The Catcher in the Rye is told from Holden's perspective and this aspect of the novel allows it to remain innocent and suspended in time, so to speak. Holden is like Peter Pan in that he does not wantr to grow up but he is facing the glorious future that includes his grownup self. Readers can read this novel and remember feeling this way themselves, reviving their bond with Holden. In reality, we must all grow up and shed some part of the innocent of youth. Holden remains young and forever clinging to that which must eventually fade away. He represents a certain sadness associated with growing up because the truth he must face is not easy. However, there is not much to be done for the innocence that dies with youth. The world survives because people mature and make grownup decisions to keep things running -- from households to entire countries. "The Catcher in the Rye" captures a moment, an essence of a boy, perhaps just moments before he surrenders to the ways of the world. Salinger created the perfect character by allowing Holden to remain in a state of innocence to which we call all...
"J. D. Salinger." Modern American Literature. Dorothy Curley, ed. New York:
Introduction One of the great American novels, J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye is a spot-on depiction of disaffected, disillusioned youth attempting to come to grips with the sad reality that growing up means selling out. Holden doesn’t want to sell out; on the contrary, he wants to be the “catcher in the rye”—the one who allows children to live forever in their innocence and maintain their state of grace
Sylvia Plath explores ambiguity from the perspective of a woman living in a man's world in The Bell Jar. Esther receives different messages about who she is and who she wants to be. Society tells her to be the good wife and mother but she never adapts well to this notion. She feels ambivalence toward most of the women she meets and ultimately feels pulled in different directions when it
Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor and "Indian Camp" by Ernest Hemingway When Coming of Age is Too Much The coming-of-age story is a classic of literature, from The Adventures of Huck Finn to Catcher in the Rye and The Outsiders, and learning the lessons of being an adult is never easy. The journey from childhood to adulthood requires a loss of innocence and idealism, which sometimes come at a very
Vietnam and the Two-Sided American Dream The Vietnam era began under a cloud. Kennedy had inherited a government neck-deep in covert operations and rather than check the rate at which the U.S. exercised military might in foreign countries, he accelerated it. The American Empire had been doing so for nearly two decades since the end of WW2. With the Cold War in full force, the Bay of Pigs fiasco behind him,
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