Why is holden caulfield afraid of growing up

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In The Catcher in The Rye, we have all the elements of a quest. Our young quester is Holden Caulfield with a destination of New York. Challenges Holden battles with during his quest include dealing with his sexuality, illness, roommates, and. Catcher in the Rye, a young man named Holden Caulfield is on the edge of adulthood.

He is a bright kid but struggles with many mental diseases mainly because of the passing of his brother Allie. This has caused him to not focus on school and has got him kicked out of many schools. He did not have many friends and he did not like many people. He thought of everyone as phony.

Holden does not want to confront adulthood in fear of losing his childhood because of the fear of change, conformity to the phony. Rye, Holden Caulfield scours the streets of New York Society looking for someone to talk to so that he can understand what it means to be an adult.

Admittedly feeling incredibly depressed and lonesome, Holden is eager for someone he can empathize with. Being in his late teenage years, Holden is beginning his transition from child to adulthood only he seems confused about his feelings on this change.

Firstly, Holden seems to fear adulthood because he sees it as the death of innocence. Throughout the story, he fondly remembers his early childhood and is trying the best he can to run from adulthood. He fears that he, like so many around him, may become phony when he becomes an adult. This fear drives his actions and gives him a feeling of hatred toward phony adults and a feeling of obligation to shield children from the harsh adult world.

Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, the coming of age archetype is inevitable, as the protagonist matures greatly throughout his physical journey. Holden starts off blinding his eyes to the difficulty of accepting the loss of his brother, Allie. More Often, dark thoughts spiral out of control in Holden's mind, constantly disrupting his state of tranquility, and giving way to his physical journey.

Grief causes a sense of sadness, and the deterioration of Holden; however, it does not kill him, it only makes him stronger. This journey that Holden prolongs, explains a lot about himself, and the reason for each location he attends. Holden Caulfield starts the novel as an intelligent and immature teen. With experience he is able to grow by getting his first taste of adulthood. The main theme of the book is growing up.

Holden does not want to be apart of the phoniness of the real world. He realizes that there is a loss of innocence in the real world. The events that Holden went through gave him a new perception of the world. He has to rethink his challenged dreams. Therefore, Holden grows up by the end of the novel socially and emotionally.

Holden went through a vast journey from the beginning to the end of the book. His life is falling apart from the severe depression that is crippling him. He was failing out of Pencey Prep, getting into fights, and grieving Allie years …show more content… He is traveling through the city and realizing how tainted the real world is.

This quote shows how much Holden has grown socially. He understands that the world he lives in is not the same pure one he saw when he was a kid. His mind registers that it is impossible to erase the phoniness from the world. He learns that you basically have two choices. Holden believed that children were innocent because they viewed the world and society without any bias. Nevertheless Holden finds much joy seeing her in these types of environments. Because Holden has been exposed to this phony world, and cannot gain his innocence back, he feels that bringing Phoebe to a carousel ride will help preserve her childhood.

He saw bad in almost everyone and viewed the world as corrupt, which is why Holden Caulfield has a fear of g Yet although Holden loves this about the museums he hates the fact that with every time he comes back, he is older and more mature. He is coming back with a little less innocence that he did the previous time. He is aware life goes on and everyone will be exposed to the cruelty and phoniness of the world at some point or another.

He just believed he could postpone the inevitable truth for the ones he considered to be still innocent including himself. Get Access. Better Essays. Read More. Good Essays. John Wyndam's The Chrysalids. Satisfactory Essays. Weakness Of Holden Caulfield.