Catcher in the Rye Potrays American Dream essays

Catcher in the Rye Potrays American Dream essays A dream cannot exist without another person. The Catcher in the Rye illustrates the American dream by revealing the heartaches one must go through while growing up and finding their place in society. Holden Caulfield is amazed by peoples' "phoniness". He believes that no one is truly real and that the world has lost its innocents. The only creatures that still posses the innocence is a child. His world consists of childhood vs. adulthood. Childhood seems to be made of immaturity and pure innocents, while adulthood is where phonies arewhere the world starts to become evil. At the beginning of the book Holden criticizes everyone for the things they do. While doing this, he isolates himselfcreating his own level of self-protection. He never looks at himself to find the flaws in which he possesses. Like the child he still isquick to point fingers at others but never toward himself. He sees adulthood as a bad turn over in his life. Towards the middle of the novel, Holden Caulfield is approached with a question from his little sister, "What would you like to do when you grow up?" His response is, "Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around-nobody big, I mean-except me. And 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.? Here is a very symbolic part of the book. Holden wants to save the world from loosing its innocents. He wants to save the children from falling off the cliff?into adulthood?into the phony world. Later on Holden realizes he cannot hold onto adolescence forever, but must become and adult. Here he faces the choice to be "phony" like the rest or simply be himsel ...