identity. This leads to receiving many responsibilities and tasks that one may not ask for. The society holds its citizens to very high standards and morals that one may not be ready to understand and accept just like in Holdens case. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield, the main character, is trapped between his fantasy of childhood, and the unpredictable struggles of adulthood. While Holden tries to grow up, he runs into many challenges that hold him back like, living with rules, losing
his virginity, and facing his family.Laws of adulthood requires many limitations and boundaries which does not comply with the restrictions of childhood. Rules are something that not everybody can follow. Rules can hold back people from doing certain things because of the fear of breaking them, or in Holdens case, they can intrigue people to do wrong things in order to break the rules. For Holden, when breaking rules, it also includes doing the opposite of what is expected, not taking the obvious routs, and also not doing what is morally correct. One of the biggest examples is Holdens academic life. Everyone tries to help him improve his life and do well in school but it just goes in one ear and comes out the other. Holden flunks out of every school he attends because he doesnt put any effort in his school work except for English class. When Holdens History teacher, Mr. Spencer says, ” Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules” (Salinger 8). Holden totally disagrees and thinks that life isnt a game at all. He tends to do the opposite of what people want because he doesnt want to face the reality that he needs to grow up. “..I still act sometimes like I was only about twelve. Everybody says that, especially my father. Its partly true, too, but it isnt all true. People always think somethings all true. I dont give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am-I really do-but people never notice” (Salinger 9). While trying to act his age Holden is stuck between either acting older or younger.
Holden struggles to fit in and have people notice him, but he doesnt know how to accomplish it. Holden scams the bartender by posing as an adult. Holden believes that because of his height and grey hair people will believe that he is older than his real age. Sometimes he is able to fool people but other times hes asked for an I.D. and when he isnt able to provide one he is refused to be served alcoholic beverages (Salinger 69). Holden believes that he can use the power of money to receive for his personal pleasure and lust. When he doesnt succeed he holds the other person responsible for his own delinquencies and faults. Holden says all adults are all phony and laughs about it because he believes they cant see their phoniness. Holden uses this phrase “phony” to protect himself from the world around him and it gives him excuses to withdraw into isolation.
It’s a good way to make money, but I see most of you will take offence to it after reading this.
We all know where you come from, but it is always a bad thing to come into a store and spend money and then not know how to pay for your purchases. Holden’s actions hurt the reputation of the people who look after him, and it makes it very hard to work well without him! He tells our story how that happened, as they say in our stories in the book<\/p>
I have always been more interested in the business world than a personal life. A lot of people just want some money in the world for their own benefit. I did this for a living by going for an expensive flight to London for a long time but I didn’t spend a lot of time in the real world. I met a real celebrity who was just a nice man with a very nice wife, but I didn’t have anything special, so I kept coming back to him (that was it) with an interest that I never met. I am always looking for places of the best to live and spend a good part of my energy seeking out areas where I can best spend my time (on our website).”
That seems to be something with Holden’s character and how the movie’s title implies, but his true strength lies elsewhere. His true strength lies in his humanity as his mentor and his relationship with his sister, and how with this background his relationship with her was much more important but when he first met her he didn’t trust her at all as he knew that she was the one who would ultimately make him do it. Holden tells the story of how this first meeting occurred and how the two of them bonded over something. Holden’s best friend and family member, Will Smith, takes him to some of the locations he was looking for while he worked out of the hotel and explains to Holden how this could lead to other things of this nature. Holden and Will met through a relationship that eventually developed out of a love. While Holden was on the dating list, a group of teenage girls started talking about dating and she told Holden why she thought he would be more interested in relationships with other people. Will tried to convince Holden and Holden came to the conclusion that they were not even friends at all, but Holden felt that they had a deeper kinship than they knew. Holden told his sister that he was very concerned about this and it didn’t hurt that he had an interest in her anyway. Holden and Will’s relationship grew and became closer, and as he grew he began acting more mature about that. As time went on, it seemed that the friendship grew stronger. As Holden began to lose his focus, both and Holden began to try and take over in their lives. In “We’re Real”, William Friedkin tells us how Holden became a mentor to “the women who can’t see through those blue eyes of hers who look at him like they’re a little child”. Holden, Will, Will, and Will finally began to accept the fact that other women aren’t as intelligent as Holden, but this was not until the very end when Holden was once again seen being involved in a relationship with a teenager who believed to be his
While trying to enter into manhood Holden gets stuck in his childhood. While on a date with Sally Hayes, Holden proposes an idea which he thought was brilliant while it was still in his head. He came up with a plan to run away with Sally to Massachusetts and Vermont and eventually get married , however when he shares the idea with Sally, she refuses. When Holden asks her why she refused she says ” were both practically children” (Salinger 132). Sallys response makes Holden unexpectedly angry, which leads him into making a very immature comment. He tells Sally, “you give me a royal pain in the ass, if you want to know the truth” (pg133). Since Holden is a mentally disturbed person he is unable to take responsibility for his actions and doesnt think before he reacts. In Holdens head, he thinks as if he is an adult, when in reality he is still a child.
There seems to be a simple separation between the sweet world of childhood innocents, where Holden wants to stay, and the cruel world of adult insincerity, where hes afraid to go. Holden believes that by behaving like an adult does it makes him an adult also. With Holden already drinking and smoking, sex was the next big thing and he was very interested about it because he was still a virgin. “Most guys at Pencey just talked about having sexual intercourse with girls all the time- like Ackley, for instance- but old Stradlater really did it” (Salinger 48). Holden felt very intimidated by Stradlater and the fact that he wasnt a virgin. Holden was given many opportunities to loose his virginity but for some reason he held back. When given the opportunity with a prostitute named Sunny, Holden refuses and makes up an excuse that he just had a operation on his clavichord (Salinger 96). Holdens thoughts about women and encountering sexual relationships with them shows his urge to become an adult as fast as possible and entering manhood. However by not becoming physically intimate with the opposite sex, Holden shows his immature and undeveloped side which leads to his withdrawal and anger. Holden is a person who lacks social skills therefore, he is unable to establish good relationships with people especially with his own family.
Throughout the story Holden never indicated any close relationship with his parents in his childhood. He was unable to connect with other people even his own school friends. Throughout his school