Catcher in the Rye: Journal Assignment Throughout the novel, Holden uses his isolation from society as a form of protection. He feels as if he is excluded from society, has no purpose in life and is constantly trying to find meaning for his existence. As the novel progresses, readers see that Holden uses his sense of superiority as a way to cover up his insecurities. Holden feels that because he is better than everyone else, there is no reason to interact with them. However, even though Holden acts emotionless he does have feelings but expresses them differently.
Holden’s fear of change contributes to his resistance of the process of maturity. This is because Holden considers becoming mature a substantial change in his life and he, therefore, resists it. When Holden hired a prostitute, he realised that having sex with a prostitute would contribute to his progress to adulthood. Therefore, he attempted to get out of it by diverting the topics of the conversations he had with the prostitute, even though he knew it was a ‘childish thing’. It is notable that Holden never directly mentioned that he disliked sex; He merely says that he was ‘feeling so damn peculiar.’ His thoughts about the museum of Natural History demonstrate his fear of change.
He is socially inept, awkward with people and has a set of ideals by which he lives which indicates that he is suffering from depression. Holden is suffering from a mental disorder which is caused by the death of his brother Allie of which he has not allowed himself to grief properly. In Chapter 5 Holden talks about his brother Allie and what he did after he died. He says “I was only 13 and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage”. Holden narrates that he smashed windows of the garage and cars, and he literally lost it.
Touchstone is a character who has an individual opinion on the idea of love. His idea is unromantic, but practical. This can be seen in the following quote, “ by how much defence is better than no skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to want.” In this quote, touchstone implies that it is better to be cheated on rather than to have no woman at all and go on unsatisfied. This shows his practicality and also shows how he is quite selfish when it comes to love. “ he is not like to marry me well and, not being well married it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife” , this quote illustrates his unromantic portrayal of love, as he is willing to go through great measures to avoid being tied down to one woman.
Unfortunately, Doodle was no match for his brother’s aggressive and selfish actions. In the end, Brother’s pride is to blame for Doodle’s untimely death. Brother’s pride was responsible for his opinion of Doodle. At times, Brother was kind and loving to Doodle, but the reader soon realizes that the narrator was mostly harsh and cruel to his brother. In the beginning of the story, Brother recounts the day Doodle was born, saying that he was a disappointment as soon as he entered the world.
A cause for concern in Tis Pity is that Giovanni’s actions are not condemned. It is presented by Ford to be a “tumultuous passion that brings about his destruction” according to the critic Mark Stavig. His passions are inescapable it seems and so he cannot be held accountable for his drastic actions. Conversely, because of Annabella’s position as a woman, she is consciously aware of her own fate and knows that if their incestuous relationship was to carry on further, harsh repercussions would occur. The Friar tries to dissuade Giovanni from commencing the relationship despite there being little effect from his words.
Thieves!’ Significant that Desdemona is placed in the middle of this list of objects, suggests that she is seen as an possession by both Iago and Brabantio. Although Othello is shown to be an honourable man, he still considers his wife as an object that belongs to him. Homosexuality in Othello: Iago’s love Iago seems to love no one, and talks about sex in a lewd manner however he seems to be obsessed with sexual function perhaps its sex between a man and woman that disgusts him and not sex in general. Iago is constantly arguing that you can control your feelings ‘as out bodies are our gardens’. This implies that he may be suppressing his feelings towards Othello.
He never knew his father so he doesn’t have a good sense of his own identity, he makes poor decisions in raising his son’s by instilling a false sense of what it takes to be successful, and allows them to steal and cheat. Willy’s father left when he was a baby and he only has one memory of his dad, “All I remember is a man with a big beard, and I was in mamma’s lap, sitting around a fire, and some kind of high music” (Miller 1232). After his older brother Ben leaves shortly thereafter to search for their father, it is assumed that Willy doesn’t have a male figure in his life during his upbringing to teach him the things that a father would teach a son, such as morals, and a sense of values, possibly helping him form a sense of identity. Because of this Willy feels a tremendous sense of loss. Willy confesses his sense of loss over his father’s abandonment to Ben.
After the death of Allie, he dealt with the event by breaking all the windows in the garage “just for the hell of it”. The onset of depression may help explain the display of over sensitivity that he shows at times. He views himself as the “catcher in the rye”, saving children and their innocence from entering the adult world that is full of “phonies”. He doesn’t want “to have any goddamn stupid useless conversations with anyone”, which not only supports that he is a “phony” himself, as he strikes up conversations with various people he meets, but also alienates himself from society. Holden’s loneliness and alienation causes him much pain as he seeks for human contact and love.
I think that this pessimism of his is a way to protect himself from his own weaknesses, and that he do this partly so that he can forget how boring and unfair the adult life can be, easily said he does not wont to grow up because he is afraid that he will realize his own flaws and be crushed emotionally because of this hard realization. And that is also one thing that marks out who Holden Caulfield really is, he is a boy who does not know how he should manage how he feels and therefore he is afraid of his own feelings in a strange kind of way. To sum up Holden Caulfield-s personality from this brief analysis I would say that he is a complete emotional wreck-ship that has hit the bottom and having a hard time getting up to the surface. Holden