Book Analysis: Catcher in the Rye

From the beginning of the book the reader can interpret that Holden is a person who seemingly likes to be detached from society. He isolates himself from the football game and instead decides to stand in solitude upon a hill, looking down at all those below him. As he strives to find a goodbye to Pencey Academy, one can see that this is not a new experience for him, as he divulges the details of his mobile past, jumping from one school to the next.

The Catcher in the Rye, is a flashback from when Holden left Pencey and the events that occurred until he met up with Phoebe. Pencey Prep is where Holden attended school and where this story begins. Holden has been to many different boarding schools and failed out of every one of them, Pencey was the last school that he went to and that was the worst of them all, “It was a terrible school, no matter how you looked at it’(Salinger 5). To Holden, everyone there seemed like they were putting on an act to make themselves look better. Pencey can be viewed as a symbol of being an outcast because he can not relate to many people there for the reason that he is an antisocial person. For example, while everyone else was a the biggest football game

He left 3 days before they were supposed to go home for winter break. He goes to a hotel for at least a week and walks around the city. He does not want to go home and face his parents mostly his father because Holden has got kicked 3 other private schools and his dad would “kill him.” Holden’s sister Phoebe says to him “I suppose you failed in every single subject again.” His little sister was not surprised at all that he failed out of his school again. Phoebe is 10 years old giving her bigger brother a talk about why he’s not good in school. Phoebe should not be able to give his older brother advise because she is the younger one. Holden should be mature enough to lead his sister to do good overall in life by facing his

He is not intensely preoccupied with academic achievement like many more modern teenagers, having failed out of several prestigious preparatory schools, but he is clearly intelligent and tends to dwell on“heavy” topics like death and loss of innocence. His cynicism and sensitivity, in addition to the trauma he experiences from losing his brother Allie, suggest that he has depression or another untreated mental illness, an interpretation which is common among readers and supported by Holden’s visit with a psychotherapist at the end of the novel. Despite the risks he faces through having an untreated mental illness, shown when he is warned that he is “riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall” through self-destructive behavior, the conformist culture and social niceties of the 1950s prevented him from being able to discuss his thoughts for a large portion of the novel. (186) This culture, specifically the “phony” prep schools, is clearly toxic for Holden and likely contributed heavily towards his negative mental state, and therefore the negative image he often has of

Holden also has a sister, he fears that one day he will lose her too. Holden was very close with his siblings before Allie’s death. He now is afraid he will lose his connection with Phoebe because she is the only one that is able to deal with him and his raving. Everyone else leaves him when he tries to communicate to them how he feels. Phoebe is a symbol to Holden of how innocent his childhood was, and how he wishes that he could have it back. When Holden and Phoebe are on the Merry go round Holden realizes that Phoebe will always come back, such as how she keeps coming back on the ride. This makes Holden happy because she is the

Phoebe is shown to be the only character that Holden seems to truly be affectionate towards, because she is a form of innocence and does not depict the realities of the world. She allows him to be an escapist.

The story begins from Holden being flunked out of the Pencey Preparatory School, in which he failed 4 of his 5 subjects, what was the major reason of his dismissal. However, instead of being disappointed with himself, the boy was rather content with leaving the place representing everything but truth. According to Holden, this institution, which is controlled by adults is despicable and fake; for instance, the advertisements of Pencey “[show] some hot-shot guy on a horse jumping over a fence. Like as if all you ever did at Pencey was [play] polo all the time. [He] never even once saw a horse anywhere near the place” (Salinger 4). Through his attitude towards the closest people surrounding him, Holden resents the adult world and resists entry into it, even

EDUCATION: His former teacher, a Mr. Spencer indicated that Holden has almost no motivation to finish school, failing all but one class (English) at his former school, Pencey Preparatory School. Holden is very intelligent and is very talented in english, mathematics and science, but simply lacks motivation. He finds it hard to make friends with other students and can be extremely rude towards people who he is closely acquainted with. His confidence level is above average for his age group. He understands that he is a physically attractive young man and has little trouble asking girls he just met to dance. He has trouble with boundaries, often times tackling his Pencey room mate and would knock on the doors of other boys in his class in the middle of

Holden shares many similarities with the character in this song. They are both told from the point of view of people who are both haunted, and tortured by their own thoughts and experiences. They both feel like they don't belong because they don’t fit the idea of “normal” in society. “Stradlater wasn't hardly listening. He was combing his gorgeous locks. (pg.32)” Holden is masking his feelings of rejection by believing that Stradlater is too narcissistic to

Regarding the setting, this story takes place in two primary locations, the first being Pencey Prep, and the second being New York, New York. Starting with the boarding school located in eastern Pennsylvania, a prestigious institute has high hopes of "molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men", as their school motto dictates. In this quote from Holden, "Sleep tight, ya morons!" it is indicated that he feels superior to the school and its occupants. This is not based on intellectual standards, but instead morality standards, as he believes relatively everyone in the school to be phonies.

The first song that I chose is called Teenager by Chemical Romance this music resembles when Holden got kick out of many schools especially Pencey Prep. One of the lyric says “ They’re going to clean up your looks with the lies in the books.” This lyric resembles to Holden when he says Pencey is suppose to be about making boys into splendid and clear- thinking young men. He said there were no one like that.

Most people that Holden talks to or even that he sees upsets him. This is bulkly made up of adults though. Children is the one thing that Holden seems to enjoy. The person he thinks about a lot of in his life is his sister Phoebe. Holden says," The kid was swell... he had a pretty little voice too...his parents paid no attention to him" (Salinger 150). It shows Holden's first reaction is that he enjoys the child, while the parents pay no attention to their kid's singing. Then when he goes to give the note to the office of Phoebe's school and passes the curse words that someone wrote on the wall, he immediately starts to try and get it off. Holden

In chapter 21, the author demonstrates how different a “child’s” world is different from the “adult’s” world because of the way they act.

What surprises me the most is the way the author creates a sad and strong atmosphere from the beginning of the book with Holden being described as rude, lazy and completely clueless about his future. He is one of those people that took the wrong path in life and now he is still deciding what he wants to do with his life. He has been thrown out of many schools before leaving Pency Prep and he never graduated from Pency Prep either he just left.

Holden Caulfield, a boy that struggles with his mental health, starts his story by saying, “I’m not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything. I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas” (Salinger 3). Published in the 1950s, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger depicts a three-day journey of Holden as he tries to find out more about himself. Through his struggle, Holden experiences many obstacles and events that occur in most teenager’s lives, making the book a primary target for banning due to offensive language, suicidal tendencies, sexual content, violence, and outright negativity (Information). Though The Catcher in the Rye contains numerous controversial topics, the novel is still relevant and relatable to teens today, through Holden’s depression, vulgar language, and encounters of sexual discrimination; therefore, the story should remain an option for students to read.