In his novel The Catcher in the Rye, Jerome Selinger portrayed the world through the eyes of a teenager, showing their life as it is, with all its fears, worries and failures. The main character portrayed, Holden Caulfield, is not typical, he rather “stands out” from the general rut, he seems to be an extra character.
Holden himself characterizes his actions, and often gives them a negative assessment. Thus, he calls himself a liar when, under a fictitious pretext, he leaves his teacher’s house early. Or he calls himself a spendthrift. The novel uses vocabulary typical of teenagers. So, for Holden Caulfield, everything is “stupid”, his girls are “stupid” - he speaks about many things in a similar tone. But this is just his posing, which is typical of many young people of his age.
We would be wrong to give Holden a negative assessment, since in the novel he is one of the pure creatures.
He is sensitive and vulnerable, even if he seems like a character who doesn’t need anything.
This hero cannot live in a world of liars and pretenders; he does not understand adults who are constantly playing. And this trait of his is the reason why he has to change schools often.
It's not like Caulfield has any friends - he doesn't like his roommate, and he also asked out a girl he once liked. But there was a guy from the next room, an unpleasant one, who often came to visit him. Holden felt sorry for him that he was not accepted into the secret club and that he was always alone, and invited him to spend time together. This shows the sensitivity of the hero of the novel.
We can also talk about the purity of the hero, and not only about external purity, but also internal.
So, he tried to wipe off the inscription from the wall; he did not throw a snowball at the car, because it was clean. At the same time, he did not understand how you could spit in the face of the girl you love, even if she herself wanted it.
This hero evokes my sympathy, because he is alone in this world, all events affect him. Of all the people he knows who could really understand him, he only has a younger sister. And the brother whom he loved very much died. And Holden took this loss very hard.
Despite his desire to seem like an adult, he is still a child. And what he wants to do in life is catch children over the Catcher in the Rye. The abyss is the world of adults. And this is a very touching desire, because he most likely wants the children not to change and not end up in this world, the world of dirt, lies and pretense.
Updated: 2018-03-07
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Holden's youthful rebellion is brought to its logical conclusion by his younger sister Phoebe, who is ready to move towards a new life. Brother and sister Caulfield remain in New York because it is always easier to escape than to continue to defend an ideal - simple-minded, obvious and difficult to achieve, like all the romantic dreams of youth. As a result, Holden is formed as a person.
Main character has a shy, touchy character. He is unkind, often simply rude and mocking. The reason for this is spiritual loneliness: after all, his life values do not meet the criteria for adults. Holden is outraged by the “window dressing” and the lack of the most basic humanity in life. There is deception and hypocrisy all around. Teachers at a privileged school lie, claiming that they educate good people. Here Holden remembers the director of one of the private schools where he studied. The director smiled lusciously at everyone, but in fact he knew very well the difference between the rich and poor parents of his charges.
Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951 and a few months later took first place on the American bestseller list. The main character of the novel is Holden Caulfield. This is a young man trying to find his place in life. More than anything else, Holden is afraid of becoming like all the adults. He had already been expelled from three colleges for poor academic performance. Holden is disgusted by the idea that he will “work in some office, make a lot of money and ride to work in a car or on buses along Madison Avenue, and read the newspapers, and play bridge all evenings, and go to the movies ... "
Holden decides that he needs to save children from the abyss adult life where hypocrisy, lies, violence, mistrust reign. “My job is to catch the kids so they don’t fall into the abyss. You see, they are playing and don’t see where they are running, and then I run up and catch them so that they don’t fall off. That's all my work. “Guard the guys over the Catcher in the Rye,” is Holden Caulfield’s cherished desire.
The novel “The Catcher in the Rye” has become a classic of not only American but also world literature. The formation of personality, the transition of a teenager to the world of adults - these problems will always be relevant.
Holden is by no means a well-behaved young man. He can be lazy, unnecessarily deceitful, inconsistent and selfish. However, the hero's genuine sincerity in stories about himself compensates for many of the shortcomings of his unstable character. IN last chapters In the novel, he already looks much more tolerant and reasonable. Holden begins to notice and appreciate such positive qualities like friendliness, cordiality and good manners, so widespread among his fellow citizens in everyday communication.
Holden moves away from the lies into his own world. Returning home to New York, Holden is surprised to note that pimping, prostitution, violence and deception coexist with mercy and kindness. Here are two nuns that Holden met on the train, not only teaching children, but also collecting alms for the poor. The hero thinks a lot about this, gradually realizing how important a meaningful life with a purpose is. “Those two nuns couldn’t get out of my head. I kept remembering this old straw basket with which they went to collect mites when they had no lessons.” Such thoughts now occupy Salinger's hero.
Salinger's hero Holden Caulfield is a kind of symbol of purity and sincerity for a generation of school and college graduates. Holden, a seventeen-year-old boy, dreamed that someday there would finally be a writer with whom he would like to contact by phone, consult and generally have a heart-to-heart talk.
The lives of most wealthy Americans irritate Holden. He clearly sees that this life is unreal and illusory. The teenager reads a lot, trying to find answers to his questions in books. But, one way or another, and collisions with real life cannot be avoided, and Holden conflicts with teachers, parents, and classmates.
Composition
HOLDEN CAULFIELD (eng. Holden Caulfield) hero-narrator of the novel by J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Key character of modern American culture, who subsequently had many reincarnations - in the blissful beatnik rebels of the mid-50s (the novels of Jack Kerouac), in the scandalous insurgents of the rock and roll era (like Jim Morrison), in the cinematic “rebels without a goal”, “easy riders” and “ Midnight Cowboys" of the 60s. The son of wealthy parents, a student at a privileged school in Pennsylvania, seventeen-year-old H.K. outwardly he manifests himself as a nervous and nervous youth, whose dislike for others reveals the capricious intolerance of a spoiled teenager. In his confession, he scolds the “stupid school”, “cretin” classmates, and “show-off” teachers. According to him, he hates everyone. And, as if in retaliation, he breaks generally accepted rules. He is sincerely delighted by a friend who farted loudly in church. Not wanting to obey the hated “stupid” rules, he deliberately fails his exams, quarrels with his dorm roommate, and runs away from school to New York. There he meets with an old girlfriend, but for some reason he insults her and gets turned away, then he visits his old teacher, but he shows him very ambiguous signs of attention, and the fugitive has to run away. He gets stupidly drunk and tries to “pick up” a prostitute in a hotel. Finally, he secretly comes to his parents’ house and tells his younger sister about his misadventures. And the ten-year-old girl tries in vain to set him on the right path. Image of H.K. has a deeper dimension. It is significant that he conducts his confession while undergoing examination in a sanatorium. Illness is a common sign in world literature of a hero’s conflict with the environment, a symbol of rejection from society. H.K.’s nervous disorder, like, say, Prince Myshkin’s epilepsy or Hans Castorp’s consumption, is a sign of the hero’s “asocial™”, his exclusion from the system of normal public relations. How literary hero, H.K. has a long pedigree, going back at least to the ancient eccentric Cynics, to medieval vagantes and fair buffoons. The “genes” of Andersen’s child can also be discerned in him, in the final famous fairy tale who made an exclamation: “And the king is naked!” H.K. has a subtle gift for detached, unclouded vision, thanks to which he acutely senses the hypocrisy and falseness of many rituals of society - “falseness and window dressing,” as he puts it.
Literary role H.K. - notice and mercilessly expose, denounce and ridicule all sorts of ugliness and absurdities in life. Be it the acne on the face of a classmate, or the mannered intonations of the school priest, or the sugary vulgarity of Hollywood, or the banal standards of the notorious “American way of life.” In this sense, the image of H.K. gets closer to folklore way a “fool” who, with his actions and judgments, undermines the behavioral and moral stereotypes of the society he ridicules (H.K.’s red hunting cap, worn backwards, is something of a jester’s cap). So he is not just a hooligan troublemaker, but a rebel-moralist, who is an intermediate link between outcasts and hermits American romanticism with their rejection of the public morality of the 19th century. and the heroes of the “counterculture” of the rebellious 60s (the closest follower of H.K. is the “psycho” McMurphy from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by K. Kesey). Neither film nor television incarnations of H.K. does not exist, because The author forbade the book to be filmed.
Lit.: Belov S. Preface // Salinger J. Novels and stories. Vonnegut K. Cat's Cradle... M., 1983. P.3-9; Geismar M. American contemporaries. M., 1976. P.268-275.
Other works on this work
The transition of a teenager to the world of adults The main character of the novel "The Catcher in the Rye" Holden Caulfield The Spiritual World of Holden CaulfieldHolden Caulfield
HOLDEN CAULFIELD (eng. Holden Caulfield) hero-narrator of the novel by J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951). A key character in modern American culture, who subsequently had many reincarnations - in the blissful beatnik rebels of the mid-50s (the novels of Jack Kerouac), in the scandalous insurgents of the rock and roll era (like Jim Morrison), in the cinematic “rebels without a goal”, “ Easy Riders" and "Midnight Cowboys" of the 60s. The son of wealthy parents, a student at a privileged school in Pennsylvania, seventeen-year-old H.K. outwardly he manifests himself as a nervous and nervous youth, whose dislike for others reveals the capricious intolerance of a spoiled teenager. In his confession, he scolds the “stupid school”, “cretin” classmates, and “show-off” teachers. According to him, he hates everyone. And, as if in retaliation, he breaks generally accepted rules. He is sincerely delighted by a friend who farted loudly in church. Not wanting to obey the hated “stupid” rules, he deliberately fails his exams, quarrels with his dorm roommate, and runs away from school to New York. There he meets with an old girlfriend, but for some reason he insults her and gets turned away, then he visits his old teacher, but he shows him very ambiguous signs of attention, and the fugitive has to run away. He gets stupidly drunk and tries to “pick up” a prostitute in a hotel. Finally, he secretly comes to his parents’ house and tells his younger sister about his misadventures. And the ten-year-old girl tries in vain to set him on the right path. Image of H.K. has a deeper dimension. It is significant that he conducts his confession while undergoing examination in a sanatorium. Illness is a common sign in world literature of a hero’s conflict with the environment, a symbol of rejection from society. H.K.’s nervous disorder, like, say, Prince Myshkin’s epilepsy or Hans Castorp’s consumption, is a sign of the hero’s “asociality,” his exclusion from the system of normal social relations. As a literary hero, H.K. has a long pedigree, going back at least to the ancient eccentric Cynics, to medieval vagants and fair buffoons. One can also discern in him the “genes” of Andersen’s child, who at the end of the famous fairy tale uttered the exclamation: “And the king is naked!” H.K. has a subtle gift for detached, unclouded vision, thanks to which he acutely senses the hypocrisy and falseness of many rituals of society - “falseness and window dressing,” as he puts it.
H.K.’s literary role is to notice and mercilessly expose, denounce and ridicule all sorts of ugliness and absurdities in life. Be it the acne on the face of a classmate, or the mannered intonations of the school priest, or the sugary vulgarity of Hollywood, or the banal standards of the notorious “American way of life.” In this sense, the image of H.K. comes close to the folklore image of the “fool”, who, with his actions and judgments, undermines the behavioral and moral stereotypes of the society he ridicules (H.K.’s red hunting cap worn backwards is not a joke’s cap). So he is not just a hooligan troublemaker, but a rebel-moralist, who is an intermediate link between the outcasts and hermits of American romanticism with their rejection of public morality of the 19th century. and the heroes of the “counterculture” of the rebellious 60s (the closest follower of H.K. is the “psycho” McMurphy from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by K. Kesey). Neither film nor television incarnations of H.K. does not exist, because The author forbade the book to be filmed.
Lit.: Belov S. Preface // Salinger J. Novels and stories. Vonnegut K. Cat's Cradle... M., 1983. P.3-9; Geismar M. American contemporaries. M., 1976. P.268-275.
All characteristics in alphabetical order:
Caulfield Holden- a sixteen-year-old boy from the generation of teenagers of the 50s. Although he himself does not like to talk about his parents and “all sorts of David Copperfield stuff,” he exists primarily in his family connections. His father, a man with an Irish surname, was a Catholic before his marriage. His parents are of different faiths, but apparently consider this fact unimportant. X. is not characterized by religiosity, although he believes in the boundless kindness of Christ, who, in his opinion, could not send Judas to hell, and cannot stand the apostles. X. is the second child in a family of four children. X.'s older brother - D.V. - who wrote wonderful stories, works in Hollywood and, according to X., is wasting his talent. During the war, he stuck around in the army for four years like hell, drove the general in a staff car and hated army service more than the war. He told his younger brothers - X. and Alli - that if he had to shoot, he would not know who to shoot at. X.'s second brother, red-haired Alli, was two years younger than X. and, as X. believed, fifty times smarter than him. Allie loved poetry to such an extent that he covered his baseball mitt with lines from Emily Dickenson, who lived by the stream; he was very nice and loved to laugh. In X's perception, Alli was a real sorcerer, because X. often felt when Alli looked at him. Alli died of leukemia, and then X., who was thirteen years old, broke all the windows in the garage with his bare hand, ended up in the hospital, and then his hand hurt all the time and he could not squeeze it tightly. The youngest in the family was ten-year-old Phoebe, to whom X. was touchingly attached. X. is very sensitive to falsehood and values sincerity above all else in relationships. He hates cinema because it spoiled his older brother, who was a real writer while he lived at home. X. even refuses to appear in a short film when he is invited to film as a top-notch golfer. In films, he is offended by the unnatural behavior of the actors. He understands that it is from action movies that his fantasies about methods of dealing with offenders come from. He has his own idea of what Hamlet should be - “an eccentric, a little crazy” - and he does not like Laurence Olivier in this role, who looks more like some kind of general. X. likes more the episode in which Polonius gives advice to Laertes, while Ophelia constantly plays around: either she takes the dagger out of its sheath, or she teases him, and Laertes pretends to listen to the annoying advice. Due to intolerance for falsehood, X. cannot get along in any of the schools, studying in the fourth in a row (as was the case with the writer himself), but he also finds himself excluded from it, since he does not accept much in both teachers and students , and in the existing procedures at school.
