We see this tendency surface when Holden writes about Phoebe, with such a brotherly love that he would do anything to protect her from the world and everything contained inside of it. When Holden’s younger brother, Allie, dies from leukemia, it leaves Holden with an innate need to salvage whatever beautiful innocence he can find in the world. One can see how Allie dying so young can invoke a need in Holden to prevent further emancipation of whatever innocence was lost when Allie was taken unfairly. He almost regards Allie as a religious figure, praying to him and revering him constantly. Although Allie is dead, he still is a prominent figure in Holden’s life, appearing everywhere from English compositions to walking across the street and protecting Holden from being hit by passing cars or tripping on unsuspecting curbs.
#THE CATCHER IN THE RYE 1951 WINDOWS#
Immediately after Allie’s death, Caulfield breaks the windows in his garage, and attempts to break the windows on his family’s station wagon. Holden Caulfield’s delusional behavior following the death of his brother, Allie, is what one might describe as “irrational sanity,” just as his compulsive need to save the innocence of himself and those around him drives him in everything he does is simply a heightened version of instinct every human possesses.Īfter Caulfield’s brother, Allie, dies, he is emotionally strangled for the rest of his life. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtaxed.” While insanity and delusions play an important role in J.D Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, one can make the argument that it is simply an overbearing extent of sanity, rather than insanity. Explain the significance of the “madness” to the work as a whole. Then write a well organized essay in which you explain what this delusion or eccentric behavior consists of and how it might be judged reasonable. Novelists and playwrights have often seen madness with a “discerning Eye.” Select a character from Catcher in the Rye whose madness or irrational behavior plays an important role. What does a boy in his teens think and feel about his teachers, parents, friends and acquaintances? Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.One definition of madness is “mental delusion or the eccentric behavior arising from it.” But, Emily Dickinson wrote “much madness is divinest Sense_to a discerning Eye_”. A 16-year old American boy tells what life is like for him at home and school, and reveals the workings of his own mind. Salinger's style creates an effect of conversation, it is as though Holden is speaking to you personally, as though you too have seen through the pretences of the American Dream and are growing up unable to see the point of living in, or contributing to, the society around you.
#THE CATCHER IN THE RYE 1951 FULL#
Throughout, Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of society, and the 'phonies' themselves- the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection.Lazy in style, full of slang and swear words, it's a novel whose interest and appeal comes from its observations rather than its plot intrigues (in conventional terms, there is hardly any plot at all). The story is told by Holden Caulfield, a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. The Catcher in the Rye is the ultimate novel for disaffected youth, but it's relevant to all ages. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them." His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation." Goodreads 3.81.
It begins, "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. "Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists.
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