求一篇《麦田里的守望者》英语读后感

The Painfulness of Growing Up

According to most analyses, The Catcher in the Rye is a bildungsroman, a novel about a young character’s growth into maturity. While it is appropriate to discuss the novel in such terms, Holden Caulfield is an unusual protagonist for a bildungsroman because his central goal is to resist the process of maturity itself. As his thoughts about the Museum of Natural History demonstrate, Holden fears change and is overwhelmed by complexity. He wants everything to be easily understandable and eternally fixed, like the statues of Eskimos and Indians in the museum. He is frightened because he is guilty of the sins he criticizes in others, and because he can’t understand everything around him. But he refuses to acknowledge this fear, expressing it only in a few instances—for example, when he talks about sex and admits that “[s]ex is something I just don’t understand. I swear to God I don’t” (Chapter 9).

Instead of acknowledging that adulthood scares and mystifies him, Holden invents a fantasy that adulthood is a world of superficiality and hypocrisy (“phoniness”), while childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty. Nothing reveals his image of these two worlds better than his fantasy about the catcher in the rye: he imagines childhood as an idyllic field of rye in which children romp and play; adulthood, for the children of this world, is equivalent to death—a fatal fall over the edge of a cliff. His created understandings of childhood and adulthood allow Holden to cut himself off from the world by covering himself with a protective armor of cynicism. But as the book progresses, Holden’s experiences, particularly his encounters with Mr. Antolini and Phoebe, reveal the shallowness of his conceptions.

来源spartnotes

http://www.sparknotes.com/

这个网站很好，以后自己找。

老师没给你发资料啊？你就写写Holden 是因为什么原因才精神失常的，同时反映了当时美国社会的什么问题。书是在二战结束后出版的，一些人比如从前线回来的士兵，面对改变了不少的美国社会不能适应，找不到自己的身份和归属，也就是identity and belonging的问题。所以产生了他们自己的文化，叫hippie。
随便说一下就500字了。不懂再补充问题

The story told by sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield,the protagonist and narrator of the novel,is focused on what Holden hasexperienced in his three-day odyssey in New York after he is expelledfrom Pencey Prep around Christmas for his bad grades.It shows us the state of mind of some middle-class young men.Facing the decadent and declining post-war American society,they suffer greatly from spiritual depression,feeling at loss as to what to do.This thesis,beginning with an analysis of Holden’character,regards Holden as aportrait of the American adolescent and studies every aspect in thespiritual world of Holden Caulfield.

1.Sensitive and cynical.Holden is growing into adolescence in which he is changingphysically and mentally.Before the hard choices in life,he isexperiencing a mental turbulence in his role and social position.Hehates anything wicked and hypocritical in the adult world.Being cynicalof everything evil,he is intolerant of the society.He is sensitive to thedirty social reality and anything that will destroy him.He chooses toadopt a kind of sensitive,cynical and resentful attitude towards his life.

2.“Inconsistency”between outward actions and inner thoughtsHolden is a kind boy by nature,who is struggling between thevirtue inside and the ugly reality outside.We can see his good nature underneath his dispirited behavior.He is a contradictory figure whodisplays outward behavior that seems to be not in line with his inner thoughts.His complicated psychological contradictions are the resultof both social and personal factors.

3.Fantasy and impulse.Holden has unstable mental features.He is restless with anxietyand suffers from great mental pain.Being a weak willed boy,he can’tconcentrate on anything and often indulges in fantasy and impulse.This indicates that he is still in his adolescence and has not getreached mental mature.Living in his aspirations,he easily feelsanxious,afraid and hopeless once his ideas come in conflict withreality.The agony of the adult world.In the story,Holden is a sensitive and kind boy from amiddle-class family.He sees nothing but hypocritical,mean and coldpeople around him wherever he goes---from his family to the society,so he hates the adult world very much.