Transformations To Adulthood In Salinger's Catcher In The Rye

The irony of Holden detesting phoniness and adulthood is that he acts so much like an adult with his curiosity and experience with alcohol and sex that he misses his own opposition. Holden hates the responsibility, morality, and accountability of being an adult and embraces childhood. This contradicts everything that he desires and to want to take part in. This causes his own corruption and enables a failure to relate to himself.

In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden, cannot accept that he must move out of childhood and into adulthood. One of Holden’s most important major problems is his lack of maturity. Holden also has a negative perspective of life that makes things seem worse than they really are. In addition to Holden’s problems he is unable to accept the death of his brother at a young age. Holden’s immaturity, negative mentality, and inability to face reality hold him back from moving into adulthood.

Holden is the biggest hater of phonies, and at the same time, he is the biggest phony in the novel. In this novel, being phony is somewhat equivalent to being an adult. Holden wants to be seen like an adult. For this reason, he smokes and drinks heavily, and goes as far as being involved with prostitution. For people like Stradlater and adults, these are rather normal from their perspective. However, for Holden, they become paradoxes, as he absolutely loathes phoniness. Nearly all aspects of society, including movies, matinees, people’s behaviors, and even simple social interactions like conversations, are criticized by Holden for being phony. For example, during his date with Sally, Sally’s conversation with a guy they met at the matinee “killed [Holden]…it was the phoniest conversation you ever heard in your life” (Salinger 127). In a hope to make Sally understand his views on phonies, Holden says, “‘Take cars,’… ‘I don’t even like old cars. I mean they don’t even interest me. I’d rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God’s sake’” (Salinger 130). Then again, Holden becomes the phoniest person shortly after. He asks Carl Luce,

Salinger is able to allow the reader to see how the theme: the loss of childhood innocence, is an inevitable process of human life. Holden uses “fuck you” as a symbolization of the corruption that thrives within society, and it is through the realization that humanity is not innocent that Holden is able to come to the realization that his dream to become the “catcher in the rye” will always remain a dream. What Holden is able to conclude is that no matter where you go society will always find a way to corrupt individuals, and even though graveyards are symbolic of peace they are not exempt from the discord. The loss of innocence can never be prevented because pieces of the adult world are always invading into the most tranquil nooks and crannies, thus through this interpretation of the text the reader is now able to see Holden’s shifting views of the loss of innocence and how it can never be

The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D Salinger is a coming of age story. It is a story narrated by the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, who is a sixteen year old boy, but has a mind of a ten year old innocent kid. In the beginning he thinks of innocence as important, but later he realizes that growing up cannot be stopped. He wanders around the New York City by himself and gains experience of life that teaches him to become mature. This book is clearly written to show the theme of coming of age because it shows many symbols of coming of age, it shows the changes of young adults in modern life, and it creates an image of Holden growing up.

    Holden Caulfield sees childhood as the ideal state of being. He thinks adulthood is filled with corrupt people. The only way anyone can win in the adult world is if the cards are stacked in his favor. The characters in The Catcher in the Rye play a diverse set of roles in the war between childhood and adulthood.

This shows just how shallow Holden can be. Moreover, on pages 168- 171, Holden refers to Sally as being “goddam stupid” and a “phony” because she physically/mentally was absurd and didn’t agree with Holden when he suggested they leave to go somewhere far away. This shows that if you didn’t agree with Holden or match his standards, you would be seen as lesser of a person in his eyes. By using repetition of the words “phony”, “goddamn”, and “moron” the meaning of the word is lost. He refers to almost everyone including teachers, parents, friends, and siblings (except Allie) as a “phony” or “moron”.

This directly correlates with Holden’s dubbing of many people, practices, or labeling things as “phony.” He refers to the school and each of the students individually as “phony,” and calling out, “Sleep tight, ya morons!”(59) when he leaves Pencey for the last time. This demonstrates Holden’s use of “phoniness” to describe anything that doesn’t meet his

There is an only event that unites every single human being on the nature. Not everyone can say it is a pleasant experience, but no one can deny that it happened. This single event is labelled ‘growing up’. The transition between childhood innocence and adulthood is long and confusing, often uncovering questions that cannot be answered. During this time the adult world seems inviting and free, but only when we become members of a cruel, society can the happy ignorance of childhood be appreciated and missed. The novel Catcher in the Rye examines how adult life appears complex and incomprehensible to teenagers on the brink of entering it. Through the main protagonist Holden Caulfield, J.D. Salinger captures the confusion of a teenager when faced

The relationship between Holden and the "phonies" shows how Holden despise the society at first. Whenever he meets people he thinks they are "phony" he would criticize them. For instance during the intermission of the play, the conversation between Sally and George

Lies, failure, depression, and loneliness are only some of the aspects that Holden Caulfield goes through in the novel The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger. Salinger reflects Holden’s character through his own childhood experiences. Salinger admitted in a 1953 interview that "My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book.… [I]t was a great relief telling people about it” (Wikipedia). Thus, the book is somewhat the life story of J.D. Salinger as a reckless seventeen-year-old who lives in New York City and goes through awful hardships after his expulsion and departure from an elite prep school. Holden, the protagonist in this novel, is created as a depressed, cynical, and isolated character and he

He recognizes that children are not phonies, they say what they want, do what they want, and do not care what others think. However, he sees that adults are the exact opposite. Their world, the phony world, is something he has no interest in being part of. As a result, Holden distances himself from maturing, consequently preventing any meaningful interaction from occurring for the duration of the novel. Holden uses phoniness to define himself subconsciously. When he labels everyone around him as phony he gives himself an excuse to alienate himself from others.

Holden Caulfield plays a timeless character in the sense that his way of life is common for the American teenager, in his time as well as now. Today parents dread the terrible and confusing adolescent years of their child's life. In J.D. Salinger's book, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden is in this terrible and confusing point of his life. At this point in his life, as well as in modern teenager's lives, a transition occurs, from child to adult. Holden takes this change particularly rough and develops a typical mentality that prevents him from allowing himself to see or understand his purpose in life.

Holden's phony addiction gets him into trouble at school. Holden looks for the flaws in everyone and tries to eliminate that person he sees as a threat, such as when Holden decides to face off against the phony Stradlater after Stradlater's date with Jane. Holden also thinks every teacher is a phony who pretends to be helpful to students. If Holden has trouble in school he does not seek help from his peers because he believes that they are phonies. Hence this point is tied into one of the reasons he is kicked out of Pencey, failing four out of five courses. Holden's avoidance of things phony is very strong and he has a one-track mind. It is either his way or the highway, this is another example of how Holden's phony problem hinders his chance at full maturity. Holden is so scared

Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye has been pronounced a literary classic for its atypical portrayal of adolescence, to effectively convey the protagonist’s alienation and confusion. The introduction of The Catcher in the Rye is underpinned by disorder and confusion through a stream-of-consciousness narration, which digresses from one subject to another. Consequently, Holden’s multitudinous thoughts and feelings appear to lack a cohesive pattern. Additionally, Holden’s prevalent ascription of other students as “phony” (Salinger, p.3) alludes to his alienation and isolation as a form of self-protection; he rejects those he does not understand. Furthermore, the vocabulary encapsulates typical adolescence dialect of the 1940s, and resultantly, alienates contemporary reader. This is typified through Holden’s use of colloquial speech, in particular, his exclamation “that killed me” (Salinger, p.42) to express his amusement. Therefore, the introduction of Holden’s disjointed monologue in The Catcher in the Rye foreshadows Salinger’s unique interpretation of adolescence.