As of right
now, I have a total of sixteen blogs and this will be seventeen! Hooray! This
blog, I am going to focus on the second question, which is, “What are the
causes, gains, and losses of the conflict dealt with in this book?”
The
conflict in The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger is within Holden Caulfield’s mind. His mind cannot decide to connect with people
on an adult level or to ignore the adult world and live in his childhood
memories. The beginning of the novel is
Holden talking from a psychiatric ward about his childhood. What Holden wants from the adult stand point
are the sexual encounters, which he does not have good luck with. At one point in the novel, Holden agrees with
the elevator man to send up a prostitute up to his hotel room. As a reader, you would figure that he would
have a sexual encounter with Sunny.
Right? Well Holden does not. He chickens out leaving him five dollars
poorer. “’I don’t feel very much like
myself tonight. I’ve had a rough night. Honest to God. I’ll pay you and all, but do you mind very
much if we don’t do it?’” (Salinger 96).
This is Holden’s chickening out speech to Sunny.
I believe
that his childhood caused Holden to struggle with his drive to grow up or stay
wrapped up in his memories. On the first
page of The Catcher in the Rye ,
Holden tells us he had a “lousy childhood” and that his “parents were occupied
and all before they had him.” Having a
rough childhood can definitely effect how you grow up. If Holden’s parents had helped him a little
more when he was growing up, I do not think he would be struggling with this
conflict.
The gains
of this conflict are that Holden can try different things while struggling with
this. He can experiment with the many
ways to connect with people, which can be good or bad. The losses of this conflict are that it is in
his mind. Battling with a conflict in
your mind are always the hardest.
Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye Boston :
Little, Brown, 1951. Print.
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