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A Book Review on The Catcher in the Rye Essay

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A Book Review on The Catcher in the Rye

This book is about a few days in the life of Holden Caulfield, At the beginning of the book Holden is expelled from his private school, 'Pency'. This is just one of many schools he has been expelled from. Holden decides that, as the school term is about to break up, he would go to New York City for a few days until he is expected home. So off he sets one night wearing his hunting hat that Holden loves because it represents independence from others. He jumps on a train and goes to the big city.

Holden Caulfield is the main character in this novel; he is a typical adolescent boy. Holden is much more than a troubled teen going through "a phase". Holden …show more content…

This is also shown when Stradlater says ''For chrissake, Holden. This is about a goddam baseball glove.'' Here, Stradlater rejects the paper Holden has wrote for him, he is also unknowingly rejecting Allie (Holden's dead brother) this hurts Holden deeply, contributing to his self-frustration. This is shown in chapter 4 when Holden says ''Ask her if she still keeps her kings in the back row'', this quote demonstrated Holden's childlike nature, though he is 16 years old and in high school he is still captivated by his early memories. Even Ernie, the piano player, is phony because he's too skilful. Holden automatically associates skill with arrogance (from past experiences no doubt) and thus can't separate the two. Even Holden's most trusted teacher, Mr. Antolini, proves to be a phony when he attempts to fondle Holden. Thus the poor boy is left with a cluster of memories, some good but most bad.

Yet because of these memories, Holden has developed the unique ability to speak frankly (though not well spoken) about the people he meets. Though he seems very skeptical about the world, he is really just bewildered. His vocabulary often makes him seem hard, but in fact he is a very weak-willed individual. Holden has no concept of pain, and often likes to see himself as a martyr

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