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Catcher In The Rye Research Paper

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J.D Salinger is an author that has been through a lot in his life and still not a lot is known about him or his life. and yet his characters in his novels show how he thinks and what he has gone through in a certain way.In his story, The Catcher in the Rye, we follow the experiences of a young teenager named Holden Caulfield. Throughout the story Holden expresses his experiences, problems, and thoughts which can be compared to those of Salinger. Their youth, schooling habits and experiences, and the way they view the world and the people in it are can be considered very similar. To begin, the two grew up in a very similar way. The two of them grew up in New York. Additionally, both of their families were well off, which showed them the more …show more content…

They both believe that most people are “phony” and “not real”. As a result, they search for people who are real and down to earth. Because of those “phony people the two prefer to live in a secluded lifestyle. therefore Salinger moves from the loud New York City to the quiet secluded Cornish, New Hampshire. Similarly Holden talks about leaving New York and going west several times to live by himself. Additionally, they have both been traumatized in some sort of way. For Salinger, he fought in World War II and came back from D-Day, The Battle of the Bulge, and Liberating Concentration camps. “The concentration camps particularly upset him. In her memoir, his daughter Margaret recalled her father telling her, ‘You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely. No matter how long you live,’"( Shmoop.com ). This resulted in Salinger coming home with ptsd. Holden on the other hand lost his little brother to leukemia, and in reaction to this holden broke all the windows in his garage and had to be hospitalized. As a result of the trauma that these two have endured, they search, protect, and reach out to the minds and bodies of the children in the world who still have their innocence and they try to protect it from being destroyed by the things that destroyed their lives. This leads to the reason in which why Holden wants to be “The Catcher in the

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In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger illustrates how children mature through their exposure to trauma. Salinger uses character interactions to show the effects of a child's mindset when experiencing childhood trauma. Holden experiments with many different illegal activities including drugs and alcohol, which connects back to his childhood home experience. Holden grew up in a very intense childhood home situation.

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Salinger chose such a place to contrast with Holden’s situation. New York constantly buzzes with thousands of citizens yet Holden still feels so alone. It showcases the isolation felt by Holden extremely well. He has “lived in New York all [his] life, and [knows] Central Park like the back of [his] hand...but had the most terrific trouble finding the lagoon…” (154). By using such a well known place, Salinger gives the reader an idea of how desperately lonely Holden becomes after leaving Pencey Prep; he illustrates Holden’s struggle to find his way in the park and in his

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The article states, “Despite his apparent intellect, Salinger — or Sonny as he was known as a child — wasn’t much of a student”. Salinger had never been much of a good student, as he was always switching schools and universities, which also caused him to struggle with fitting in. JD Salinger was very similar to Holden in this case because Holden was also not a very great student and also moved around a lot. Another example of a similarity between J.D. Salinger and Holden Caulfield was that they both dropped out of school. Salinger and Holden’s parents were very similar as they both knew that their parents would have severe consequences for dropping out of the school they were attending.

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The Catcher in the Rye is a novel written by J.D. Salinger that follows Holden Caulfield as he wanders through New York after being kicked out of school; whilst he deals with the loss of his brothers, the phoniness of everyday life, and his own innocence in an unforgiving world. The loss of Holden’s brothers plays a huge part in why Holden is so lost in this crucial part of his life. Having lost one younger brother, Allie, to death and one older brother, D.B., to Hollywood, Holden feels constantly betrayed by both of them for not being there for him. Despite this, Holden constantly looks back on memories of the two and even talks to them when he feels the need.

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In the beginning of the novel Salinger portrays Holden as a antisocial person who is often seen alone and describes the world as a “ world full of phonies” one example of this is at the beginning of the book wherein the

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Holden Caulfield, the main protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, embodies the classic teenager in the process of discovering himself, and how the world works. But, regardless of Holden 's rich, prep school lifestyle, the series of events that have mapped out his life up to this point have utterly affected his emotional well being and perception of the world. Many traumatic events such as the death of holds brother Allie, the death of a class mate, and countless numbers of awkward incidents with adults have all added up to affects Holden 's well-being and detach him from reality. The death of Holden 's younger brother Allie has caused him to confuse his perception of reality and to alienate himself.

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The Catcher in the Rye Final Essay (Draft) In J.D. Salinger's fiction book, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden, a teen living in the 1940’s, experiences his teen years in strange and unusual ways. Holden teaches us that everyone experiences frustrations throughout life but can always manage them. Some readers of the novel believe that the book has lost its significance due to the fact that it was written so long ago.

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Though Holden believes the world around him is phony and wicked, and while he wants to be the catcher in the rye, catching those who will fall over cliff; Holden does not only want to save those children but he also wants to save himself. Holden displays his desire to be the catcher in the rye by expressing his wish to protect the kids from falling off the cliff. Throughout the novel, Holden often states that everything around him seems to be phony; however, there is one thing in which Holden believes is real, and that is the children he encounters in the novel. Quite often does Holden show his desire to protect children from the corrupted adulthood that he

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