...trying to say by using symbols and imagery. To someone who does not examine the book, The Catcher in the Rye, it may seem to be about a “messed up” teenager who wanders around town and doesn’t care about life. But when a range of ______ are explored, one will find that this book has common themes of innocence, changing, growing up and also death.... [tags: Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, ] 501 words (1.4 pages) $6.95 [preview] Symbolism in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye - Many novels cannot be fully understood and appreciated if only read for face value, and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is no exception. The abundant use of symbolism in Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is of such significance that it “proclaims itself in the very title of the novel” (Trowbridge par. 1). If the symbolism in this novel is studied closely, there should be no astonishment in learning that The Catcher in the Rye took approximately ten years to write and was originally twice its present length.... [tags: The Catcher in the Rye] :: 6 Works Cited 2836 words (8.1 pages) $49.95 [preview] Catcher In The Rye - From the Outside, Looking In Despite the debate that may wage on regarding the status to be afforded J. D. Salinger's writings, the author's books have not quietly faded into obscurity. Although published almost a half-century ago, the author's most famous work, Catcher in the Rye, enjoys almost as healthy and devoted a following today as the book did when it was first...
Words: 595 - Pages: 3
... However, there are others who may yearn to be someone who doesn’t have a high paying job or a high ranking position. Holden Caulfield and Chris McCandless seek a unique future; one involving days filled with wonder and tranquility, one away from the hustle and bustle of society, one away the greed that consumes most people. The Catcher in the Rye tells the story of Holden Caulfield, who is a teenage boy that ventures to New York City after being expelled from private school. On the other hand, Into the Wild recounts the adventures...
Words: 1334 - Pages: 6
...in the way he views things, he sees the prostitute as a person, not as an object, and thinks of Jane as friend rather than a sexual being. It seems as though he prefers non-intimate relationships and resorts to just talking things out like with the prostitute and with Jane he does not make any advances towards her, he prefers to hold hands and talk. It is also evident that Holden was sexuality abused, and when his former teacher Mr. Antolini makes advances towards him, it adds to his negative idea of sexuality. Through Holden Caulfield, Salinger presents sex and sexuality as something that is shameful and private. ENG 2D1h May 21st, 2014 Assessment of Salinger’s Concept of Sexuality in The Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield, the protagonist Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye represents the Western teen in the 1950’s, and through Caulfield’s ‘misadventures’ the themes of sex and sexuality come into play. Holden’s negative view of sex and sexuality stems from many things, he presents sex as something ‘crumby’ even though as he mentions he would not mind doing it if he opportunity came up but when the time comes he does not go through with it, sabotaging himself and in a way preserving his innocence. Salinger also ties in the theme of innocence, Holden subconsciously tries to preserve his innocence and it’s evident in the way he views things, he sees the prostitute as a person, not as an object, and thinks of Jane as...
Words: 1257 - Pages: 6
...Female characters in literature are often misrepresented and undervalued women. Negative attitudes towards women have long been accepted by both men and women and as a result the dominant male group gives women a lower reputation. The Catcher in the Rye, although it’s about an adolescent male who embarks on a journey to transition from childhood to adulthood, his perception of the opposite sex is skewed by the society he lives in. The idea that women are thought of as less often alters males into perceiving women simply as sexual objects. Holden's male perspective in narrating the Catcher in the Rye, portrays female characters as stereotypical women. Reinforcing gender roles set by social standards consequently oppressing and sexualizing the...
Words: 855 - Pages: 4
...“The Catcher in the Rye” is written by J.D Salinger which focuses on the reality of life through the eyes of a teenager who sees the world as a painful existence. The novel is written from the perspective of Holden who has been expelled from his fourth school. After a fight with his roommate, Holden leaves early to explore New York City alone. Holden battles with the reality of adulthood that has turn a different turn on his life. We get to this stage where we fear to grow up and see what will be coming for us next in the future. Salinger’s novel clearly displays the experience of being isolated from multiple activities which can lead to the theme of alienation, the creation of the character (Holden) and also the symbolism which can be unnoticed. Salinger tries to convey a message with his writing to also displaying human connection is a must. The theme of “The Catcher in the Rye” is alienation which connects to Holden (the protagonist)...
Words: 1692 - Pages: 7
...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
...From this quotation, Holden reveals his fantasy of idealistic and innocent childhood and of his role as the protector of innocence. Moreover, Holden’s catcher in the rye fantasy reflects his innocence, his belief in uncorrupted and innocent youth and his desire to protect. On the other hand, it also represents his extreme disconnection from reality and his naive perspective of the world around...
Words: 530 - Pages: 3
...There are many ways that authors can show their readers the time period that their stories take place in. They can say it outright in the narrative, include obviously dated references, or attempt to vaguely hint at the time’s culture and events. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is set in the late 1940s, early 1950s. Salinger paints an image for the readers, giving hints to let them figure out the time setting on their own. He mentions events just a few years past, references things that only would make sense in such a time, and goes even deeper, writing characters that most plausibly would have existed in such a culture, in such a time. When examining the historical aspects of The Catcher in the Rye, a reader can see how J. D. Salinger conveys the essence of the late 1940s; he does this through basic, obvious references to forms of entertainment, as well as through the more complex depths of the time period’s social constructs and the impending counterculture revolt of the 1960s. In the novel, many references are made to things that limit the possible time period for this novel. Many of these references dealt with forms of entertainment, from bar pianists to old-timey movies. Holden talks about his visit to a night club called Ernie’s which “was jam-packed…[but] it was pretty quiet, though, because Ernie was playing the piano” (Salinger 83). Compared to the nightclubs of today, this is pretty bland. Modern night clubs are overflowing with sweaty bodies dancing suggestively...
Words: 1774 - Pages: 8
...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
...According to Dictionary.com, a symbol is something used for, or regarded as, representing something else; a material object representing something, often something immaterial; emblem, token, or sign. In the book The Catcher in the Rye, a novel by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield has multiple things that the reader can tell represents something else . The major symbols in Catcher in the Rye are Holden's red hunting hat, the graffiti on the wall in the school, and the ducks in the lagoon. One of the most important symbols in the book is Holden’s red hunting hat. Holden has a hat, it is very unique and it represents his individuality and the want to be different. It is also red and that's the color of Phoebes and Allies hair, and he puts them a pedestal. “People with red hair are supposed to get mad very easily, but Allie never did, and he had very red hair(Salinger pg 43).” Holden is telling the reader that Allie has read hair and that he never got mad. Holden is putting Allie again on a pedestal it is very unlikely that a child didn't get mad at something, even if it was a small temper tantrum. “But it was freezing cold, and I took my red hunting hat out of my pocket and put it...
Words: 720 - Pages: 3
...Another noteworthy symbol existing in The Catcher in the Rye is The Museum of Natural History. Holden mentions that the best thing about the museum is “that everything always stayed right where it was” (Salinger 121). Holden finds comfort in the notion that no matter how different he becomes, the museum will always be the same. This reveals Holden’s fear of change and desire to live a steady, consistent life (Alsen). The Museum of Natural History is in some ways, a safety blanket for Holden. It emblems calmness and stability, two things Holden craves. The ideology that “some things never change” is both pleasing and soothing to him. Throughout the novel, Holden constantly grapples with his viewpoint on growing up. He believes that nearly all...
Words: 824 - Pages: 4
...Asian Social Science May, 2009 An Analysis of the Adolescent Problems in The Catcher in the Rye Lingdi Chen Dept. of Foreign Languages, Dezhou University Daxue xi Road, Dezhou 253023, China E-mail: chld1973@126.com Abstract The Catcher in the Rye was written by famous American writer J.D.Salinger. This paper mainly analyzes the adolescent problems Holden Caulfield confronts on the journey from childhood to adulthood. These adolescent problems include Holden’s protection of innocence, his disgust for the phoniness of the adult world, and his alienation from society. This paper concludes that these adolescent problems produce great impact on him. Holden behaves almost erratically and impulsively and has negative attitudes towards almost everything and everyone he meets. Keywords: Adolescent problems, Innocence, Phoniness, Alienation 1. Introduction The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger’s masterpiece, tells the painful story of a high-school boy growing up in the world of decadent New York. Young Holden Caulfield is expelled from school because of his poor academic performance. He is afraid to meet his parents earlier than they should expect him, so he decides to stay in a New York City hotel. There he meets pimps, prostitutes and “queers.” Soon he becomes aware that the world of adults is a “phony” one. After his meeting with a friend, Holden sneaks back home to see his kid sister Phoebe. She is a loving kid, but her talk about their father “killing” him sickens...
Words: 3375 - Pages: 14
...In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D Salinger, the main character Holden is a seventeen year old boy who loathes the thought of adolescence and maturity. Holden believes that any prep school contains “phonies” or artificial people who are controlled by adults and society. Holden holds inside this anger that has been developing ever since he lost his brother Allie. The thoughts of his brother help Holden express to the readers how Allie’s death has led him to moments in his life where he feels completely hopeless. During the time that Holden was at his prep school, he kept a baseball mitt that belonged to his brother. The mitt helped him remember the times he spent with Allie and all the astounding memories they shared. In the book,...
Words: 779 - Pages: 4
...T he Catcher in the Rye is set around the 1950s and is narrated by a young man named Holden Caulfield. Holden is not specific about his location while he’s telling the story, but he makes it clear that he is undergoing treatment in a mental hospital or sanatorium. The events he narrates take place in the few days between the end of the fall school term and Christmas, when Holden is sixteen years old.As Holden goes out to the lobby, he starts to think about Jane Gallagher and, in a flashback, recounts how he got to know her. They met while spending a summer vacation in Maine, played golf and checkers, and held hands at the movies. One afternoon, during a game of checkers, her stepfather came onto the porch where they were playing, and when he left Jane began to cry. Holden had moved to sit beside her and kissed her all over her face, but she wouldn’t let him kiss her on the mouth. That was the closest they came to “necking.” Holden leaves the Edmont and takes a cab to Ernie’s jazz club in Greenwich Village. Again, he asks the cab driver where the ducks in Central Park go in the winter, and this cabbie is even more irritable than the first one. Holden sits alone at a table in Ernie’s and observes the other patrons with distaste. He runs into Lillian Simmons, one of his older brother’s former girlfriends, who invites him to sit with her and her date. Holden says he has to meet someone, leaves, and walks back to the Edmont. Maurice, the elevator operator at the Edmont, offers to...
Words: 3301 - Pages: 14
...Catcher in the Rye is a coming of age story that tells the tale of Holden Caulfield, a troubled young man who throughout the novel, is presented with various symbols. The symbols are clearly made evident by Holden’s (J.D. Salinger's) constant repetition of their importance. The symbols are so important and their symbolism is directly related to the major themes of the novel. Three symbols seemed to have a higher president over the others, those are the central park ducks, the museum of natural history and Holden's brother Allie himself. These are very important objects that carry a higher meaning with them.Allie, Holden’s younger brother who died several years before the events of Catcher in the Rye, was a key symbol throughout the story. When Holden remembers incidents from his past involving Allie, his attitude changes, such as when he writes the composition about Allie’s baseball glove or when Holden brakes his hand from punching all of the windows after Allie died. He feels that Allie was one of the few people who were not phony in a world full of phonies. More importantly, Allie represents the innocence and childhood that Holden strives to find throughout his journey. In Holden’s opinion, Allie represents the purity that Holden looks for in the world. Holden admits that he admires Allie more than he admires Jesus, and even prays to Allie at one point, rather then the latter. Allie is Holden’s role model, whom he judges the rest of the world according to. When Allie dies,...
Words: 696 - Pages: 3
