Holden Caulfield, Lorde, and the Universal Fear of Growing Up
It’s no secret that Holden Caulfield is scared of growing up. As someone who hates phonies and facing the reality of his future after throwing his present away, Holden wants to stay in his idealized, innocent, version of life forever. Though written in the 1940’s/50’s, Holden’s coming of age and fears in adolescence resonate with many teenagers everywhere, staying timeless in its ideas and themes of alienation from society. With that said, one of the only things I couldn’t stop thinking about was how similar Holden’s narrative felt to one of my favorite albums from New Zealand artist Lorde: Pure Heroine. Pure Heroin e , a coming of age album released by Lorde when she was 16, also echoes the same themes of social anxiety, adolescent angst, and critiques against consumerism and phonies in current society that Holden constantly complains about in "The Catcher in the Rye". One of the major themes of both mediums is wis...