Catcher in the Rye Essay: The Importance of Language

The Catcher in the Rye is one of J. D. Salinger's world-famous books about the disgruntled youth. Holden Caulfield is the main character and he is a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up, Holden separates the “phony” aspects of society, and the “phonies” themselves. Some of these “phony” people in his life are the headmaster whose friendliness depends on the wealth of the parents, and his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection. This book deals with the complex issues of identity, belonging, connection, and alienation. Holden senses these feelings most of the time and is guilty about many things in

Almost all the differences he goes on to describe are negative, like kids getting diseases or parents fighting at home. This signifies to the reader Holden’s growing anger and fear of change, and the symbol he sees in the museum of an ideal world that never changes. But, Holden doesn’t think of himself as part of this world. Holden repeatedly uses the word “you”, breaking the fourth wall. He says “you could go there [the museum] a hundred thousand times.” By speaking in the second person, “you,” Holden further distances himself from the process of change, making the reader the one who is experiencing the events listed. He begins each of the four phrases with “or” as if he is racing to think of another horrible example of change. Salinger’s stream-of-consciousness writing style and rhythm of sentences enables the reader to fully grasp Holden’s growing agitation and fear of change. Holden ends the passage by declaring that he does not know how to explain it any further and that he does not even feel like trying anymore. This abrupt ending of the passage also confirms the sensitivity of the topic for

In The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger, repetitive diction, direct address, and sensory imagery are used to portray Holden’s reverent tone when discussing his sister Phoebe and to emphasize Holden’s desire that his audience like and are impressed by Phoebe like he is. Holden, talking about how great his sister is, ends up revealing more about his childhood and how Phoebe is living a childhood much better than his own. While rambling on about Phoebe he says, “you’d like her” multiple times (68). Holden wants to ensure that his audience likes his sister as much as he does, which is why he utilizes repetition to emphasize his honest assessment of his sister. Holden knows he is a liar and in fact claims to be so; he often uses repetition

One of the greatest American Literature writers, J.D. Salinger, was familiar with a rough childhood by experience. He was able to parallel his experiences to the experiences of Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in The Catcher in Rye. In this novel, Holden experiences conflicts that most youth are not familiar with. The conflicts in Holden Caulfield’s life are caused by various forces and circumstances.

Aloof and often vulgar are the vibes usually transmitted to the minds of people who read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, for the first time and are introduced to the protagonist. The name of the overly hypocritical protagonist of this story is named Holden Caulfield. This young man seems to mirror the classic example of a spoiled brat from an affluent family who attends a boarding school and holds no regard for his grades or his peers due to a hefty safety net waiting to break his any and every fall. At first glance, this assumption might seem plausible, but further analysis uncovers the origins of what reveal the authentic nature of Holden. The authentic nature of Holden Caulfield is revealed through his interactions with women in the book. This assertion will be supported through the three following women: Phoebe Caulfield, Sunny the prostitute, and Jane Gallagher.

You did,"..."Daddy'll kill you!"{ Salinger 165}. Holden gets into a real weird situation with a striper which leads him into an even more horrible situation , but Holden isn't too good with situation like that so he lies to the stripper so they won't have to have sex "The thing is, I had an operation very recently."..."On my wuddayacallit--my clavichord."{ Salinger 96}. When holden get into bad situations he acts weird and lies to cover himself up.

Another devices that the author uses is tone, throughout the novel Holden’s tone is always negative towards everything and everyone, he is always focusing on the bad side of things. The only time that Holden’s tone would seem to change is when he was talking about Phoebe or

In the beginning of the third chapter, Holden calls himself, “the most terrific liar you ever say in your life” (Salinger 19). This is an example of how he is hypocritical. He lies and exaggerates numerous times in the book. He also doesn’t take responsibilities to his mistakes. He always makes excuses to make himself seem like he can’t do wrong.

For instance, when Holden said, “Then, just to show you how crazy I am, when we were coming out of this big clinch, I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it. I'm crazy. I swear to God I am,” he goes against everything he has said throughout the book. In the book, Holden constantly states how other people don’t understand the world and how he hates people who live in a sea of lies.

Holden seems to tell lies because he does not want people to find out his "real story." He feels like people will judge him for being him and also he does not want other people's sympathy.

Holden is a large hypocrite, often contradicting himself. He will say he hates something, and later say he likes it, or vice versa. At the start of the novel, Holden criticizes his brother D.B’s writing, saying, “Now he’s out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute.” (Salinger, 2), but later he says, “My favourite author is my brother D.B.” (Salinger, 18). Holden judges his brother for prostituting out his writing in Hollywood, even though he is his favourite author. Another example of Holden being hypocritical is when it comes to the

The Catcher in the Rye, a controversial novel written by J.D Salinger, follows the life of a troubled teen named Holden Caulfield. Set over a period of 3 days in New York during the 1950’s, the plot follows the escapades of Holden, after he is expelled from his preparatory school. The novel, narrated through Holden's stream of consciousness, highlights modern teenage struggles while skimming many controversial topics. Its controversial content of sex, alcohol, and foul language has caused it to be banned from many libraries and school curriculums. Although, to some, The Catcher in the Rye, is seen as immoral and blasphemous, in reality, a highly moral book teaches readers about teenage struggles in a non-glamorized way.

However, his disgust for them counteracts with his own personality which implies that Holden is a hypocrite (Han 1). Holden criticizes the actions of other characters when he feels as though they have met the criteria for his groupings, but he has no intentions of placing himself into a category. The phonies symbolise the “fake” attitude that each person gives off to survive the pain of reality. Holden dislikes movies because of their non realistic imitation of emotions and because of how they reflect each individual in society (Salinger 126). This ironic connection between movies and reality show that Holden is not aware that he himself plays a role in society like a role in a film. He believes that because he is only being a phony for “fun,” he is not obligated to his own stereotypes. Salinger construes this irony in the passage where Holden tries to convince Sally to run away with him by saying “I have about a hundred and eighty bucks in the bank… No kidding. We'll stay in these cabin camps and stuff like that till the dough runs out… Honest to God, we could have a terrific time! Wuddaya say? C'mon! Wuddaya say? Will you do it with me? Please!” to create a fictional scheme out of mischief (133). His naive manner is expressed in this scene since he has no intentions of bringing this dream to reality, yet his tone of voice can be

the language of Holden Caulfield,the book's sixteen-year-old narrator,struck the ear of the contemporaryreader as an accurate rendering of the informal speech of an intelligent, educated, Northeastern American adolescent.2 In addition to commentingon its authenticity, critics have often remarked 'daring,' 'obscene,' 'blasphemous' features of Holden's lan-uneasily-the Another commonly noted feature of the book's language has been its guage. comic effect. And yet there has never been an extensive investigation of the language itself. That is what this paper proposes to do. Even though Holden's language is authentic teenage speech, recording it was certainly not the major intention of Salinger. He was faced with the artistic task of creating an individual character, not with the linguistic task of reproducingthe exact speech of teenagers in general: Yet Holden had to speak a recognizableteenage language, and at the same time had to be identifiable as an individual.This difficult task Salinger achieved by giving Holden an extremely trite and typical teenage speech, overlaid with strong personal idiosyncrasies. There are two major speech habits which are Holden's own, which are endlessly

J. D. Salinger wanted to write a story, that many believe is at least partially autobiographical, about the angst of being a teen age boy trying to navigate the transition between adolescence and adulthood. The story has been a constant in lists about the best American novels written in the twentieth century, and it has received much criticism also. It is not that people do not believe that Caulfield would have cussed as much as he does or that he would not have been exploring the sexual feelings that he did, rather people are shocked, it seems, by the stark reality of the novel. Salinger shows the character Caulfield as someone who has had a very trying experience that has damaged him for the past year. He is trying to explain to the reader why he is in the position in which he finds himself. Holden does not seem to be asking for forgiveness or understanding, as much as he is just telling a story. Caulfield seems to be an angry young man because his life has not turned out as he had hoped. His life has snowballed into something that seems unreal to him, but at the same time is much too real. The fact that he is relating the story from a hospital bed demonstrates how far he has fallen. This paper examines the events told in Caulfield's story to determine the true meaning behind what he says, and determine why he is the angry youth he seems to be.