Character Analysis Of The Catcher In The Rye

In the beginning of Catcher in the Rye, Holden was extremely selfish and didn’t ever consider other people’s opinions and how they might feel. As the story has gone he has continued to move along he has failed to realize that not all people are phony and mean. He goes on the date and as they are going in to a cab he thinks, “I sort of hated old Sally by the time we got into the cab, after listening to phony Andover bastard for about ten hours” (140). Holden is trying to be friends with Sally, but realizes that it’s not going over well. Holden is beginning to realize that the people he is trying to be friends with are not working out for him because he does not allow himself to blend with people. He is getting himself deeper into isolation and

In the controversial novel, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger expresses his opinion on social problems. The protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is a troubled teen; he seeks help throughout the novel. Holden has been in and out of schools and can not seem to fit in. Holden has depression and turns to alcohol for all his problems due to the lack of love in his life. No one understood what he was going through which caused him to almost kill himself. J.D. Salinger uses Holden to protest society’s problems.

It is often said that the people one surrounds themselves with can reflect things about themselves, such as their beliefs and ideals. One’s friends and acquaintances can reveal subconscious attractions to people that fulfill their ideals or agree with the things they say, but these relationships can also help one discover their personal philosophies by reinforcing opposing views. Indeed, in J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the way Holden reacts to and interacts with secondary characters reveal his established philosophies and the values he holds most dear to him.

In Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden, had many opportunities to learn life lessons but every time his faulty thinking caused him to focus on the problem and not the solution. Whenever Holden looks at situations he negatively overgeneralizes them with a bad attitude rather than learning from it.

After spending some time in New York, Holden decides to reach out to some of his old friends. He calls an old friend, Carl Luce and asks to meet him for dinner. While he can’t make dinner, he does agree to a drink and they arrange to meet at a popular bar in the city. Holden arrives at the bar early and begins drinking. After a moment, he begins to describe others in the bar. He describes the singers and people sitting near him in a negative tone, criticizing them and their behavior. He says “The bartender was a louse, too. He was a big snob” (157). Although Holden doesn’t know him personally at all, he immediately forms a negative opinion of him. This feeling of resentfulness towards others is likely due to the critical way he thinks about himself and his constant feeling of being an outsider. As the story progresses, Holden takes a trip to visit his little sister Phoebe. He sneaks into his parents’ home and finds her sleeping. He notices she has a nice skirt and jacket set laid on the chair and explains how his mother has impeccable taste. He also notes most kids dress terribly and says, “You take most little kids, even if their parents are wealthy and all, they usually have some terrible dress on” (166/167). Even after continuously saying how much he loves kids and how great they are, Holden still has a negative opinion about them. He consistently has a negative opinion about others,

He’s left-handed. He wrote poems on his baseball mitt. He had red hair. He was nice, smart, and died of leukemia a few years prior. He doesn’t go into specifics or his whole life story; he doesn’t need to. All we need to know is that we “would have liked him.” When Holden’s little sister, Phoebe, discovers that Holden was kicked out of school again, she accuses him of not liking anything, to which he predictably responds with, “I like Allie.” When Phoebe clarifies that Allie is dead, Halden responds in hysterics, “I know he’s dead! Don’t you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can’t I? Just because somebody’s dead, you don’t just stop liking them, for God’s sake - especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that’re alive and all.” Holden still hasn’t entirely gotten over Allie’s death, and he probably never will. The one that he liked, the one person that he seemed to love more than any other, is dead. Nothing in life satisfies him, because nothing in life can fill that empty, depressed void within

The main character in Catcher in the rye Holden is at a position where he is trying to understand the world around. Where he is concerned with the people of being materialistic. And the fact that young men like many of his class mate are molded by school institutions like Pencey Prep , which was the last school Holden had failed out in the novel, turning young men into homogenized group of people concerned with less morals of society and more worldly gains. Which makes a fray of personality within Holden’s context, where at one point Holden is trying to exist in the American society and on the other hand he is moving away from the society. In that concept understanding why Holden is impendent to the idea where he thinks of himself as

Today I’m dining with 5 characters from the novel The Catcher in the Rye, who I consider close friends; the characters are Holden Caulfield, Ackley, Jane Gallagher, Phoebe Caulfield, and Stradlater. By the end of our Chinese dinner we all received a fortune cookie! The first to open their fortune cookies was Holden. His fortune said, “Don’t be unreal,” this is only appropriate for Holden because throughout the book he struggles with accepting reality and learning how to cooperate with it. Ackley struggles to open his fortune cookie, but he got there. His fortune said, “Lying is always your first choice, but it will become your last resort once you become the lie yourself.” This made complete sense considering Ackley was always lying about his sexual encounters; he kept his message to himself. Jane opens hers to see a surprise, “You know you're respected and loved, embrace it.” Jane is one of the few people Holden enjoys. This gave a hint to Jane, it left her puzzled. Phoebe, Holden's younger sister opened her fortune cookie with a sly look on her face. She read her fortune aloud, “Sunshine.” She got this message because her innocence would be the sunlight to Holden's day. Soon the sexy bastard (a nickname Holden gave to his roommate Stradlater) at the table got to his fortune cookie. The fortune cookie said, “Gross.” Stradlater is embarrassed and decides not to share his fortune with the table. This fortune was accurate because he is very unhygienic at “Home.” Everyone

In chapter ten of J.D. Salinger’s, Catcher in the Rye, there are three important concepts: loneliness, depression, and idealism. Holden evinces these concepts when he talks about his younger sister, goes to the Lavender room, and mentions Radio City Music Hall. Each of these concepts builds upon each other, especially the idea that Holden is lonely.

People can experience depression and loneliness in many ways. Some decide to bury it all down and pretend that they can just forget about their problems. Some people do the complete opposite and just cannot grasp a hold of their lives. Others try and make the situation not as awful as it appears. They use different representations in their lives to explain and understand how they feel. Holden Caulfield probably feels this way when he brutally experiences both at the same time. Recognizing and understanding these representations can help you the most when trying to comprehend this character and real life people who struggle with these problems. In JD Salinger’s coming-of-age novel, The Catcher in the Rye, themes and objects that directly

Holden Caulfield is an interesting narrator and character of the novel The Catcher in the Rye. Unlike many narrators, he doesn’t seem one-dimensional and possessing only one trait. Many times throughout the novel, Holden’s actions and thoughts tend to conflict with each other, whether that be positive or negative. Therefore, this idea of his more complex nature gives readers differing perspectives of the character and their general preference or distaste of Holden. Regardless of his pessimistic viewpoint of the people around him and his surroundings, I predominately like Holden, specifically for how relatable he is to me and his genuinely caring nature towards certain people.

Before he was required to officially leave the dorms of school, Holden got in a fought with his roommate after finding out this friend and the girl he liked possibly had sexual interaction with one another. It ticked Holden off, so he threw a punch and also got one in return. After fighting his friend, Holden has the urge to leave the private school immediately. Since he didn’t tell his parents about getting kicked out of school, he decided to leave to New York. When he got to the hotel he was going to stay at, he got super lonely, so he decided to hire a prostitute only to end up trying to talk to her. He ends up getting beaten up by the prostitutes so called ‘owner’ and gets more money taken away from him than expected. Although Holden starts to contradict himself many different times, you can actually see him being genuine through his language and actions when his brother died, and he decided to break all of the windows. Its obvious he broke all of these windows because he was in so much pain and agony. He decided to go crazy and break everything since he did not have anyone to talk to. The fact that his brother had already died causes him to use “you” instead of “me.” He uses the word listen with Phoebe and this shows that he is generous, and is a great ‘big brother’ because of his

The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger is about a boy named Holden Caulfield who got kicked out of Pencey Prep, a private school for boys. Throughout the story Holden shows his dislike for society because he believes that it corrupts the innocent. Some people might say that Holden doesn´t understand that as an adult, most innocent people stay innocent and he is just judgemental of all the people around him. Salinger suggests that in order to transition to the adult world properly, an individual must understand that we change and most become corrupt. Holden achieves this understanding to the extent that he tries to save the innocent people and rejects the corrupt, although in the end he learns to let them free even if they become corrupt.

After leaving Ernie’s, the night club, Holden walks forty-one blocks back to his hotel. On the way back, Holden feels cold, however, he does not have his gloves to warm his hands. At that moment he wonders who had stolen his gloves back at Pencey and what he would do if he had found out who did it. The thought makes Holden even more depressed, causing him to go to a bar however, he changes his mind and heads back to his hotel. On the way back to his room, the elevator guy offers Holden a night with a prostitute for five dollars and he accepts the offer without thought. When he gets back to his room, he prepares for the prostitute by cleaning himself up, feeling a bit sexy, yet also anxious. He begins reflecting on previous opportunities when

When city life proves to be too stressful for Holden, he decides to leave New York. He’s unsure as to where he should go but he has the essential idea to abandon his old home, travel west, and live a nomadic lifestyle. Before departing, he visits Phoebe’s school to drop off a note asking her to meet him so he can repay the money she lent him. Already feeling overwhelmed from a previous incident, Holden’s mood becomes even worse when he sees that Phoebe has planned to come with him. She pleads and bargains with Holden to let him take along his journey. He refuses, but to no avail, nevertheless, she stubbornly rebukes him and becomes bitter. Devastated by the thought of being on bad terms with Phoebe, Holden says that he will stay and offers