The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
Holden Caulfield's growing depression is also an important aspect int he novel that depicts his life in just a few days. From what he's telling the audience through the story, everything makes him sad. Even things that would normally make people happy or excited upset him and mature his depression. At several points throughout the work, Holden claims to hate movies, yet he goes to see about three of them just within a few days. This inconsistency is slightly annoying to the audience because it seems more difficult to characterize him. However, his hypocracy may in fact offer more details about his character because we are starting to think he has a mental illness. At one point, he considered killing himself and just cast that aside as if life were trivial. I think that he made that claim just to frighten people and because he's a bit crazy.
I don't really understand why Holden seemed to like Mr. Spencer in the beginning of the novel and hates him in the fourth section. On page 16, he calls him "phony," yet he seemed to respect him when he went over there for a visit. We talked about his wishy-washyness a little in class, and our group thinks that he constantly changes his mind because he desires to be a child, yet also an adult simultaneously.
No comments:
Post a Comment