F. Salinger 's ' The Catcher 's The Rye '

Despite his longing for acceptance, “His efforts to connect with any stereotypical kid his age result in abject failure“(Privitera 204). Salinger thoroughly emphasizes this through Holden’s relationships with Stradlater and Ackley, with both of whom he has a strenuous and artificial relationship, demonstrated by his internal, flippant commentaries on his peers as he discusses them in the book (Salinger 31-40). Holden’s peers ostracize him due to his more introspective and introverted nature, as seen in Stradlater’s angry response to Holden’s reflective response to this writing assignment, saying that he doesn’t “do one damn thing the way [he’s] supposed to”(Salinger 47). These difficulties stem not from deficiencies of his peers, but rather a problem of Holden’s refusal to accept anything different from what he expects, making excuses about his reasons throughout the book to cover his actions. His rationalization of his internal wants and desires impedes any proper connection he could possibly make with his peers. He, “Subconsciously longs to be accepted yet feels he cannot make the connection”(Privitera 205).

One way that J.D. Salinger shows off a side of Holden is through the characterization. An aspect of Holden that Salinger creates is his school personality. Holden comes off as a protected person. At the very beginning of Catcher in the Rye, one of the first views of the narrator is a scene of him standing on top of a hill, looking down at one of the most important games of the season for his school’s team. In this passage, Holden is standing on top of a hill, next to a cannon, watching the school game below. This shows how Holden is protecting himself. His school is playing in one of the biggest games of the season, yet Holden is standing in a place where he can’t even view his side. When Holden refers to Pencey, he always uses third person phrases, like “them all” almost as if he doesn’t go to the school at all. He also refers to them in a very grouped way, instead of saying ‘them,’ he refers to the rest of the school as “all.” This kind of language excludes himself as a part of

Are 50’s teens able to survive the hurtful but unavoidable transition of becoming a grown up as they struggle with the changes that come along with it?

J.D. Salinger has written multiple novels, but his most famous is The Catcher in the Rye. Not only is this novel famous for its literary merit, it is also known as his most banned novel in certain schools. Even though this novel has been banned, J.D. Salinger’s themes and moralistic purposes serve literary worth.

In the novel Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield, our protagonist, makes a mental journey in relation to dealing and coping with the grief accompanied with the death of his brother, and we are able to see how his mental status changes and how he needs guidance from loved ones. In this journey, he learns about how to make connections and that staying close to the people he loves can improve his outlook on life and overall mood. During the book, he isolated himself from others and always found the negative in everything, which did put him in a very grim place. In fact, he even becomes clinically depressed, as we can clearly see from our point of view. He soon learns that being with his younger sister Phoebe almost brought

J.D Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, is the story of Holden Caulfield’s loss of faith in society, and in particular adults. Salinger uses a number of symbols to demonstrate Holden’s rebellion against the phony facade of society and his desire to preserve the innocence of children, especially those he loves. Chief among them is Holden’s misinterpretation of Robert Burns’ poem “Comin thro’ the Rye”, wherein Holden mistakes the original line, “If a body meet a body”, with “If a body catch a body”. Holden fantasizes about being the “Catcher in the Rye” who saves millions of children from metaphorically falling off the edge of a cliff, in other words, losing their innocence and becoming phony adults, . Holden’s fixation with preserving innocence appears to emerge after the death of his brother Allie, three years earlier. For example, when Holden is asked what he likes by his sister Phoebe he responds with “I like Allie” even though Allie is dead. Holden idolizes his younger siblings, Allie and Phoebe, noting that children that still have their innocence and have not been corrupted by adulthood, an example of this is the way Phoebe still puts sentimental value in the pieces of the “Little Shirley Beans” record, and the way that Allie wrote poems on the inside of his baseball mitt so that “he’d have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up at bat.”

The character of Holden Caulfield has been built by Salinger to represent the stereotypical juvenile delinquent. He wears his hat backwards (p.15), swears using words like “goddamn” (p.18) and “crumby” and uses a lot of slang such as “chew the rag” (p.23) meaning to chat and “bucks” (p31) meaning dollars. Holden also involves himself in fights (p.36-39), smokes and flunks out of school these are all actions of rebellion against the expectations of adults. These behaviors highlight Holden’s attitude towards himself and others, and how others may perceive him as a person. Of course, we only appreciate this

Censorship -the prohibition of books, movies and other forms of media- is a prevalent issue that has detrimentally affects our society by suppressing knowledge to the people. High schools all over the nation have banned novels such as the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Grapes of Wrath, and To Kill a Mockingbird; classics that have shaped literature. For decades now, Catcher in the Rye has been subjected to criticism and controversy due to the contentious topics it contains. The novel portrays the life of a 16 year old boy named Holden Caulfield whose journey through his teenage years contain many practical pressures and dilemmas. Through the profanity and atrocious events in novel, author J.D. Salinger’s skillful writing deals with ubiquitous

It happened when I was young. I was outside at my friend’s house sledding. We were taking a break when I got that phone call from my mom; she was crying. My sister was on her way to the emergency room. I started sprinting through the neighborhood towards my house. My dad was waiting with my brother in the car. My mom went with my sister in the ambulance. I was so scared that I was going to lose my sister. We got to the hospital and we were in the waiting room. It felt like days before we heard about her condition. My sister had pneumonia and mixed with her asthma she was having a hard time breathing. She had a severe attack and couldn’t breathe. If the crew from the ambulance didn’t show up the doctor said she wouldn’t have made it. I know

The self-narration of Holden’s life is what gives the reader an insight into the way he thinks and feels. It helps you understand why Holden is the way he is. Without this explanation from him, you wouldn’t empathise with him, or like him very much at all. It’s the little stories he tells, like the story about Allies baseball mitt, “…Allie had this left-handed fielders mitt… he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink.” (Salinger, 1945-6, p.33) or about how he knows Jane Gallagher, “You were never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really were” (Salinger, 1945-6, p.72) that make you see the softer side to him.

Catcher in the Rye is a novel written by J.D Salinger, it follows 17-year-old Holden Caulfield throughout the days following his expulsion from Pencey Prep. The book dives into Holden’s unstable mind as he recounts his story from a rest home, often feeling confused, lost and mad at the world. This underlining theme of teenage angst has become very popular and finds itself in various works of modern day media such as the television show the Fosters. The Fosters follows the story of a similarly troubled but headstrong Callie Jacobs and her journey with her new foster family. These two works of teenage angst share many similarities and differences, especially between Holden and Callie in ways such as how they alienate themselves, their views on the adult world and their want to protect innocence.

From the beginning of time, achieving success and greatness has been the ultimate human goal. Success can be found in many different forms, from ruling a Roman empire to receiving a high grade on a test. Society’s view of success has changed throughout generations, urging people to conform to society’s beliefs in order to fulfill their goals and dreams. The theme of success and fulfillment are evident in literature and theatre pieces that were written centuries ago, and continue into novels written in the present. The play Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, and the novel The Catcher in the Rye, written by J. D. Salinger follow the lives of two protagonists’ as they are each individually shaped by society’s idea of prosperity. The protagonists of both the novel and the play, Holden and Macbeth, exhibit similar qualities that allow them to attempt to achieve ultimate greatness and find success. Both the novel The Catcher in the Rye and the play Macbeth demonstrate the pressure there is on men to prosper and achieve high rankings in society. This pressure leads to the development of wrath and mental illness, resulting in the disruption of harmony. Both Holden and Macbeth possess significant amounts of wrath, causing poor decision-making. To add, Macbeth and Holden both struggle with mental illness, again causing unfavourable outcomes. While the men possess these similarities, they differ in the outcome of their stories. As Macbeth fails to overcome his wrath and mental

Additionally, it can get somewhat mundane during the narration. As much as that happens, it’s still a fascinating read. The most meaningful line in the book is, “I don’t exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it” (104-105). Seeing that it explains him, how he contradicts himself, how he’s just a kid my age trying to figure himself out. It makes him relatable. Holden is always at this crossroad of what he thinks he should be feeling and how he actually feels, and it produces the tension of the novel. It’s as if he is a rubber band, twisting over and over and pulling himself tighter, until he snaps. He just wants to be genuine and true to himself, but he doesn’t know what that entails to him yet, and this quote puts that perfectly into a small phrase. The most beautiful quote in The Catcher in the Rye is, “You’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior…You’ll learn from them-if you want to. Just as somebody, if you have something to offer, will learn something from you” (246). This just expresses such a nice sentiment, which focuses on the idea that we are all interconnected and we have the ability to make a positive difference. That is only if we work on ourselves, and learn from what we before did not know, thus gives room to grow and change. It provides comfort to both Holden and

“Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody”. Catcher in the Rye is a novel by J.D Salinger, it tells about a teen name Holden Caulfield going to in New York who is resisting going into adulthood and later on to fail school then take a journey through places going back home and he explains the way he feels about things.

The book “Catcher in the Rye” by J.D Salinger was under scrutiny in 1960 when it got banned from high schools due to censorships believing it was inappropriate for people of high school age and although it may have been the right thing to do over six decades ago; it is definitely not the right thing to do in 2016. In the 60’s curse words and sexual references would have been frowned upon, but in this day and age it’s very accepted and common to hear and read about those two things. The book also depicts real life situations and most of them are not things people should be doing, but that doesn’t matter since teens these days aren’t usually greatly influenced by the things they watch or the things they see on social media. Therefore J.D Salinger’s