Holden Caulfield Biography

Paul Schnadig

October 22, 2015

Mrs. Brown Jerome David Salinger agreed to few interviews and avoided the spotlight at all costs. He spent most of his time withdrawn from the public and was one of the great mysteries among famous writers. Upon release, Salinger’s only novel, The Catcher in the Rye, instantly captured the minds of readers across the world for his depiction of adolescence and American society. His novel takes place in New York City and is about a teenage boy named Holden Caulfield who has just hit rock bottom: he lost his brother Allie to cancer and flunked out of his third prep school. Only the innocence of his younger sister, Phoebe, keeps him from completely collapsing. While Holden’s character highlights the challenges of

Salinger Biography”). After his family moved to New York’s Upper West Side, Salinger flunked out of the McBurney School, a private school, before being shipped off to face discipline at the Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania, where the voice of his character, Holden Caulfield, began to emerge (“J.D. Salinger Doesn’t Want to Talk). Similarly in The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield flunked out of Whooton School, Elkton Hills, and Pencey due to lack of applying himself and the “phoniness” of the school communities. During a meeting with his former history teacher, Mr. Spencer, regarding his future, Holden says, “Well...they’ll be pretty irritated about it, they really will. This is about the fourth school I’ve gone to” (11). Shortly after, Holden describes his experience at Elkton Hills and says, “One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by goddamn phonies…they were coming in the goddamn window…old Haas…he’d be charming as hell and all…except if some boy had funny looking parents” (17). This suggests that while Salinger was growing up, he was reluctant to conform to society and used it as an excuse for his inability to make connections with other people. Furthermore, it helps support Salinger’s absence from society, as all he saw was uniform individuals hiding their true

Salinger had turned twenty three, he started dating a young actress named Oona O’Neill, the love of his life. To Salinger’s dismay, he had to leave her for the second World War, although they remained in touch through their letters. However, after failing to reply to Salinger, O’Neill began seeing Charlie Chaplin, the man whom with she would eventually get married to (“J.D. Salinger Biography”). Holden Caulfield deals with a similar situation with Sally Hayes where he fails to return her letter regarding the trimming of the Christmas tree. Holden calls Sally completely drunk and says, “Yeah. Listen, hey. I’ll come over Christmas Eve. Okay? Trimma goddamn tree for ya. Okay? Okay, hey, Sally? (167)”. Though it is impossible to know how Salinger really felt after hearing the truth, it is reasonable to believe that he felt betrayed and heartbroken. This may have been Salinger’s way of getting back at Oona O’Neill: portraying her decision as being as ridiculous as Holden Caulfield’s drunk call to Sally