Persuasive Essay On The Catcher In The Rye

489 Words2 Pages

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though. Having read JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye a whopping one time, I’d consider myself somewhat of an expert on the subject. I’d even go to the extent of saying it would be my specialist subject of choice if I ever got the chance to appear on Mastermind. Holden Caulfield, the outspoken protagonist and narrator of the novel, is a character many teenagers around the world share similarities with, and that can account for the distinguished popularity of the book which has been flying off of the shelves ever since its release in 1951. Flying off the shelves not only for its ability to connect with audiences …show more content…

Seventeen year old Holden Caulfield is a character who is resentful of the adult world, while displaying immature, almost childish behavior as the novel progresses. He is afraid of change and struggling through life, despite having the whole world ahead of him. The first quote that I’m going to analyse is one of the most powerful and memorable quotes from the entire book, namely because it’s in the title. Holden is protective of his youthful qualities and doesn’t want to abandon them when he drifts into adulthood. He refers to himself in chapter 22 as ‘the catcher in the rye’, saving ‘thousands of little kids’ from their impending doom as they start running off of the edge of a cliff. He, by stopping them from going over the edge, is