Teachers Holden example essay topic

... 's for instance. They annoy the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth' (Salinger 99). Wadsworth 5. At that time the Church was very important in peoples lives it was the basic cornerstone in the average American family, most Families attended church together, even those who didn't attend church were faith based followers.

The role that church played was important because it kept hope alive for the people who weren't doing as good as they should have been doing during the positive economic times. I be live that in Holden's mind everyone was doing well, and the world was full of a bunch of phony upper-middle class people who thought they were all that and a bag of chips. Values during that time is what most American families prided themselves in having. What Holden was thinking, some would think was open-spirited but in all fairness it would have been a sac-religious comment to most people during that time. To believe in God but nothing that accompanied in him wasn't a positive attitude during that time. Holden dislikes many people, places, and events all because of the phoniness surrounding them.

It makes him literally ill. He is repulsed not only by the insincerity and self promotion of the 'phonies,' 'hot-shots,' 'jerks,' 'bastards,' and 'morons,' but by the phoniness that is excellence corrupted'. Holden realizes all the flaws within others but he can't see them within himself. At the end of the novel he complains heavily about the fowl language written on walls where children can see it. This proves he is constantly seeking to appear older than he really is, for he is somewhat a child himself.

Wadsworth 6. His profanity is so innately in tuned in his personality that he is wholly unaware of how rough his language is'. There were even a few times in the book that his sister reprimanded him for swearing too much. He also does not trust that anyone tells the truth. He prefaces his revelations with 'If you really want to hear about it,' and 'If you want to know the truth,' because he found few people do want to know the truth.

Holden encounters many different people, and experiences many adventures throughout the three days that this story occurs. He becomes involved with a variety of people, including taxi drivers, two nuns, an elevator man (pimp), three girls from Seattle, a prostitute, and a former teacher from whom Holden thinks he should flee from, in the middle of the night. He can never hold on to anyone he cares about; so he always finds a way to ruin the relationship by escaping, or destroying it. In Holden's case, he seems to expect the worst, believing that the result of getting close to people is pain. Pain when others reject you or pain when they leave you, such as when a friend walks off or a beloved brother dies.

He also easily mocks certain people and the way they act. On teachers Holden feels that, 'You don't have to think to too hard when you talk to a teacher' (Salinger 13). I think that Holden was trying to be a realist, with the keyword being " trying", he was trying to be too different. His instinct that children are the purest beings are false, he didn't see things for what they really were worth.

Wadsworth 7. He probably just saw them for their face value, for instance when he described not wanting to be a lawyer like his dad, he replies by saying, 'Lawyers are all right, I guess-but it doesn't appeal to me. All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink martinis and look like a hot-shot' (Salinger 172). The truth is that not all lawyers are rich and some can do very good things for some popple while others are exactly what he was describing. While most people wanted change and allowed change in the way society processed Holden was trying to hold on, hold on to something not real.

Many would think that after all of Holden's experiences and tragedies, he would go to his parents for help. However he does not, which shows tha the must not have a good relationship with his parents if he can't talk to them; Yet any many films and tv shows of the 50's most parent-child relationships seemed to be closer than they had ever been in the American household. Ididn't live in the 50's, but most of my friends parents who did seem to have had tight nit relationships with their parents. If Holden had possibly had this he would have been able to reach out to them but for some reason he couldn't According to Webster's dictionary, 'Phoniness is described as artificial, counterfeit, or hypocritical'. Phony is one of the words heavily used by Holden.

He uses the word phony several times throughout the course of this book and he uses it to describe the actions of others and not himself. Before Holden judges others, he should take a look at himself and check his flaws. Wadsworth 8. Throughout all the encounters with different people in the book, he is easily the phoniest of all the characters. Holden had a flawed look on life, he dreams of retaining his childhood which had no in the evolving society in 1950's America.

This idealism explains why he is close to his sister Phoebe and why he was so close to his brother Allie. He does not want anyone to fall off the cliff into adulthood, he wants them to remain in the rye and if they go to fall off he will catch them. He feels as if he is the true protector of innocence, except for the fact that he isn " trying to be so innocent himself. Holden does not have any friends and cannot keep relationships.

This is because he finds and exaggerates any negative aspect of all the people he knows or meet. The Catcher in the Rye is a novel, which gives us some idea of how an adolescent boy, facing the common experiences and troubles of daily life in the 1950's may have felt. Salinger might also be trying to show the reader the confusion anger and frustration of loosing a loved one and of possibly the time period, and how it can effect a persons life.