Sunday, September 22, 2013
From Innocence to Experience Post 4
In the bumpy process towards a more mature perspective of the world, what is gained and what is lost? Consider this question with Holden and Christopher in mind, and write a response in which you use evidence from the novel you are currently reading (embedded quotation/properly cited) and refer specifically to the novel you read over the summer (use examples, no quote necessary. Respond to a classmate's post.
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In the Catcher in the Rye Holden is a slacker that lies all the time, but by the very end I think he was finished with that life style. Like Holden, Chris had some "bumpy" experiences and did not like the way people lived. But by the end he did not want to die, he wanted to live that life that he had hated. Now instead of complaining about things and saying that almost everything is phony, Holden is starting to become nostalgic and beginning to miss past experiences. "I sort of miss everyone I told you about." (214, Salinger) Holden gains experiences and a new way of living life, and loses the way he thought about life, his money and his dream of running away. (His sister talked him out of running away.) Chris was the same way except he lost the desire to continue running away from his past after he had.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you! I think Chris and Holden just needed a little knock on the head telling them that they needed to wake up and truly see what the world has to offer, and that they can't live the way they are living at the moment.
DeleteI agree with you on Holden becoming nostalgic towards the end. His hindsight bias must have gotten the best of him. Looking back he realizes what was important and what was not.
DeleteHolden from Catcher in the Rye was a person who didn't really care about people, and he thought that he could get away from so many things. Holden also didn't want to grow up on my behalf; it was hard for Holden to accept the fact that he needed to move on. By the end of the book as my group says Holden "In order for Holden to become an adult he had to retire the innocence of his youth." Holden learned so many things in the city of from people that he went back to see, or even the people that he crossed paths in the book that made him realized that he needed to change and become a better person. “Happiness only real when shared.” (Chris 189) Chris in the beginning of the book runs away from people because he doesn't feel the desire that he needs them in their life in order to be happy. At the end of the book he truly acknowledges the fact that he is wrong and that he needs people in his life in order to become happy, and have a good life. You get so lonely from being alone all the time. You can't support your own self when you're down.
ReplyDeleteIn the process of growing up, Chris gains and loses many things. He loses his family and eventually his life, but he gains friends and a more mature perspective of the world. For Chris to grow up, he thought that he needed to leave his family. He had specific ideas of what he wanted to do and he said that "since they won't ever take me seriously... I'm going to completely knock them out of my life." He wanted to do his own thing and grow up his way, and this meant losing his family. He gained many friends along his journey, however. He was a very likable man and the people who gave him rides loved him. He stayed in touch with them for many years. By the end of his journey, however, he does gain a new perspective on life. He knows he is going to die and wishes that he had made different choices to avoid this end. Holden also gains and loses while attempting to grow up. He loses his innocent perspective. At first, he did not see the bad parts of people and in turn the world. The he started growing up and seeing that not everything is good. When he walks into Phoebe's school and sees the "f-word" on the walls, he realizes that kids are exposed to horrors that he wishes they weren't. This is when he gains. He gains the knowledge and experience that helps him make decisions later on. He wants to be the catcher in the rye.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you talk about how he started growing up and seeing that not everything is good. Holden didn't realize how hard it was going to be all by himself, and he didn't realize like you said the horrors kids are exposed to.
DeleteI agree that Chris lost everything purposely and through this experience, gained many friends who were supportive and people he could depend on. I also agree that Holden looses this perspective while growing up because he quickly learns he cannot be the catcher in the rye.
DeleteFor Holden in The Catcher in the Rye he gains experience how living on his own and how hard it really is. At the end Holden doesn't want to stay with Mr. Antolini, and he can't stay at home so he needs to stay at the train station because he has no one else to turn to. "I didn't know where the hell to go. I didn't want to go to another hotel and spend all Phoebe's dough. So finally all I did was I walked over to Lexington and took the subway down to Grand Central. My bags were there and all, and I figured I'd sleep in that crazy waiting room where all the benches are" (Salinger 194.) Holden ends up going home at the end of the novel and not out west, so all the experience he gained may have made him realize how hard it is to be on your own. Something he lost was his sense of independence, Holden started out the journey all on his home, but then had to borrow money from his sister and ultimately he went home. Chris also lost his sense of independence. He went out to Alaska and ended up dying, so like Holden his trip did not go like planned. He may have also realized his journey was to hard to do alone. One thing that Chris did gain though was also experience. He learned what it was like to be on his own completely away from society.
ReplyDeleteBoth Chris and Holden gain and loose many things while growing up. Chris voluntarily looses his life. He pushed away his friends, his future, and most importantly, his family. He says in his journal, "I began my adult life with the hypothesis that it would be possible to become a Stone Age native." (Krakauer 75) After a while, Chris just looses the opportunity to have a normal life again. One thing Chris gains is new friends and acquaintances who will help and support him on his journey. Holden looses his innocent mind. He quickly learns that not everyone is going to stay small and dependent their whole lives. He learns he really can't be the catcher in the rye. Holden gains the ability to build relationships. I think by the end of the book he leans how to create friendships and bonds with others.
ReplyDeleteChris gains knowledge and information about how to better prepare himself. He also loses his social aspect of life. He pushed away all of his family and friends and most everyone. And then there is Holden who has quite a bit of an attitude paired with slang and profanities. He's very passionate about the people he cares about. Holden loses his youth and innocence. He seems to grow up way too fast for comfort. But I don't think that other people really notice all that he had to go through because they say things like, "Same old Caulfield. When are you going to grow up?" (Salinger, online text) Both boys learn at the end that they need to cherish the people they have in life and to never take any of them for granted. Chris learned what it was like to completely isolate himself. He now knows the dangers of being alone. Holden also realizes how truly hard it is to be on his own. And then obviously, Chris ends up losing his life. But that was as a result of the lack of relationship and support in his life.
ReplyDeleteHolden doesn’t seem to care much about how his actions affect other people in his life. He does things that upset other people and make them mad and he doesn’t like the way that they react but he doesn’t really understand that what he did may have been insulting or rude. Later on in the book it seems that Holden has matured a little bit and seems to realize that maybe he shouldn’t do certain things and he begins to think more about how other people feel about things. When Phoebe finds out that he got kicked out of school again she starts getting very upset because she knows that their father will be very mad about what had happened. As Phoebe is yelling at Holden and then she ignores him, Holden begins pleading and begging Phoebe to talk to him again, he keeps begging “C’mon, Phoeb, take that thing off your head.... C’mon. take that off your head. C’mon, hey, Phoeb. Please. Please, willya?” (Salinger 165). Holden was finally starting to see all his actions from the past come and get him back. He finally started to realize how he had effected the people around him. In Into The Wild, Chris didn’t change a ton but he did mature a little bit. Chris began to realize that he had left an impact on some people along the way and he made friendships and he finally decided to send people letters and postcards so that they knew where he was and knew that he was ok, unlike in the beginning of the book when he was trying to cut off all connections he had with people.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you said Holden doesn't care about how his actions affect other people because on his journey, he hurt many people and when they reacted he just called them, "phony,"
DeleteBoth Chris and Holden loose and gain many different things while on their journey to adulthood. Chris loses his family and at the end loses his life. Chris knew that he was going to lose his family, but he never expected to lose his life. Chris believed that he knew what he was doing and thought that he would be able to survive in the wild. The main thing that Chris gains is friends. On his way to the woods, Chris gains a lot of help and support from stranger he meets while making stops or hitchhiking. Holden also gains and loses things along the way. Similar to Chris, Holden also loses some friends, but they weren't as close as Chris was to his family. Holden loses Stradlater and Ackley when he leaves Pencey. At first it didn't seem that Holden cared about them at all, but at the end of the book he said, "I sort of miss everybody I told about. Even old Stradlater and Ackley for instance," (214). Holden gains experience on how life works. In the beginning of the book when he first left Pencey, he was confused and alone on the streets. After a few days he finally understood what real life was like and how to live it. So, both of these characters lose and gain things along the way.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Chris did gain a lot of friends on his trip, without meaning too! However I would not agree with the fact that Chris was close to his family. Him losing his family was not such a big deal, especially because him and his father did not get along. In a way Holden losing friends and Chris losing family would be fairly similar. I do agree that Holden had somewhat of a realization about everybody he talked about and that he did have a connection with all of them. I agree that Holden gets a big inside on how life works in just the few days of his journey.
DeleteI agree with your idea that Chris knew he was going to lose his family, but he left anyways. He didn't think he needed relationships to be happy. However, when he is close to death he discovers that he was wrong. I also agree that Holden seemed like he didn't care much about Ackley and Stradlater because he was very critical of them. Both Holden and Chris took their family and friends for granted before they left, so they lost those relationships, but they gained a new insight to the importance of relationships on their journies to maturity.
DeleteI agree that both Holden and Chris gain and lose some different things along their journeys. However, I disagree with your statement that Holden comes to understand how the world works. Holden holds onto his childish perception of the world all the way up until the very end of the book when he admits that he actually misses everybody he talked about in his story. Also, I'm not sure that Chris actually realized that he was losing his family for real. I think that he originally set out just to try and fix his problems with the world, probably planning to return to civilization at some point, although he died before he could.
DeleteIt seems that in the bumpy process towards a more mature perspective of the world, Holden gained the realization that he is not the only one who sees the bad in the world or knows what the bad is. He seems to see mainly the bad in people, always noticing the “phoniness” but this is what he loses. In the end he still does not love society or agrees 100% with it but he learns to not always judge a book by its cover. Holden realizes that even kids at a young age lose their innocence early to the bad in the world. Holden matures and bases later decisions on what he learned on his journey. Chris seems to like to be alone and try not to have major relationships with anyone. However he does create strong friendships without even meaning too. Chris loses the innocence of believing he is better off alone and gains the fact that he does people in his life for him to fully develop. When Chris was leaving Westerberg for the final time, he had had a lot of fun and made new friendships. Westerbergs girlfriend, saw that Chris was crying, and “That frightened her” (Krakauer 68). She continues saying that she had a bad feeling that she would not see Chris again and maybe he felt the same way. This shows that maybe he did know for him to truly grow up or have a mature outlook, he did have to have relationships, but since he had had his trip planned, he didn’t want to give up on it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Holden only sees the bad in people. He has a tendency to make everything negative about him. Chris does make relationships accidentally, like you said and in a way so does Holden. For example befriending the nuns at Grand Central and giving a large donation to them.
DeleteChris and Holden both lose a lot through their journeys. Chris lost the relationship with his family. They did not support his decision to hike through Alaska, he cut ties. However he gained many friends on his travels. No one had anything bad to say about him other than he was nuts to face the Alaskan wilderness on his own. Holden lost innocence when he cut ties with his classmates at Pencey and let his parents down by flunking out. He also lost innocence when he realized that Phoebe was not safe from all of the phoniness in the world. You could say that Holden gained the ability to see the real, adult world.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the loss of innocence from both the boys. It's obvious that since they were cutting ties with the people that wanted to help them, their judgment may have been a bit cloudy. It seems that both may have moved a bit too fast, considering Chris' unfortunate outcome.
DeleteHolden and Chris have a rugged journey towards their maturity. He ends up losing all of his friends from Pencey, but gains a better understanding of himself. Holden starts off judging everything he can see, calling everyone “phonies”. Towards the end of the book however, he pays more attention to his sister and begins to miss everyone from his past. Holden’s maturity comes from finding importance in people instead of playing them off as lesser than him. He shows some maturity throughout the book by remembering Jane instead of calling her off. Chris shows the same pattern. He is mature in instances throughout the book, yet does not reach his full potential. He loses his family, past friends, and eventually his life, yet he experiences life in the way he wanted to experience it. Through his journey, he eventually finds himself, explaining, “I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness” (Pg 169). Both boys show the same pattern, finding maturity and happiness after it doesn’t really matter. Holden had a psychotic break down and Chris died in a bus.
ReplyDeleteChris and Holden had two very different journeys to maturity, however, they experienced the same feeling in the end. On Holden's journey is constantly complaining about all these "phonies" in the world, and he is constantly questioning the sincerity of people and wondering why they do the things they do. He shows that he only likes the things in the world that stay the same, like the music in the carousel. In the end, he realizes that its not worthwhile to do this, and even goes as far to say that he misses these people that he previously said he despised. He realized that he is driving himself crazy by constantly commentating on the world, and perceiving everything as fake.
ReplyDeleteChris is a little different. In the beginning, Chris was described as someone who was very smart and he even comes off as condescending in the way that he describes the world around him. Just like Holden, he hates basically everything about the "typical lifestyle". But in the end Chris realizes that he can't let these ruin his life. He realizes that there are enough good things in life to dwell on rather than the bad things.
This is Charlotte, btw. I still haven't out how to change my dumb username.
I agree with your view on Holden's journey to maturity. Holden does start to look past his first thoughts on how phony people are and see them for more. I think he has this realization because he starts to see how he begins to resemble some of the phony qualities that he claims to despise. He even admits to giving into the pressure of being phony and using a phrase like "traveling incognito".
DeleteBoth Chris and Holden go through the struggles of growing up, which plays a big part in both boys trying to make more of themselves, or at least make people think they are not young anymore. “ Once Alex made up his mind about something, there was no changing it…I even offered to buy him a plane ticket to Fairbanks, which would have let him work an extra ten days and still get to Alaska by the end of April, but he said, no, I want to hitch north. Flying would be cheating. It would wreck the whole trip.’ “ (67) Chris pushed away his family and friends so that he could focus on something that he had a passion for. Along the way, he gains more good words than he looses, and by the time he does die, there are good words following him to the grave. Although Chris can no longer have a plain life because of the youth he gave up, he has a journey that others will be talking about left behind. Holden pushes away people that he does not want to have a relationship with, even though he knows that they at one point or another had helped him.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the process of maturity, people will gain a new insight to the world, and start seeing things in an adults perspective. However, they will lose their childhood and their innocence. Chris McCandles gains a new insight towards the end of his journey, where he realizes that he ail probably die, which is that, "Happiness [is] only real when shared" (Krakauer 189). This was a very mature conclusion that Chris came to because in the begging of his journey he believed the opposite. He didm't see that relationships with people were actually important and preferred to be alone in the wilderness. At one point, Franz even offers to adopt Holden, but Holden just blows him off and says they'll talk about it when he gets back from Alaska. Therefore, by alienating himself in Alaska, Chris was able to come to the conclusion that people need to share their happiness with others, so that they can truly be happy. Similarly, Holden clearly exemplifies how it is necessary to lose your childhood on the way to becoming mature. Holden lost his innocence and childhood the night his brother died, because that was the night that he felt true sorrow and pain. However, Holden struggles with gaining a new insight on the world, because he can't get over the fact that he is not a child anymore. He is constantly trying to help kids keep their innocence, because he thinks it will somehow help him keep his. So, its hard for Holden to cope with losing his childhood, just like its hard for Chris to accept the fact that living like a loner won't bring him the happiness he is searching for.
ReplyDeleteIn the bumpy process towards a more mature perspective of the world, one gains a clearer picture of the world but loses the passion they had as a child. For example, the author talks about how he had an obsession with mountain climbing as a teenager. He explains how he believed that climbing the Devils Thumb in Alaska would solve all of his problems, then writes that, "When [he] decided to go to Alaska that April, like Chris McCandless, [he] was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic" (Krakauer 155). He went in believing that conquering that one point would change everything, fix everything that was wrong in his life. However, after the climb, he realized that nothing had changed and that he risked his life for something that had nowhere near the impact he thought it would have. He came out understanding that the world isn't what he thought it was. It's a place where logic is what will keep you alive, not passion. I believe that the difference between immaturity and maturity is that an immature person is passionate and has little understanding of the way the world works, whereas a mature person has realized the truth of the world. In my opinion, both Chris and Holden never quite reach maturity. Chris begins to realize his mistakes near the end of his life, especially when he leaves the note for help on the back door of the bus. However, he dies before he can really mature. Holden is very similar in this sense. He discovers the truth of the world too late and because of that, he ends up in a mental institution.
ReplyDelete