...Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye, is a 16-year-old boy who is troubled, has been expelled from four schools, and is dealing with rejection. Rejection is one of the main causes of depression and social anxiety. Humans need companionship, love, and acceptance. “He sees that the world belongs to adults and it seems to him that they have filled it with phoniness, pretense, social compromise” (Seng 105). The plot is Holden’s quest for sympathy for his physical condition and for a place of peaceful refuge. Holden is denied this sympathy and refuge, therefore he breaks down (Alsen 7). In The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, Holden’s three important rejections lead to his breakdown. The blonde girl, Sally Hayes, and Carl Luce are three of the many important rejections in the novel. The blonde girl rejects Holden, and this is the beginning of his breakdown. The blonde girl is sitting next to Holden in the Lavender Room at the hotel he is staying at in New York. Holden buys her a drink because he thinks that she is good looking. Holden also asks her to dance. While they were dancing she exclaims, “I and my girl friends saw Peter Lorre last night. The movie actor. In person. He was buyin’ newspaper. He’s cute” (Salinger 71). The blonde girl is obviously looking for movie stars, not conversation. Holden calls her a moron and calls it a dumb remark. He is obviously annoyed and upset. Therefore, he feels as if he has been rejected. The fact that she isn’t...
Words: 1081 - Pages: 5
...4141- 4141--- Cherished and Cursed:Towarda Social History of The Catcher in the Rye STEPHEN J. WHITFIELD THE plot is brief:in 1949 or perhaps 1950, over the course of three days during the Christmas season, a sixteen-yearold takes a picaresque journey to his New YorkCity home from the third private school to expel him. The narratorrecounts his experiences and opinions from a sanitarium in California. A heavy smoker, Holden Caulfield claims to be already six feet, two inches tall and to have wisps of grey hair; and he wonders what happens to the ducks when the ponds freeze in winter. The novel was published on 16 July 1951, sold for $3.00, and was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. Within two weeks, it had been reprinted five times, the next month three more times-though by the third edition the jacket photographof the author had quietly disappeared. His book stayed on the bestseller list for thirty weeks, though never above fourth place.' Costing 75?, the Bantam paperback edition appeared in 1964. By 1981, when the same edition went for $2.50, sales still held steady, between twenty and thirty thousand copies per month, about a quarter of a million copies annually. In paperback the novel sold over three million copies between 1953 and 1964, climbed even higher by the 1980s, and continues to attract about as many buyers as it did in 1951. The durabilityof The author appreciates the invitationof Professors Marc Lee Raphaeland Robert A. Gross to present an early version...
Words: 12326 - Pages: 50
...Holden Caulfield: Protector of Innocence The novel The Catcher in the Rye is a coming of age tale of a teenager’s journey into a mental breakdown. The main character, Holden Caulfield, sees the world as an extremely phony, cynical place that he wishes to escape from. As a result of this, he forms the idea that the only way to be free of the hypocrisy and cynicism of society is to maintain one’s childlike immaturity and innocence. Because of this idea, throughout the novel, Holden is trying desperately to hold on the shreds of innocence that he has left, all while trying to protect the innocence of those around him as well. Two minor characters mentioned in the novel that Holden tries to protect, Sunny and Phoebe, both display to the reader signs of developing maturity. Holden’s interactions with both Sunny and Phoebe provide prime examples of how even though Holden tries desperately to protect their innocence, growing up cannot be prevented. One of Holden’s most prominent traits throughout the novel is that he is has this urgent need to protect the people around him from losing their innocence like he did when his brother passed. Even though he constantly drinks, smokes, and curses, Holden’s main goal throughout the text is to make sure that innocence is maintained as long as possible before a person grows up and matures. “He struggles to preserve his own tenuous hold on youthful innocence-or as he sometimes puts it, ‘niceness’-and despairs when he finds that innocence lost...
Words: 1343 - Pages: 6
...In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, J.D Salinger portrays a lost and confused teenager named Holden Caulfield; who is trying to find his place in life after getting kicked out of school. After going to New York to escape his annoying peers; he meets a series of people in the city that helps him find his goal in life. His dream was to be the Catcher in the Rye and preserve childhood innocence, but this dream was later destroyed with the realization that children must lose their innocence in order to grow up. Throughout the book Salinger uses an array of items that symbolize Holden’s position and thoughts on the world. One of the significant objects mentioned by Salinger is money. In J.D Salinger’s the Catcher in the Rye money is significant because it symbolizes the unfairness in society. In the novel money is constantly spent and earned with both a greedy and sympathetic mindset. To begin with, money is often earned and given to people with the worst morality. One of Pencey’s alumni Ossenburger is an extremely rich and powerful man, yet according to Holden Ossenburger is wealthy because of bad morale and trickery. “…you could get members of your family members for about five bucks apiece…” “He probably just shoves them in sacks and dumps them in the river anyway.” (22) This is an example of the negative examples of society. The family of the deceased are trusting Ossemburger with a beloved member of their family. Yet, Ossenburger betrays their trust by dumping the dead into...
Words: 1034 - Pages: 5
...Would Holden Enjoy Lee's Demeanor? Name: Kendrick Liang Teacher: Emilio Nieves Date: 11/14/15 The most noticeable part of being a teenager for many people seems to be the recurring phases of angst and rebellion. It is also likely for those who are of kindred spirit to be interested in and possibly even emotionally charged towards each other in the hypothetical situation that they were to meet. This is particularly true about the protagonists of The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger, and Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld, who both deal with their own emotional struggles of trying to find an identity and their attitudes towards both their allies and their enemies. The Washington Post's review in Prep even went so far as to suggest that "Holden Caulfield would love this heroine." This quote does have validity to it, due to the possibility of Holden expressing sympathy towards Lee if they were to cross paths. Holden would probably express sympathy due to the way he thinks about dishonesty, relationships, and innocence. Holden regularly criticizes others, especially adults, on their behaviors by addressing them with a variety of insults, such as "phony" and "slob". For example, Holden talks about how Maurice, the elevator boy who directed him to a prostitute, demanded five more dollars than what he claimed he would charge Holden beforehand, resulting in a fistfight that injures and humiliates Holden (p. 55-56). This reinforces his distrust towards individuals that have more authority...
Words: 894 - Pages: 4
...The use of language in J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, is an upper-class boy who has gone from one private school to another, searching for -- something. He expresses his frustrations in language highly characteristic of adolescence; his extremely colloquial speech sounds just like that of teenagers today, even though Salinger's novel was written in the 1950s. But a particularly striking factor of Holden's narration is his frequent use of the words "phony" and "crazy", as well as his ongoing lapse into second person -- "you". These characteristics attain greater significance given Holden's desperate need to actually reach out and communicate with someone, anyone, who just might understand him. The novel takes place in the two days following Holden's dismissal from his latest school, Pencey Prep. Much of this two-day period is spent either making or contemplating a huge number of assignations and phone calls, most of which are never made. Each of these represents an unsatisfied need to reach out, to affirm the validity of his place in the world at that moment and have it confirmed by the response of another person. In almost every case Holden holds back from really touching another person who could make a difference to him. In fact, his very name -- Holden -- may stand for this attitude of "holding", of keeping himself so close to the vest that he is unable to communicate with the people he so desperately...
Words: 3182 - Pages: 13
...Realism in 21st Century The world, in view of the fact that it was created is changing. With the changing desires and demands of today’s standard of living, individual needs to be in sync with the demands and trends of modern day living. Not too long ago, people were seen doing stuffs that have turned out to be more of a routine in today’s humankind. Every single day a new type of technology is been introduced in today's world. So, the question arises that is theses changes necessary in today's world? If yes, does it have a good or a bad impact to the human society in today's world? We need to talk about in which approach hi-tech advancements that pace into our daily lives have altered our lifestyles in the very last few centuries. In today’s world each and every single people rely on new and advance technologies. Everyone loves new technologies and gadgets that promise innovative and better ways of living. A pace of life is frequently increasing with the increase in new technologies. Nowadays somewhat more a quarter of the earth’s population can be found in the industrialized societies. And half of the population still lives on past agriculture, but they are also relying on machines. The remaining of the world’s population, however, is no longer of either the past or the present. They live in the future, within the most important centers of cultural and technological change, in New York, California, Cambridge, London and Tokyo (Toffler, p. 38). A new part of technology...
Words: 2787 - Pages: 12
...Дневник читателя READER’S JOURNAL Ernest Hemingway. The Old Man and the Sea (1952). Joseph Heller. Catch-22 (1961). Tennessee Williams. A Streetcar Named Desire (1959). Iris Murdoch. The Black Prince (1973). Jerome David Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Michael Ondaatje. The English Patient (1992). Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451 (1953). Ken Kesey. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962). Edward Albee. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962). Arthur Miller. Death of a Salesman (1949). ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Ernest Hemingway. The Old Man and the Sea (1952). ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- FULL TITLE · The Old Man and the Sea ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR · Ernest Hemingway ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- TYPE OF WORK · Novella ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- GENRE · Parable; tragedy ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- LANGUAGE · English ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN · 1951, Cuba ------------------------------------------------- ...
Words: 43588 - Pages: 175
...Specimen Papers and Mark Schemes for English Literature For first AS Examination in 2009 For first A2 Examination in 2010 Subject Code: 5110 Contents Specimen Papers Assessment Unit AS 2 Assessment Unit A2 1 Resource Booklet Assessment Unit A2 2 1 3 9 15 25 Mark Schemes Assessment Unit AS 2 Assessment Unit A2 1 Assessment Unit A2 2 29 31 61 95 Subject Code QAN QAN 5110 500/2493/0 500/2421/8 A CCEA Publication © 2007 Further copies of this publication may be downloaded from www.ccea.org.uk Specimen Papers 1 2 ADVANCED SUBSIDIARY (AS) General Certificate of Education 2009 English Literature Assessment Unit AS 2 assessing The Study of Poetry Written after 1800 and the Study of Prose 1800-1945 SPECIMEN PAPER TIME 2 hours INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES Write your Centre number and Candidate Number on the Answer Booklet provided. Answer two questions. Answer one question from Section A and one question from Section B. Section A is open book. INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES The total mark for this paper is 120. All questions carry equal marks, ie 60 marks for each question. Quality of written communication will be assessed in all questions. 3 Section A: The Study of Poetry Written after 1800 Answer one question on your chosen pairing of poets. Heaney: Opened Ground Montague: New Selected Poems 1 John Montague and Seamus Heaney both write about the Irish past. Compare and contrast the two poets’...
Words: 25332 - Pages: 102
...This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License without attribution as requested by the work’s original creator or licensee. Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books Saylor.org 1 Preface Writing is often a challenge. If you were ever challenged to express yourself via the written word, this book is for you. Writing for Success is a text that provides instruction in steps, builds writing, reading, and critical thinking, and combines comprehensive grammar review with an introduction to paragraph writing and composition. Beginning with the sentence and its essential elements, this book addresses each concept with clear, concise, and effective examples that are immediately reinforced with exercises and opportunities to demonstrate learning. Each chapter allows students to demonstrate mastery of the principles of quality writing. With its incremental approach, this book can address a range of writing levels and abilities, helping each student prepare for the next writing or university course. Constant reinforcement is provided through examples and exercises, and the text involves students in the learning process through reading, problem solving, practicing, listening, and experiencing the writing process. Each chapter also has integrated examples that unify the discussion and form a common, easy-tounderstand basis for discussion and exploration. This will put students at ease and allow for greater...
Words: 171477 - Pages: 686