catcher in the rye2
Many people find that their dreams are unreachable. Holden Caulfield realizes this in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. As Holden tells his story, he recounts the events since leaving the Pencey School to his psychiatrist. At first, Holden sounds like a typical, misguided teenager, rebellious towards his parents, angry with his teachers, and flunking out of school. However, as his story progresses, it becomes clear that Holden is indeed motivated, just not academically. He has a purpose: to protect the young and innocent minds of young children from the "horrors" of adult society. He hopes to freeze the children in time, as wax figures are frozen in a museum. After interacting with Phoebe, his younger sister, Holden realizes that this goal is quite unachievable. Holden wants to be the Catcher in the Rye, then realizes it is an unreachable ideal. Holden begins his story misguided and without direction. After flunking out of the Pencey School, Holden decides to leave early. Before he leaves, though, he visits his teacher, Mr. Spencer. Mr. Spencer and Holden talk about his direction in life: "'Do you feel absolutely no concern for your future, boy?' 'Oh, I feel some concern for my future, all rig
Holden wants to protect the innocence of his sister and every other innocent child in the world. Before Holden meets Sally for their date, he stops in front of the Museum of Natural History and begins to reminisce. He thinks about the way he visited the museum when he was younger. He also tells that every time one visits the museum, he is changed in some way, but the figures in the exhibits always stay the same. He wants to be able to preserve some things in the glass: "Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone," (122). Holden wants the innocence of children to be frozen behind that glass. When he visits Phoebe's school to give her a note, Holden notices two instances of graffiti on the walls. He succeeds in rubbing one of them off cannot rub off the other. It depresses Holden to think that someday this kind of graffiti will spoil his sister Phoebe and all of her companions. Up to this point, keeping young children from his plight is Holden's sole motive. He soon realizes that this is impossible. Holden sees that becoming the Catcher in the Rye is an unattainable ideal. When he meets Phoebe during her lunch break at school, he has made up his mind to leave and hitchhike out west. Phoebe knows this and asks if she can come along. This overwhelms Holden, and he decides not to leave. Instead, he decides to take her to the zoo and to the carousel. Phoebe gets on the carousel and finds her favorite horse. When the carousel starts Holden notices Phoebe trying to grab fo
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Approximate Word count = 1062
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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