Preview

Catcher In The Rye Love

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
457 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Catcher In The Rye Love
“Nothing can bring a sense of security into the home except true love.” (Billy Graham). In the book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden, the main character, is looking for something. He is very depressed and always feels insecure about almost everything he does in the novel. Throughout the novel, Holden is looking for companionship, friendship and acceptance from others.
Holden was in the Edmont hotel in New York. He hires a prostitute named Sunny for sex but then he decides that he just wants to talk. Holden asked Sunny “Don’t you feel like talking awhile?” (J.D. Salinger pg.95). Holden is just looking for a companion, someone to talk to and love. No normal person would ask a prostitute if they could just talk. When this fails, Holden goes in search for friendship. He turns to his old friend Luce.
Luce was Holden’s student adviser when they went to Whooton together. Back then, Holden remembers, Luce was this sex driven, immature expert on all things sex related. Now, it seems, Luce has matured
…show more content…
Before she gets on the carousel, Holden tries to give back the money she gave him earlier but she says “You keep it. Keep it for me,” (J.D. Salinger pg 211). Holden understands that this means that Phoebe really wants him to be happy and truly accepts him for who he is.

In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden looks for people to offer him love and comfort so he can ease his depression, because of the things he has said and done, people have shut him out but his sister loves him for who he is. Once he figures that out, he is at peace with himself. In this case, Billy Graham’s quote, “Nothing can bring a sense of security into the home except true love.” can be revised to “Nothing can bring a sense of security to a PERSON except compassion, friendship and acceptance” because Phoebe truly loves and accepts Holden for who he is. He has finally found the acceptance that he

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Holden yearns to be the catcher in the rye. He pictures himself being almost like a God figure compared to all the “thousands of little kids” (173). He describes a situation where he would be their hero/savior. Holden is fixated on saving young people because he worries that they will have to suffer what he did. Holden shows a parental characteristic with wanting to be the catcher in the rye. When Holden narrates “I have to catch everybody if they start to go off the cliff-I mean if they’re running and they don't look where they’re going i have to come out of somewhere and catch them” (173) he describes the youth as naive and unaware of what they are doing. He knows that he has made mistakes in his past because he wasn't looking where he was going and wants to make it easier for others to not fall into his steps.…

    • 380 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gene Kahane writes, “We all need to be Phoebe and look out for those around us, our friends and family and especially all the children everywhere. We all need to be that “catcher in the rye”” (The Real Meaning). Holden’s sister, Phoebe, teaches how to care for one another. When he begins to tell Phoebe his plan to run away and start his life over she never attempts to act with the cliche “consider the consequences”, she wants to pack her suitcase and go with him. After hearing this, Phoebe knew he needed support at the moment, not someone to bring him back to reality. All around the world, people need to learn from Phoebe because occasionally people need someone to join them in their irrational behavior, not someone to make them come back to…

    • 608 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden, the main character in The Catcher in the Rye spends his whole life with his family until his younger brother Allie died. After that his family becomes broken with grief after losing their youngest son. His parents send Holden to boarding school in hopes that he would be in a better environment. The school only makes things worse, by leading him to alcohol smoking and isolation. Despite his age, he turns to substances to numb the pain. Smoking becomes a regular habit of escapism for him. Holden always looks for someone to love him but at the same time never wants anyone to get close, fearing that they may reject him and he will be hurt. He continues to isolate himself from anyone that could potentially help him and continues to smoke and drink attempting to find solution in that. When Holden arrives at Penn Station he wants to talk to someone but never does: “So I ended up not calling anybody. I came out of the booth, after about twenty minutes or so.” (Salinger, 91) Holden is looking for help but doesn't have the courage to actually go and ask someone for help. Fear of rejection and being hurt again holds him back from asking for the help he needs. He also doesn't have a very strong group of friends or family a key support system to help overcome a loss. He always wants to call his friend Jane to seek comfort, but he never does because he is too worried that she will reject…

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden Caulfield is a very sophisticated character created by J.D. Salinger, not comparable to many characters in other novels. One character he relates strongly with is Phoebe Caulfield. As Holden superior in age to Phoebe, she is clearly the more mature person in state of mind. Phoebe tries to be the best that she can be in school, achieving A’s on almost everything she does, while Holden doesn’t apply himself in anything but English class. One thing that they have in common is the knowledge to have a good conversation, something that most people don’t have. With their many differences, Holden still admires Phoebe and wishes to talk to her whenever he can, because she is about the only person that is willing to talk to a crazy person.…

    • 526 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger portrays the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, from two very different sides. On one hand, Holden is passionate about the protection of innocence, and he attempts to shelter all kids, especially his younger sister Phoebe, from any knowledge which might compromise their innocence. On the other hand, Holden is repeatedly revealed to be experienced and knowledgeable in society. He constantly swears, drinks, and smokes, sharply criticizes everyone he sees, and generally does not conform to society. Because Holden lost his own innocence so early in his life, he becomes fascinated with the idea of guarding it in others. Salinger shows Holden protecting the innocence of people many times throughout the novel. Some examples include Holden’s anxiety about Jane, Holden’s protection of Phoebe, and Holden’s general frustration…

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sexual relations appeal to Holden’s maturing mindset, yet he also finds these actions indecent. When Holden first arrives at the Edmont hotel, he looks out his window and watches the people on the other side of the building. He sees people partaking in odd activities such as cross dressing and couple squirting water on each other. Watching these people makes Holden think about his own sexual opinions and desires: “The thing is though, I…

    • 580 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Phoebe Caulfield Catcher

    • 2282 Words
    • 10 Pages

    “Nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me” clearly reveals this statement. People are not where they are suppose to be, at least not paying attention. There is a gnawing scene in the book – Holden is wandering aimlessly along the Broadway and there is a little boy and his parents walking in front of him. ”The cars zoomed by, brakes and screeched all over the place, his parents paid no attention to him and he kept on walking next to the curb and singing ‘if a body catch a body coming through the rye’”(Salinger 115). At the end of the story, when Holden takes his sister to carrousel, worrying Phoebe falling off the horse, Caulfield watched her carefully as a catcher. Suddenly the rain pours, and “all the parents and mothers and everybody went over and stood right under the roof of the carrousel , so they wouldn’t get soaked to the skin or anything”(Salinger 212). All these description are epitomes of the world in which adults abandoned their responsibility of taking care of the children. As a 16-year-old child, Holden experienced expulsion three times. He lies, makes fun of Ackley and pretends to be outsider from the world around him only to conceal the fact that he is fragile. He doesn’t receive any warm cares or even any attempts to understand his willings from the adults. Holden’s Lawyer father always wants him to go to Yale or Princeton and cares nothing else; His mother messed up with his gifts – Holden wanted a speed skating but received a figure skating instead. Even coming home Holden has to hide in the closet to void his parents getting home from a party and stealthily sneak out before being noticed. Clearly, Holden no longer trust his parents, who don’t play the role as catchers to their children…

    • 2282 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Catcher and the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the protagonist Holden Caulfield experiences myriad personal difficulties originating from the tragic event of his brother's death from cancer. Subsequently, his perspective towards the whole world has deteriorated into a pessimistic attitude, derived from his own personal sense of inferiority. As a result, Holden feels isolated and alone. In his desire to feel connected to someone, he travels home to visit his sister, Phoebe, hoping to receive emotional support. Instead, Phoebe criticizes his pessimistic attitude towards life, much to his own surprise. However, the criticism that Holden receives from his sister motivates him to improve his perspective towards life, by having become more optimistic, and leading to rapid and significant maturity within his personal development.…

    • 646 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough.” - Frank Cane. Throughout the novel, Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield shows us that he is not a trusting man. He is constantly telling and showing the reader that trusting is some sort of weakness. He thinks that he’s protecting himself when in reality he’s isolating himself from everyone. Holden Cualfield’s has trust issues that leave him with undeniable loneliness.…

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    He sees adults and friends who succumb to these norms, and he outwardly looks down upon them and call them phonies of society. As an author, J.D. Salinger created Holden Caulfield as a character to challenge the expected norms of this time period, and as a whole, the novel addresses the challenge of accepting societal norms and diverging from norms to create a different lifestyle. For Holden, although many other reasons attribute to his refusal to accept society, he mainly believes that the 1950’s American Dream culture valuing marriage, family and education is not one that he wishes to be associated with. It is also crucial to note that by the end of the novel, Holden ends up in a mental institution, the location from which he narrates Catcher in the Rye. This element of the novel is crucial to our understanding of Holden as a character; he seems to have rejected the values and views of the post-war era so intensely, he is literally unable to function and has been…

    • 1991 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden is constantly trying to surround himself with other people, but isn’t able to form real connections with anyone. Holden socializes with girls multiple times throughout the book. He makes an effort to engage in conversation with them, but they never seem to want to reach past small talk. This leaves Holden frustrated with the lack of connection made. Holden goes into a club with the hopes of drinking, but is not allowed due to lack of identification. He searches for girls, only to find a group of three who he does not like very much, but dances and flirts with them anyway. He tries to create conversation, only to deem them stupid as a result of their lack of interest in him. When Holden meets up with an old friend, Sally, he rants about New York and the phonies at his school, eventually digressing into a proposal to run away to different states. Sally rejects his proposal and tells him she does not see what he means with his ranting, and he begins hating her, even going on to tell her she gives him a pain in his ass. Holden thinks of the girls in the club as very stupid because he has to force the…

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden mishears the words of Robert Burns’ poem. Holden hears “if a body catch a body comin’ through the rye” (Salinger 224). Instead of “ If a body meet a body coming through the rye” (Salinger 224). His misinterpretation leads him to want to become a catcher in the rye. He describes to Phoebe what he would like to do by saying “I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff- I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going. I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day, I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all” (Salinger 225). He wants to save people from falling off of this cliff and losing the innocence they posses. Timothy Aubry further extends Holden’s need to preserve innocence in his article The Catcher in the Rye: The Voice of Alienation by stating “Holden’s urge to shield children from danger and allow them to play endlessly exemplifies his desire to suspend time, to inhabit a space of youth preserved indefinitely” (Aubry). Salinger’s illusion is a major indication of Holden’s struggle with preserving innocence. A symbol of Holden losing his innocence, was the record that he gave Phoebe. The title implies, the record was made for children to listen to. Holden giving the record to Phoebe represents him wanting to preserve her child-like innocence. He dropped the record in the park which symbolizes holden’s life and innocence shattering. Holden describes Phoebe’s reaction when he gave her the pieces as “She took them right out of my hand and then she put them in the drawer of the night table” (Salinger). Phoebe accepted the shattered record. She accepted him for who he was. She ends up influencing Holden and he learns to accept the idea of not being completely innocent. Holen had an epiphany while Phoebe was riding a carousel. He noticed “ All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and…

    • 1112 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Holden Caulfield Symbolism

    • 1743 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Phoebe is the youngest figure in his life and is at the age where she is between a child and adolescent. When Holden feels Phoebe’s innocence is threatened, he gets defensive and angry. As he walked the halls of Phoebe’s school he comes across profanity written on the wall and automatically thinks “how Phoebe and all the other little kids who would see it, and how they’d wonder what it meant, and finally some dirty kid would tell them and maybe even worry about it” (201). This upsets him because profanity is a gateway to loosing innocence completely. Phoebe created the whole gist of becoming a hero figure of The Catcher in the Rye. He kept “picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around- nobody big, I mean- except me. What I’d have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff” (173). Holden’s altruistic ideal is now proposed in words that he wants to keep children from falling off the edge, and becoming a grownup which to him is the same as death. Holden than gives Phoebe his red hunting hat as a way to never truly lose her innocence. Only to be disappointed to see her “take off my red hunting hat-the one I gave her- and practically chucked it right in my face” (207). Salinger delibritly put this in the book to show that everyone must lose their innocence at one time or another and cannot be avoided but only postponed. “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them” (211). This challenged the thoughts of Holden’s ideal of being The Catcher in the Rye. Throughout the book he constantly believes he can save others, and watching Phoebe reach for something that she might fall off of scared him, but not enough for him to go save her. He found…

    • 1743 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Catcher in the Rye, Holden feels that no one understands him. He is disgusted by the things that he witnesses adults do. In a hotel room he has in New York, he sees a man take out “all these women’s clothes, and put them on (61)” and he sees “a man and a woman squirting water out of their mouths at each other (62).” Holden doesn’t understand why these people are just so entertained by these unusual and frivolous acts and he even thinks that “the hotel was lousy with perverts (62).” Instead of reaching out to people who have been there for him his whole life, he goes to bars and tries to find a connection with the men and women there. Still, he cannot find anything he has in common with them, and calls them “show-offy-looking (69).” In the end, Holden finds the answers he is searching for from his ten year old sister, Phoebe. This is unusual because she has not yet reached the point where she must mature into adulthood, but Phoebe is more accepting of the change that is…

    • 849 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in Rye speaks to core of being an outsider, but beyond the anti-hero, anti-establishment persona that Holden reflects, Salinger wrote a portrait of a boy deeply troubled by the end of simplicity. Past the cynical nature and the reclusion from people, Holden is a little boy saddened by the death of his brother. Holden was never able to get closure over Allie’s death and because of this he has never been able to move on. To remember his brother and a simpler time Holden treasures innocence and has remained a child himself in many ways. Through the uses of metaphorical landscapes, a relatable anti-hero, and the setting of a repressed post-war American society Salinger depicts the journey of a young boy fighting, resisting the transition from childhood to adulthood. Holden Caulfield’s cynicism and reclusion are his defense mechanism, they warn of phony and slobs alike, but leave him lonely. He is both a figure for the youth and old alike, because Holden’s disdain of hypocrisy, longing for innocence, and his need for acceptance transcend age groups, these are human emotions that bother any age group. At the end of the novel, Holden says “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do you start missing everybody” (Salinger 214). There are times when Holden comes off as neurotic, but in this case he meant that you will the way life used to be if you remember it. At the end Holden realizes that Allie’s death and his longing to go back to his childhood were holding him back, keeping him from applying himself. Many readers come away from that last line and feel that there is no happy ending for Holden, but the negative tone of the comment is less of a warning and more of a new being for Holden, meaning that Holden’s dream of being the catcher in the rye can can…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays