Why does holden mention david copperfield

Open Document. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. Allusion is utilized in this quote to show a reference to the popular s novel by Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, where the title character's melancholy journey starts at birth. One possible reason the author of Catcher in the Rye, J. Salinger, chose to use this literary term was to show the contrast between the main character, Holden Caulfield, and other book characters.

Another likely reason Salinger used this quote was to allude to the popular character, David Copperfield, in an attempt to catch the reader's interest at the beginning of the novel. The Catcher in the Rye has a few major overall themes, one of them being isolation. This quote supports the theme of isolation by separating Holden from different individuals.

Irony is being utilized in this quote because Holden seems to be very concerned about preserving the innocence of children, yet he is legally a child himself who smokes, drinks, and seems to be obsessed with discussing sexual activities.

Advice, in Holden's world, is the counterfeit of love. Holden is deficient in a sense of history. He is, in this sense, the American Innocent of the Frontier, scornful of traditions and social credentials.

But his frontier is gone. There is no territory to light out for, and the ducks in Central Park have no refuge to fly to in the winter. Holden's uncommitted stance, his quixotic pose, in a world grown much more rigid than David Copperfield's ever was, makes his position even more shaky.

At the outset of the novel, Holden stands up on a hill, next to a Revolutionary War cannon, having lost the fencing team's equipment, removed in both space and interest from the football game.

He thus sets himself firmly in the role of the isolate, of the Ishmael. David's complaint about having been "apart from the society of all other boys of my own age," when set next to Holden's deliberate disaffiliation, throws Holden's attitudes into sharper relief.

Holden's next disappointment is one associated with his own age group. Stradlater's violation of Holden's memory of Jane is, as Spencer's betrayal was, a failure of charity. Stradlater's interest in Jane, when compared to Holden's memory of her as a person, is a selfish interest. To Stradlater, Jane is an object, not an individual. Holden's violent reaction is a helpless attempt to keep his memory of her intact and innocent. Unconsciously, Holden wants to keep her from entering the world of Spencer and Stradlater, a world of sham and self.

Following these initial disappointments, Holden encounters, in turn, the three girls in the hotel ballroom, violate his simple hospitality. Maurice the bell-boy procurer, and Sunny the teenage prostitute, perpetuate the worn-out sexual hoax which is part of American sexual-initiation mythology. Then Sally, the American Dream girl, turns out to be as shallow and as phony as the adult world Holden moves in.

All of these failures build up to the ambiguous question of the ultimate betrayal in Mr. Antolini's living room. He can no longer distinguish the phony from the real. Holden's retreats into his sister Phoebe's world, her ride on the carousel and his collapse are all the result of these disappointments.

The novel ends with D. Telling his story has given his experiences a structure. Telling the story has fixed his past in a form and shape. In order to tell it, he had to assume both an audience, disinterested as it might be, and a posture for himself as narrator. For a character who disclaims family tradition, history, a sense of time, and a revulsion for the adult world which surrounds him, to strike a posture is to place himself in a fixed position, will novel to attack.

Yet Holden has told the story. He has, in effect, written a novel. Holden, in taking the role of narrator, posits an interest in the novel as a literary art form. Holden makes the novel, and in that act of making impresses a form on the chaos of his world. Later on in the story, his praise is reserved for the artful or those who do things well, in addition to his admiration of those who love without concern for self-esteem.

The notion that time is fixed and rigid, that family credentials matter and that adult society with all its flaws is a desirable goal for the uninitiated young boy are all disclaimed, either explicitly or implicitly by Holden. It is otherwise with literature, with art, with making. Holden's assumptions about art imply a desire for order, for permanence, for stability. This might explain his attraction to, yet revulsion for the movies.

A film moves and changes each second. In Chapter 24, Holden gives this explanation to Mr. Antolini, who wants to know why Holden likes digressions. Prior to this quote Holden describes how he failed his Oral Expression class at Pencey because he rejected the idea of telling one story at a time. Here, he articulates his sense that digressions enable discovery in a way that linear stories do not.

Holden says these words in Chapter 25, following the incident at Mr. Holden has interpreted Mr. Ace your assignments with our guide to The Catcher in the Rye! SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Antolini Mr. Spencer Stradlater Carl Luce. What is a catcher in the rye and why does Holden want to be one?

Does Mr. Antolini really make a pass at Holden? Why does Holden run away from Pencey? Does Holden have sex with Sunny, the prostitute?