Catcher In The Rye: Holden Caulfield Character Analysis
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Although Holden is a very bright and intelligent young adult, he hides behind a facade of bitterness. One of the most famous quotes in the book describes this well.
[Ackley] took another look at my hat . . . "Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake," he said. "That's a deer shooting hat."
"Like hell it is." I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. "This is a people shooting hat," I said. "I shoot people in this hat."
There is a lot of meaning behind this quote. It is very clear from the beginning that Holden uses the hat as a sign of being an individual and unique person. He feels very alienated and separate from the rest of the world, and has a certain indignation towards the rest of the world. Because of this, Holden does not literally shoot people, but instead he does it figuratively. He uses his energy into insulting and putting down others, or 'shooting people down'.
Holden is also a very big hypocrite. He often says that other characters are phony. For example, when he talks about his principal at Elkton Hills.
For instance, they had this headmaster, Mr. Haas, that was the phoniest bastard I ever met in my life. ...He'd be charming as hell and all. Except if some boy had little old funny-looking parents. You should've seen the way he did with my roommate's parents. I mean if a boy's mother was sort of fat or corny-looking or something, and if somebody's father was one of those guys that wear those suits with very big shoulders and corny black-and-white shoes, then old Hans would just shake hands with them and give them a phony smile and then he'd go talk, for maybe a half an hour, with somebody else's parents.
However, in the beginning of the third chapter, he says:
I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.
Being a phony means lying and not being true to others and yourself. Therefore, although Holden dislikes phony people, he also one himself. This makes him a hypocrite, which is something he despises.
Relationships
One of the most important relationships Holden has is with his dead brother, Allie. Holden describes Allie as:
He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times as intelligent. He was terrifically intelligent. ...He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody.
The death of a younger brother he loved so much is devastating to him.
Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to ...
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Relationships
One of the most important relationships Holden has is with his dead brother, Allie. Holden describes Allie as:
He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times as intelligent. He was terrifically intelligent. ...He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody.
The death of a younger brother he loved so much is devastating to him.
Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. ...Every time I'd get to the end of a block I'd make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I'd say to him, "Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Please, Allie."
Part of the reason for Holden's cynical view of the world is that he has not yet come to terms with his little brother Allie's death. The thought of Allie lying in the grave in the cemetery, while it was raining, haunts Holden. He doesn't like the idea of time going on and on. He wants to treasure the precious moments and keep them the same forever.
Phoebe, Holden's ten-year-old sister, is also an important person in his life. She is a bright, pretty and a very mature child. For many things, Phoebe can see what her brother is really talking about. For example, once Holden came home, she knew that he had been kicked out of Pencey Prep.
"You did get kicked out! You did!" old Phoebe said.
Emotions
Holden often experiences emotions such as alienation towards the rest of the world, and is struggling to deal with inner problems. The death of his younger brother, Allie, whom he was very close to, is a major event that changed him.
I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it.
Holden is obviously upset with the fact that Allie has died, but doesn't know how to deal with the pain of Allie's death. He doesn't know how to come to terms with his brother's death, and so uses breaking windows as a way to deal with it. However, even after doing this, he is still not over Allie's death. It disturbs him to think that Allie is really dead.
All the visitors could get in their cars and turn on their radios and all and then go someplace nice for dinner--everybody except Allie. I couldn't stand it.
Since Holden is actually an intelligent and mature boy, he finds that the world is much more complex than many understand. The world is not just black and white, but instead in shades of gray. He has many strong opinions on the world, yet he is sometimes afraid to express it. He builds an armor around himself - a pessimistic, cynical view of the world - so as to protect himself from the rest of the world. He is a very complex, deep character that has many layers.
Thought
It can be seen that Holden doesn't enjoy reality. To escape reality, he constantly tries to avoid it, such as planning escapes with Sally.
We'll stay in these cabin camps and stuff like that till the dough runs out. Then, when the dough runs out, I could get a job somewhere and we could live somewhere with a brook and all and, later on, we could get married or something. I could chop all our own wood in the wintertime and all.
There was also another 'escape' that he planned, of pretending he was a deaf-mute and moving to some place where nobody knew him.
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. ...We could buy them a lot of books and teach them how to read and write by ourselves.
Holden constantly resists entering the 'adult world', but doesn't have much choice as it is a natural thing to grow older. He is drawn to things that are a part of the 'adult world': drinking, smoking and sex. However, he does not admire the loss of integrity, and falseness that seems so apparent in adults. He is very mature in his attitude towards women. He respects them a great deal.
I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around with her at all, and if you do like her, then you're supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it, like squirting water all over it.
The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. . . . Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you.
This is the reason why Holden enjoys the museum so much - because everything would always be in the same place as before. Holden demonstrates throughout the book that he does not know how to deal with necessary things in life such as change. The museum is just as he remembers when he was little. It is the kind of life that Holden wants - frozen in time, always the same.
In the end scene with Phoebe on the carousel, you can see that Holden has matured in his way of thinking.
The thing with kids is, if they want to grab 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.
This quote is saying that if kids want to take a chance in life, you have to let them do it. If the chance does not work out like it should, or if something bad happens, you have to let it happen, and hope they learn the lesson for themselves.
Description
Holden is a seventeen-year-old kid who is in an institution or some sort. He writes about a very long flashback about a particular two days in the previous December. Holden is described as being tall, skinny and having a lot of gray hair.
It's really ironical, because I'm six foot two and a half and I have gray hair. I really do. The one side of my head--the right side--is full of millions of gray hairs.
I'm a very light eater. I really am. That's why I'm so damn skinny
Holden is a very complicated character. He is a very bitter person, but only because he feels alone and divided from the rest of the world. He is actually a very bright and intelligent boy.
"I'm the one that's flunking out of the goddam place, and you're asking me to write you a goddam composition," I said.
That sonuvabitch Hartzell thinks you're a hot-shot in English, and he knows you're my roommate.
It is only because Holden is so good at writing compositions for English class that his roommate, Stradlater, would ask him to write one for him. Stradlater also says that his English teacher thinks Holden is very gifted in writing compositions. Holden is very gifted in writing compositions. For Stradlater's composition, Holden writes about Allie's (his dead brother) baseball mitt. This also represents his unwilling-ness to let Allie go, and his hope that time could stay frozen.
Dialogue
"Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules."
"Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it."
Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right-I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game.
This quote tells us a lot about Holden's character. From this we can see that although he is nodding on the outside, he is outright disagreeing in the inside. This not only makes him a phony, but shows Holden's dislike of adults and the adult world. It is clear that Holden feels he is not part of the side that is winning. Instead, he feels that he is being victimized and that the world has turned its back against him.
. . . I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, 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.
As we can tell already, Holden enjoys escaping reality, and instead slipping into fantasy. He has a view that children are all innocent and pure, while adults are hypocrites. Holden himself knows that that idea is crazy, however, he has trouble seeing the world in any other way. Holden's fantasy consists of a world of innocence and purity. He longs to protect this innocence, purity and unharmed youth and shield it from the harshness of reality. Holden's view of the world is distorted and naive, and shows just how detached he feels from the world.