JDK Slinger shows Holder as a 1 6-year-old boy lose to adult hood and having trouble with accepting society and struggling with any issues in the daily life. Holder is an individual in earlier American society, who is non-conformTABLE and does not choose to cooperate with society, however still very human because he is low self-esteem when he calls himself words like moron, madman or weak, but Holder is sincere and kind when he desires to be a protector Of innocent for young children.
According to Christopher Parker, a critic of The Catcher in the Rye, he said: “I’m not trying to say that Coalfield’s way is right and society’s is wrong-but I do think that Coalfield, the individual, is far more human and right than those Of us on the outside asking him if he’s going to apply himself or not. ” He also states: “Some people condemn Coalfield as “not liking anything,” but he does – he likes the only things really worth liking.. Because he is sincere he won’t settle for less” (15-16).
Parker emphasizes that Coalfield is no different from us, he does like something, but the only difference is Coalfield only likes “things really worth liking. ” Throughout the Story Holder displays that he does not like to go to school, because he does not seem like he tries to study hard or fights to stay at school when he is “flunking out of Pence” (Slinger 13). He does not like phony people, he thinks this world, or at least his world is full of phonies, from his principal who puts on phony smile and handshakes students’ parents to most of his friends and people he meets are phony.
Phoniness, for Holder, stands as an emblem of everything that’s wrong in the world around him or everything that he does not like, and it provides an excuse for him to withdraw into his cynical isolation. Also one event that really inspires Holder is when he was in his Old school, there was a guy named James suicide because he ‘Letdown’s take back something he said bout this very conceited boy’ ( Slinger 221). This really makes him sincere, because he is living truly with himself.
He does not make himself have to like people, who are nice and seem like trying to make this society better, actually they are making this world very “phony’ to him. The essence that also reveals his “things really worth liking’ is when he slips Holder slips quietly back into his apartment and speaks with Phoebe. They talk, argue, and then reconcile, and phoebe asks Holder what he wants to do with his life. He responds “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. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy’ (Slinger 224-225). Readers can see his fantasy of idealistic childhood and a protector of innocent is the only thing Holder likes and desires for. Slinger does show some good sides of Coalfield and this is one of them.
A kind young boy tries to save the young innocent generation from adult hood, which is ere superficial and hypocritical. His “catcher in the rye” fantasy reflects his innocence, his belief in pure, uncorrupted youth, and this makes him very human. On the other hand, this quotes also shows that Holder prefers to retreat into his own imaginary view of the world rather than deal with the complexities Of the world around him. He is totally not willing to cooperate or accept the reality happening in his life.
According to author Letterer of Journal of Individual Psychology, “Holder Coalfield selectively attends to and retains essentially the negative aspects of is world, and then deprecates others and his surroundings in order to compensate for devastated feelings of inferiority.. Holder Coalfield depicts himself as a “moron,” yellow,” ‘”quite illiterate,” “not too tough,” “a liar,” ‘the only dumb one,” and “weak. ” His self-perception is so imbued with intense of feelings of inferiority, it is even manifested in his sympathetic awareness. Throughout the Story, Holder Coalfield usually calls himself with words like “moron”, “madman”, “weak”.. Those kind Of words are used to degrade someone and that is what Holder is doing, he is degrading himself. His “self- perception” is also his very low self-esteem. He lets his negative feelings and thinking toward his world, therefore it destroys his self-esteem. This shows that he does not find the connection with the real world, or neither let himself to open to cooperate with the society.
He puts himself in a isolated world, which is very different from reality and this imaginary world does not have phonies or perverts as he sees. In The Catcher in the Rye, J. D Slinger shows readers a young boy who lives in New York city. During the time in the city before going back home, Holder Coalfield experiences and discovers more about himself. He presents an individual in the early society who are struggling with cooperate with the whole community, and even people around. He is not a rebel, though he is usually called that.
He is merely suffering from the way things are, always and everywhere, in a world of insufficient truth. He is a low self-esteem and sometimes absurd adolescent, but he is also a doomed human being of special sensitivity. The neglect Holder felt as a child produced his catcher in the rye fantasy, where he wants to protect the foundation of childhood and innocence. This fantasy is the reason that Holder stops himself from becoming involved with people end that makes him very human and sincere as well.
