catcher in the rye holden essay

The Catcher in the Rye

J. d. salinger, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Holden Caulfield Quotes in The Catcher in the Rye

"Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules."

"Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it."

Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, all right—I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game.

[Ackley] took another look at my hat […]. "Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake," he said. "That’s a deer shooting hat."

"Like hell it is." I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. "This is a people shooting hat," I said. "I shoot people in this hat."

I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage. I don’t blame them. I really don’t. I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it…It was a very stupid thing to do, I’ll admit, but I hardly didn’t even know I was doing it, and you didn’t know Allie.

When I was all set to go, when I had my bags and all, I stood for a while next to the stairs and took a last look down the goddam corridor. I was sort of crying. I don’t know why. I put my red hunting hat on, and turned the peak around to the back, the way I liked it, and then I yelled at the top of my goddam voice, "Sleep tight, ya morons!" I’ll bet I woke up every bastard on the whole floor. Then I got the hell out.

You know those ducks in that lagoon right near Central Park South? That little lake? By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over?

If you want to know the truth, I’m a virgin. I really am. I’ve had quite a few opportunities to lose my virginity and all, but I’ve never got around to it yet. Something always happens…I came quite close to doing it a couple of times, though. One time in particular, I remember. Something went wrong, though—I don’t even remember what any more.

The trouble was, I just didn’t want to do it. I felt more depressed than sexy, if you want to know the truth. She was depressing. Her green dress hanging in the closet and all. And besides, I don’t think I could ever do it with somebody that sits in a stupid movie all day long. I really don’t think I could.

It took me quite a while to get to sleep—I wasn’t even tired—but finally I did. What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would’ve done it, too, if I’d been sure somebody’d cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn’t want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory.

I got up close so I could hear what he was singing. He was singing that song, “If a body catch a body coming through the rye.” He had a pretty little voice, too. He was just singing for the hell of it, you could tell. The cars zoomed by, brakes screeched all over the place, his parents paid no attention to him, and he kept on walking next to the curb and singing “If a body catch a body coming through the rye.” It made me feel better. It made me feel not so depressed any more.

She was a very nice, polite little kid. God, I love it when a kid’s nice and polite when you tighten their skate for them or something. Most kids are. They really are. I asked her if she’d care to have a hot chocolate or something with me, but she said no, thank you. She said she had to meet her friend. Kids always have to meet their friend. That kills me.

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. You could go there a hundred times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you.

Then, just to show you how crazy I am, when we were coming out of this big clinch, I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it. I’m crazy. I swear to God I am.

“You ought to go to a boys’ school sometime. Try it sometime,” I said. “It’s full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques.”

I said no, there wouldn’t be marvelous places to go to after I went to college and all. Open your ears. It’d be entirely different. We’d have to go downstairs in elevators with suitcases and stuff. We’d have to phone up everybody and tell ’em good-by and send ’em postcards from hotels and all…It wouldn’t be the same at all. You don’t see what I mean at all.

"You don’t like any thing that’s happening."

It made me even more depressed when she said that.

"Yes I do. Yes I do. Sure I do. Don’t say that. Why the hell do you say that?"

"Because you don’t. You don’t like any schools. You don’t like a million things. You don’t ."

"I do! That’s where you’re wrong—that’s exactly where you’re wrong! Why the hell do you have to say that?" I said. Boy, was she depressing me.

"Because you don’t," she said. "Name one thing."

"One thing? One thing I like?" I said. "Okay."

The trouble was, I couldn’t concentrate too hot. Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate.

Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.

This fall I think you’re riding for—it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement’s designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn’t supply them with. So they gave up looking.

Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score…Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them—if you want to.

[W]hile I was sitting down, I saw something that drove me crazy. Somebody’d written "Fuck you" on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they’d wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them…I hardly even had the guts to rub it off the wall with my hand, if you want to know the truth. I was afraid some teacher would catch me rubbing it off and would think I’d written it. But I rubbed it out anyway, finally.

That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write “Fuck you” right under your nose... I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have tombstone and all, it’ll say “Holden Caulfield” on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it’ll say “Fuck you.” I’m positive, in fact.

All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the goddam horse, but I didn’t say anything or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them.

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Plot summary

Interpretation, publication and initial reception.

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The Catcher in the Rye

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• Table Of Contents

The Catcher in the Rye , novel by J.D. Salinger published in 1951. The novel details two days in the life of 16-year-old Holden Caulfield after he has been expelled from prep school . Confused and disillusioned , Holden searches for truth and rails against the “phoniness” of the adult world. He ends up exhausted and emotionally unstable. The events are related after the fact.

From what is implied to be a sanatorium, Holden, the narrator and protagonist, tells the story of his adventures before the previous Christmas. The story begins with Holden at Pencey Prep School on his way to the house of his history teacher, Spencer, so that he can say goodbye. He reveals to the reader that he has been expelled for failing most of his classes. After he visits Spencer, he encounters his roommate, Ward Stradlater, who asks Holden to write an essay for English class for him while he goes on a date with a longtime friend of Holden’s. Having agreed, Holden writes about the baseball glove of his younger brother, Allie, who died of leukemia . When Stradlater returns, he tells Holden that the essay isn’t good, and Holden gets angry when Stradlater refuses to say whether he had sex with his date. This causes Holden to storm out and leave Pencey for New York City a few days earlier than planned for Christmas break. Once he arrives in New York , he cannot go home, as his parents do not yet know that he has been expelled. Instead, he rents a room at the Edmont Hotel, where he witnesses some sexually charged scenes through the windows of other rooms. His loneliness then causes him to seek out human interaction, which he does at the Lavender Room, the hotel’s nightclub. After interacting with some women there, he goes to another nightclub, only to leave after seeing his elder brother’s ex-girlfriend. When he gets back to the hotel, he orders a prostitute to his room, only to talk to her. This situation ends in him being punched in the stomach.

The next morning, Holden calls Sally Hayes, an ex-girlfriend of his. They spend the day together until Holden makes a rude remark and she leaves crying. Holden then meets up with a former schoolmate, Carl Luce, at a bar, but Luce leaves early because he becomes annoyed by Holden’s immature comments. Holden stays behind and gets drunk by himself. After he leaves, he wanders in Central Park until the cold drives him to his family’s apartment. He sneaks in, still not prepared to face his parents, and finds his 10-year-old sister, Phoebe. She is upset when she hears that Holden has failed out and accuses him of not liking anything. It is at this time that Holden describes to his sister his fantasy of being “the catcher in the rye,” which was inspired by a song he heard a little boy singing: “If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye.” Phoebe tells him that the words are “If a body meet a body coming through the rye,” from a poem by Robert Burns . (Burns’s poem, “Comin thro’ the Rye,” exists in several versions, but most render the lines as “Gin a body meet a body / Comin thro’ the rye.”) Soon they hear their parents come home after a night out, and Holden sneaks away. He calls his former English teacher, Mr. Antolini, who tells Holden he can come stay at his apartment. Holden falls asleep on Antolini’s couch and awakes to Antolini stroking his forehead, which Holden interprets as a sexual advance. He immediately excuses himself and heads to Grand Central Station , where he spends the rest of the night. When he awakes, he goes to Phoebe’s school and leaves a note telling her that he plans to run away and asking her to meet him at a museum during lunch. She arrives with a packed bag and insists on going with him. He tells her no and instead takes her to the zoo, where he watches her ride the carousel in the pouring rain. This is where the flashback ends. The novel closes with Holden explaining that he has fallen “sick” but is expected to go to a new school in the fall.

The Catcher in the Rye takes the loss of innocence as its primary concern. Holden wants to be the “catcher in the rye”—someone who saves children from falling off a cliff, which can be understood as a metaphor for entering adulthood. As Holden watches Phoebe on the carousel, engaging in childlike behaviour, he is so overcome with happiness that he is, as he puts it, “damn near bawling.” By taking her to the zoo, he allows her to maintain her childlike state, thus being a successful “catcher in the rye.” During this time, however, watching her and the other children on the carousel, he has also come to accept that he cannot save everyone: “If they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off.”

Holden’s name is also significant: Holden can be read as “hold on,” and Caulfield can be separated into caul and field . Holden’s desire is to “hold on” to the protective covering (the caul ) that encloses the field of innocence (the same field he wishes to keep the children from leaving). Holden desperately wants to remain true and innocent in a world full of, as he puts it, “phonies.” Salinger once admitted in an interview that the novel was semi-autobiographical.

The Caulfield family was one Salinger had already explored in a number of stories that had been published by different magazines. Holden appeared in some of those stories, even narrating one, but he was not as richly fleshed out in them as he would be in The Catcher in the Rye . The novel, unlike the other stories of the Caulfield family, had difficulties getting published. Originally solicited by Harcourt, Brace and Company, the manuscript was rejected after the head of the trade division asked whether Holden was supposed to be crazy. It was then that Salinger’s agent, Dorothy Olding, approached Little, Brown and Company, which published the novel in 1951. After Little, Brown bought the manuscript, Salinger showed it to The New Yorker , assuming that the magazine, which had published several of his short stories, would want to print excerpts from the novel. The New Yorker rejected it, however, as the editors found the Caulfield children too precocious to be plausible and Salinger’s writing style exhibitionistic.

The Catcher in the Rye ’s reception was lukewarm at first. Many critics were impressed by Holden as a character and, specifically, by his style of narration. Salinger was able to create a character whose relatability stemmed from his unreliability—something that resonated with many readers. Others, however, felt that the novel was amateur and unnecessarily coarse.

After publishing The Catcher in the Rye , Salinger became a recluse. When asked for the rights to adapt it for Broadway or Hollywood , he emphatically declined. Despite Holden’s never having appeared in any form subsequent to that in Salinger’s novel, the character has had a long-lasting influence, reaching millions of readers, including two particularly notorious ones. In 1980 Mark David Chapman identified so wholly with Holden that he became convinced that murdering John Lennon would turn him into the novel’s protagonist. The Catcher in the Rye was also linked to John W. Hinckley, Jr. ’s attempted assassination of U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan in 1981. The novel remained influential into the 21st century; indeed, many American high schools included it in their curriculum. The novel has been banned numerous times because of its salty language and sexual content.

86 Catcher in the Rye Essay Topics & Ideas

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• Hypocrisy in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger Stradlater reveals to Holden that he has a date waiting and that he needs to shave. Stradley asks Holden to write an essay for him and informs him that the former is taking a girl […]
• Alcohol, Violence, and Sex Content in Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” For example, The Catcher in the Rye is a book that appeals to the majority of adults while the representatives of the younger generation often turn out to be not able to come to the […]
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• In What Way Is The Catcher in the Rye an Iconic Work We, however, do not subscribe to such point of view, because there are good reasons to believe that the actual explanation as to this novel’s iconic status is the fact that in The Catcher in […]
• The Idea of Love in The Great Gatsby and the Parallels or Contrasts That Can Be Drawn With the Presentation of Love in The Catcher in the Rye Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Jerome Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, it is possible to state that the notion of love is presented there similarly even though the texts are absolutely different and […]
• Holden’s Inability to Comprehend Reality in Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” This indicates Holden’s growth as future situations indicate he is aware of his age and does not perceive issues as a child, returning to school after the escapade.
• The Pain of Maturation in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.Salinger The important literary device used to depict Holden confronting the pressure of the society and the corruption of the adult world is characterization, as the main character calls people he meets “phony” and refers to […]
• “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger The book’s story of escape and a search for happiness despite all the sham and drudgery in this world is the topic of this paper.
• “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger Review Critics admit that Salinger’s depiction of Holden Caulfield symbolizes the dilemma of the idealist in the contemporary world and shows the primary structural framework of a novel.
• Jerome Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Thus, this paper, starting with the outline of characters and plot, discusses potential interpretations of The Catcher in the Rye and proposes the opinion of the paper’s author.
• J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye The reason is that the face value of the content impairs the ability of the reader to dig deep into the book and unravel some disturbing traits about Holden.
• The Theme of the Loss of Innocence in “The Catcher in the Rye” by Salinger
• The Universal Theme of Growing up and the Colorful Symbolism of “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Use of Defense Mechanisms in J. D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”
• The Use of Isolation and Alienation to Idealize Innocence in Holden’s World in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Search for Company and Failure of Holden in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Effects of Past Experiences in the Mental Health and Relationships of Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye”
• Transition to Adulthood in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Themes of Maturity and Preserving Innocence in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Tragedy of Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Struggles of Holden Caulfied in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• Universal Confusion and Evil in William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” and J. D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”
• An Analysis of the Sexuality in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Thoughts and Feelings of a Teenager in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain and in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• Unreachable Dreams as an Important Theme in Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”
• The Use of Symbols to Demonstrate Holden’s Fear of Maturity and the Adult World in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Use of Rhetorical Choices in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Theme of Protecting Innocence in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
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• The Theme of Individual and Society in “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck and “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
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• An Analysis of How Men Lose Their Innocence as They Age in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Common Themes of Suffering and Adjustment in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Life Struggles of Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Importance of Companionship in Humanity in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Theme of Falsification in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Themes of Maturation and the Problems a Teenager Goes Through in Maturing in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• An Analysis of Angst in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Innocence of Childhood in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• An Analysis of the Human Condition in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• An Overview of the Complexity of Holden Character in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Meaning of the Red Hunting Hat in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Value of Innocence in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• The Hatred of Holden Caulfield for Phonies in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• Use of Symbolism in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• Compare and Contrast the Literary Device Used in “Death of a Salesman” and “The Catcher in the Rye”
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• The Portrayal of Teenage Angst in the Character of Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger
• How Does Clinical Depression Affect the Main Character of “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• What About Holden’s Relationships With Teachers and Classmates Helps Us to Understand More About His Character in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• How Does Holden Caulfield See Himself as the Catcher in the Rye?
• Why Does Holden From “The Catcher in the Rye” Love the Museum of Natural History?
• Which of Holden’s Efforts Paid Off in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• How Does Holden Caulfield Subconcioulsy Protect the Innocence of Childhood in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• Is Holden Honest Enough With Himself in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• How Does Holden Deal With Death in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• Is Holden a Sociopath in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• What Does the Novel “The Catcher in the Rye” Tell About Human Nature?
• How Does New York City Represent Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• Why Does Holden Caulfield Always Lie in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• How Does Holden Deal With Grief in Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• Is “The Catcher in the Rye” a Classic Story?
• Can Clinical Depression Be Related to Holden in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• What Are Symbols Meaning and Significance in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• How Does Holden Caulfield Deal With Alcohol, Sex, and Violence in “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger?
• How Does Holden Build Relationships With People in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• Does Mr. Antolini in “The Catcher in the Rye” Give Good Advice for Modern Teenagers?
• How Are Themes of Alienation and Loneliness Presented in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• Is Holden an Insane Person in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• Can Holden Be Considered a Tragic Hero in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• How Is Alcoholism Represented in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• Is the Novel “The Catcher in the Rye” Based on One Literary Element?
• Do All of Holden’s Problems in “The Catcher in the Rye” Come From Him Being a Spoiled Child?
• What Does “The Catcher in the Rye” Teach the Reader?
• Can Holden Be Considered as an Anti-Hero in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• Can Holden Be Considered a Static or Dynamic Character in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
• Is “The Catcher in the Rye” a Novel About Social Protest?
• What Is the Significance of the Red Hunter’s Hat That Holden Wears in “The Catcher in the Rye”?
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The Catcher in the Rye

The root of holden caulfield's suffering anonymous 11th grade.

Holden Caulfield, the protagonist and narrator of The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, constantly points out flaws in other people but is unable to see his own. Be it positive or negative, he loathes change. Through his general hatred of others and his inability to accept the prospect of an ever-changing world of people, Holden alienates himself from society and becomes an outcast. Almost all of his pain and depression stems, however, from one specific event that causes him distress to the point that it could almost be considered post-traumatic stress disorder: the death of his younger brother Allie. When one connects Holden’s constant pain and alienation to the death of his younger brother, the question of how Allie’s death influences Holden’s life arises. Although he never interacts with Holden, Allie still has the strongest influence on his life.

Holden constantly finds flaws in the people around him and complains about them, explaining in depth why each person hides who he or she truly is: "You remember I said before that Ackley was a slob in his personal habits? Well, so was Stradlater, but in a different way. Stradlater was more of a secret slob. He always looked all right, Stradlater, but for instance, you should've...

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Catcher In The Rye - List of Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” unveils a compelling exploration of teenage alienation and the quest for identity through its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Essays could delve into the thematic richness of the novel, examining its critique of phoniness in society and its poignant portrayal of adolescent angst. They might also discuss the character of Holden, analyzing his narrative voice, his struggle with mental health, and his longing for innocence and authenticity. Discussions could extend to the literary style, cultural impact, and the enduring relevance of “The Catcher in the Rye” in understanding the complexities of teenage experience, mental health, and the human condition. A substantial compilation of free essay instances related to Catcher In The Rye you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Childhood and Adulthood in the Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher in the Rye represents childhood as innocence and adulthood as being phony. Holden refuses to grow up but his age and school is forcing it upon him. Holden has a great protection of a child's innocence. He was alienated from the society. And is disgusted by the phoniness of the adult world. He is just trying to protect his adolescence and others close to him. Holden believes strongly in protecting adolescence innocence. He has a fear for maturity […]

The Catcher in the Rye Symbolism

What do the Ducks Mean in The Catcher in the Rye In The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger the author, weaved a variety of symbols into the novel. One symbol that contributed to the overall theme of the painfulness of growing up was the ducks in Central Park. From start to end, Holden wondered and asked people where the ducks went. In the novel, Holden states, I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and […]

Walking with Holden: Interpreting “Coming through the Rye”

For generations, J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" has enraptured readers, educators, and critics alike, largely due to its relatable teenage protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Within the narrative, there's a recurrent theme attached to Robert Burns' poem, "Comin' Thro' the Rye". The poem itself, and Holden's interpretation of it, provides a profound window into the psyche of Salinger's character and the broader themes of the novel. Robert Burns, the famed Scottish poet, penned "Comin' Thro' the Rye" in the late […]

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Love for Childhood Innocence in the Catcher in the Rye

Childhood is where every conscious child wants to be an adult and Adulthood is where every adult secretly wants to be a child again - Abhimanyu Singh. Holden's lousy childhood experience emphasizes his love for childhood innocence throughout the book. In the novel, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden dislikes the idea of becoming an adult and makes wants to protect his sister Phoebe from the cruelty of adulthood. As Holden matures and becomes more aware of his […]

Catcher in the Rye Summary

In the novel The Catcher In The Rye by J.D Salinger, the main character Holden Caulfield is a troubled child and fears the change from childhood to adulthood. Throughout the novel, the main character Holden Caulfield takes us through a few days of his life, in which he flaunts his hostile attitude to us. Over the course of his journey, there is a subtle, yet important, pattern. The author of this book J.D Salinger was born on January 1st, 1919 […]

Analysis of the Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

In Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger is a novel about a young boy named Holden Caulfield who was raised in a very wealthy family. Holden has a ten-year-old sister named Phoebe and she is his favorite person than the many of the few people he likes. Holden has an older brother, D.B Caulfield. They are very distant because D.B goes to Hollywood and sells books. Holden sees D.B as prostituting his talents by writing for Hollywood movies. […]

A Catcher in the Rye Theme

Teenage years; a quest for self identity, a sense of self. In trying to find themselves, it’s not uncommon to find a teenager experimenting with smoking, drugs, and sex. Teenagers use vulgar language, and are more rebellious than they were in their earlier years. In the essay on Catcher in the Rye, a 16 year old boy by the name of Holden tells his narrative from the lonely walls of a sanatorium. Holden tells about his journey with sex, smoking, […]

Catcher in the Rye Growing up Theme

In J.D. Salinger’s, The Catcher in the Rye, Childhood and adolescence are depicted by times of innocence and wonder. Throughout Salinger’s novel, the main character, Holden, struggles with the concept of growing up in life. While Holden, wanting to act more like an adult such as his friends, Holden always finds a way to stay on the path of the youth. Throughout the novel, Holden struggles between the line youth and the line of maturity and this causes Holden great […]

Mental Health of Teens and the Catcher in the Rye

What people never understand is that depression isn't about the outside; it's about the inside, a quote asserted by Jasmine Warga. Associating with the black cloud of depression by concealing one's true feelings is the way many people were brought up by. Depression has a way of silently striking a person, similar to the way it overtook Holden Caulfield, in the book The Catcher in the Rye (genre: literary realism), written by J.D Salinger. Although Holden Caulfield was never clearly […]

The Catcher in the Rye Monologue

If you really want to hear about it, you'll probably want to know about my lousy childhood, and where I was born, or maybe what my parents do for a living if you're feeling especially phony. But it's not like I'm going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography, for Chrissake. I'll just tell you about some of the crazy stuff that happened to me around last Christmas after they kicked me out of Pencey and before I got sort […]

Catcher in the Rye Depression

The Catcher in the Rye, was written in 1951. Salinger, the author of this novel, was born January first 1919, and was widely known because of this book itself. There was no movie made based off the Catcher in the Rye because Salinger refused to sell movie rights. Even though Salinger passed away, his family still lives up to what he wants, which is to only have a book. Salinger worked on this book while fighting in World War II, […]

About Teenagers’ Mind in the Catcher in the Rye

J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye should be in Penn Manor's Literature curriculum because of his ability to present an accurate and descriptive representation of a teenagers' mind; his use of locations as symbols that represent a phony and cruel world; and the depiction of his own life experiences and the conflicts he encountered during his school life. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, represents an accurate and descriptive representation of a teenagers' mind because of his […]

Catcher in the Rye Censorship

Catcher in the Rye may not seem like an age appropriate book for teenagers to be reading during such a confusing time, you cannot judge a book based on the cover or what others may deem as inappropriate. For many many years, this novel has been challenged and even banned in some schools because of the language used in the book. Looking past the expletives used or the content that is in it is beside the point because there can […]

The Catcher in the Rye: Symbols

I Remember… School makes me think of my friends which makes my think about laughing which makes me think about my birthday which makes me think of parties which make me think of music which makes me think of eating which makes me think of Wingstop which makes me think about sleeping which makes me think about dreams. Just The Way I Liked It Holden wears his hat when he wants to be himself. When he wears it, he feels […]

The Fear of Adulthood in Catcher in the Rye, a Novel by J. D. Salinger

In Salinger's Catcher In The Rye, Holden struggles with holding on to the part of him that is still a child while having to make the transition to having adult responsibilities. Throughout the novel, observations can be made about his constant struggle with all the adults that he encounters being phony and superficial, while he views children as innocent and moral. The real turning point in the novel is when Phoebe asks Holden what he enjoys doing and he responds […]

Loneliness in “Catcher in the Rye”

But do we know what it's loneliness? Or do we know what it is to be alone? We will always have different perspectives, ideas, comments on this subject. Psychology defines solitude as a lack, whether voluntary or involuntary, when the person decides to be alone or when this person is alone by different circumstances of life. This contrast is reflected throughout the narrative in the dissimilar characters. Developing the theme of solitude effectively in each of its characters through different […]

The Catcher in the Rye: Censorship

To start off, the Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, is about a boy named Holden Caulfield, who begins the book at a school named Pencey Prep School, in Pennsylvania. At the books beginning, the school is several days away from Christmas break, where Holden will be returning home to Manhattan, where his parents live, because he has been expelled out of the prep school due to the failing of four out of his five classes. To end […]

What does the Red Hunting Hat Symbolize in ‘The Catcher in the Rye’

Introduction "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody" (Salinger 234). In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden, mentions his red hunting hat a couple of times throughout the novel, but this actually develops a plot for the story. The red hunting hat symbolizes different emotions Holden has only when he is wearing the hat. Holden usually wears the hat when he feels vulnerable or hopeless, and he also wears the […]

About the Catcher in the Rye

Holden Caulfield is a teenager growing up in America in the 50's. Even though he is just a teenager, he has already had to endure a lot of trials and tribulations: both physically and mentally. Upon being expelled, he runs away from his exclusive preparatory school in Pennsylvania, and spends a little time in New York. While there he realizes he must grow up. Although Holden isn't able to express himself practically, the way he thinks is identical to the […]

The Timeless Tale of ‘Catcher in the Rye’: a Journey through Holden’s Eyes

J.D. Salinger's 'The Catcher in the Rye' is not just a book; it's a mirror reflecting the tumultuous journey of adolescence, a voyage marked by rebellion, disillusionment, and a desperate search for identity. Published in 1951, this novel has since etched itself into the fabric of literary classics, offering a raw, unapologetic glimpse into the mind of its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Holden's narrative is more than a story; it's a rhythmic dance of thoughts, a cascade of emotions, and a […]

Holden Vs. the World: Society in ‘The Catcher in the Rye’

If you've ever felt like you're banging your head against the wall of societal norms, then you'll get where Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of J.D. Salinger's 'The Catcher in the Rye,' is coming from. This novel isn’t just a teenage rebellion story; it’s a deep dive into how society shapes, shakes, and sometimes shatters us. Let's unpack how Salinger uses society as both a backdrop and a character in this iconic tale. Holden's beef with society is pretty clear from […]

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How To Write an Essay About Catcher In The Rye

Understanding 'the catcher in the rye'.

To write an insightful essay about 'The Catcher in the Rye,' it's essential to have a comprehensive understanding of the novel. Authored by J.D. Salinger, this classic piece of literature is known for its rich themes and complex characters. The novel follows the story of Holden Caulfield, a teenager navigating the challenges of adolescence and the transition into adulthood. It's important to grasp the themes Salinger explores, such as alienation, loss of innocence, and the phoniness of the adult world. Understanding the historical and cultural context in which Salinger wrote the novel will also add depth to your analysis.

Developing a Thesis Statement

The foundation of a good essay is a strong, clear thesis statement. Your thesis should present a unique perspective or argument about 'The Catcher in the Rye.' This might involve analyzing Salinger's portrayal of adolescence, the symbolism in the novel, or the narrative style. Whatever angle you choose, your thesis should guide the structure and content of your essay, providing a clear path for your argument.

Gathering Supporting Evidence

Once you have your thesis, the next step is to gather evidence from the text to support your argument. This involves closely reading the novel to find specific examples, such as key dialogues, character actions, or descriptions that align with your thesis. For instance, if your essay focuses on Holden's perspective on adulthood, find passages in the text that illustrate his views and feelings. These examples will serve as the backbone of your essay, providing concrete evidence to support your arguments.

Analyzing the Novel

In this section of your essay, analyze the evidence you have collected. Discuss how the examples from the novel support your thesis. This might involve a deeper exploration of Holden's character, the novel's setting, or Salinger's writing style. Ensure that your analysis goes beyond mere description and offers an insightful interpretation of the novel. Your goal is to demonstrate a deep understanding of the text and to communicate this understanding to your reader.

Concluding the Essay

Your conclusion should wrap up the essay by summarizing the main points of your analysis and restating your thesis. This is an opportunity to tie together your arguments and leave the reader with a final thought or question to ponder. The conclusion should reinforce the significance of your analysis and the relevance of 'The Catcher in the Rye' in literature and society.

Reviewing and Refining the Essay

After writing your essay, it's important to review and refine it. Check for clarity and coherence in your arguments, and ensure that your essay flows logically from the introduction to the conclusion. Pay attention to grammar and syntax to ensure your writing is clear and professional. Seeking feedback from others can also provide new insights and help you polish your essay further. A well-crafted essay will not only reflect your understanding of 'The Catcher in the Rye' but also your ability to engage critically with literary texts.

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Same River, Same Man

Some people say rereading is the only reading, but sometimes I think first readings are the only rereading. This isn’t total nonsense. First readings are when I pay the most attention, do the most doubling back. They’re when I have the most capacity for shock and joy. When I reread I am always comparing my experience to my first impression, a constant distraction; I am tempted to skip and skim, to get along with it and verify my memories already, my belief that I already know what I think. You can reread ad infinitum, but you can only read something for the first time once.

There are other anxieties. I’m running out of time to read all the books I want to, of course; of course my one life is getting on half over, if I’m lucky. But more so—it feels like people who urge you to reread books so you can form a new opinion, to update or overwrite the old one, want you to betray your younger self, as if the new opinion is better—as if my new self is better. Maybe I’m not any better? I think some books are better encountered when you’ve read less, lived less, and know less. You can’t wait to read everything until you’re wiser, nor can you already have read everything once. At some point, you just have to read things. I want to defend my fifteen-year-old self from that friend who said, “Read it again.” That self only knew what she knew. That self wasn’t wrong .

The summer I moved back to New England, after living in Denver for ten years, after living in Boston for ten before that, I decided to reread some books. Specifically, I wanted to revisit books from my youth, my deep youth—books that I dimly remembered, so they would feel almost like first readings. John and I went to the Book Barn, and I found one of those mass-market paperback copies of The Catcher in the Rye with the brick-red cover for a dollar. The copyright page says, “69 printings through 1989.” The one I read in the nineties was black type on white, with a rainbow of diagonal lines in the upper-left corner. I read it in my childhood bedroom in my parents’ house in El Paso, Texas, where I spent the first two decades of my life, where in high school I made a collage on one wall using magazine cut-ups and scotch tape. When I moved out, my parents took it down and repainted. This time, I read it in my mother-in-law’s house in Norwich, Connecticut, the house John grew up in. His old room still looks like the nineties. The wallpaper matches the bedspread.

the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.

I have a sense that I found Holden purely likeable on the first read, a sense that I was fully charmed. On this read he seems more unreliable to me, and a bad judge of his own character. It’s not necessarily a permanent character flaw. He’s grieving—we learn on page 38 that his younger brother Allie has died of leukemia (“You’d have liked him”)—and he’s depressed; he can’t see what bad shape he’s in. He’s a liar, which he knows, but he’s lying even when he doesn’t think he’s lying. The dialogue comes from inside the monologue, so how much of it can we trust? We get both halves of conversations through him. This book is often about the difference between what we say and what we think—Holden hates phonies, but when he talks to his old teacher, on his way to drop out of school, he says one thing and thinks another:

“Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.” “Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it.” Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, all right—I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game.

A little more than halfway through the book, Holden walks around Central Park in the cold, looking for his sister. (How did I picture the park as a teenager, before I’d been to New York City? I suppose I knew how it looked from movies. Manhattan , Whit Stillman ’s Metropolitan , which made me feel—and this is how I put it to myself at the time, in these exact words— like I don’t exist , like Manhattan was the center of the universe and I was off in a distant arm of the spiral galaxy.) He remembers going to the Museum of Natural History almost weekly as a grade-school student. “I get very happy when I think about it. Even now.” He remembers the nice smell inside the auditorium—“It always smelled like it was raining outside, even if it wasn’t, and you were in the only nice, dry, cosy place in the world”—and the sticky hand of the little girl he was partnered with. “The best thing, though,” Holden says, “in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was.” As many times as you went,

that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and weaving that same blanket. Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you . Not that you’d be so much older or anything. It wouldn’t be that exactly. You’d just be different, that’s all. You’d have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you’d have a new partner … Or you’d just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you’d be dif ferent in some way—I can’t explain what I mean.

It’s too perfect to say, that’s like me , with this book. If I still like the book, I’m not fundamentally different, but I’m different enough to make a difference. Part of the difference is that I can articulate now what I understood then more instinctively—which doesn’t make the later reading experience better. In fact I feel like Salinger was writing for the inarticulate kid—he was writing more for me then than me now. I’m glad I read it first then, and whenever a friend says they’ve never read it, I tend to tell them it’s too late now. I don’t know if that’s true, because I don’t have the experience of reading it late, not for the first time, but I believe it to be true. I think I was right, at fifteen, to like it for the reasons I did. I wasn’t wrong.

In the park, Holden thinks about Phoebe getting older, being different—it upsets him. He wants to keep her innocent. Holden has learned early that life gets harder and worse. “Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.” In this blue mood he meets his old girlfriend Sally, a phony, for a play, and then they go ice skating at her insistence. She wants to rent one of those “darling little skating skirts.” “That’s why she was so hot to go,” Holden says. “They gave Sally this little blue butt-twitcher of a dress to wear. She really did look damn good in it, though. I have to admit it.” For some reason this is one of the scenes I most vividly remembered through the years, Sally showing off her cute ass, and Holden barely tolerating Sally, finally insulting her and making her cry. A few chapters later, he sneaks into his parents’ apartment—they don’t know he dropped out of school yet—to see Phoebe. I remembered this part too. Out of all the scenes in the book, the ones that stuck with me were the ice-skating scene, and sexy Stradlater telling Holden about his date with Jane, a girl Holden had loved, agitating him unto violence, and then visiting Phoebe in her pajamas, and then the scene in the stairwell at Phoebe’s school, where Holden had also gone, with the “Fuck you” scrawled on the wall, which he tries to rub off. It’s the encroachment of the dirty, dark world of adults, inside this world of children, that disgusts him. “It wouldn’t come off. It’s hopeless anyway. If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn’t rub out even half the ‘Fuck you’ signs in the world. It’s impossible.”

All these scenes felt good to reread too, either funny or moving—intense moments of escape or transgression. I remembered these, and I forgot all the bad parts, the parts I guess that were supposed to jump out when I was told to “read it again.” I’d forgotten the really homophobic and misogynist stuff. There’s not a ton of it, but it’s there and I’d forgotten. It’s a gift when you can do that, when you can forget. I want to protect these good parts I remember, the parts I loved at fifteen and forty-two, to preserve them in their glass case. I think it’s beautiful, still, that Holden wants to keep the school children innocent, that he wants to protect them, because he can’t be protected anymore, he thinks. Like one of Rilke’s angels, he wants to protect kids from pain, from learning what life is like with its “Fuck you” graffiti everywhere. He thinks it’s too late for him, that he can’t go home and can’t go back to school. But he can still catch these kids—“if a body catch a body coming through the rye”—before they run off the cliff edge of youth.

John has a theory that everyone is either a squid or an eel. Baby squids are born as perfectly formed but teeny versions of their later selves. Eels go through radical changes over the course of one lifetime, to the degree that scientists used to think eels at different life stages were totally different types of eel. John claims he is an eel, and I am a squid. When we met, I’d sometimes ask him what he thought of one book or another, and he would say he didn’t know—he had read it, but ten or fifteen years earlier, and no longer trusted his opinion. Every five to ten years, he feels like a different self. Over the many years he’s known me, he says, I’ve been strikingly consistent. I think about this theory whenever I revisit a book or a movie, half-expecting my opinion to change, and find that I feel much the same: it’s the same river and I am the same man. I appreciate Hamlet much more than I used to, but it’s too long and some of it is boring. When I was bored during Hamlet as a kid, I wasn’t wrong.

About fifty pages in I was wondering, why did I love this book about lost youth so much when I was young, before I’d lost anything? Did we know, a little bit, while still in youth, how precious it was? I was not very into the book, at that point. I couldn’t remember what I’d liked about it at seventeen; it gave me an eel-like feeling. On the page torn from a notepad I was using as a bookmark, I wrote: I am disappointed in Updike. I wish it was funny, at all. It was sometimes beautiful—I love that list of songs on the radio, the first time he runs away, that particular way of marking passed time—but never funny; somehow baggy, with too much fabric; and often so mean it’s repulsive. It’s Rabbit, Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, that’s mean and not the novel, I think; I don’t think the novel is on Rabbit’s side exactly. We are not permitted to stay too close to Harry and side with him too much. But still, it’s hard to watch. That’s how it feels, that you’re watching him be mean to his poor wife Janice. Janice loves him, but she knows he’s vile. On page 80, he tells Ruth, the woman he’s just met that he’s about to shack up with, that he’ll run out for groceries and she can make them lunch. “You said last night you liked to cook.” “I said I used to.” “Well, if you used to you still do.” That’s a squid thing to say! The feeling of starting to like a thing I used to hate is pleasurable, I’ve noticed, but not the reverse. It’s a pleasurable kind of cheating, a bending of rules, as opposed to a betrayal of the whole system.

Around page 90, just when I thought I had seen enough and was about to stop reading, it suddenly got a little funny—as if wishes worked. Right around where Harry runs into Reverend Eccles, it suddenly got really good, the way the whole mood of a party can change when someone new walks in. I hadn’t remembered the character of Eccles, who takes an interest in Harry, who wants to save Harry’s marriage and be Harry’s friend. I think Eccles saves the novel. When Eccles’ wife asks him, “Why must you spend your life chasing after that worthless heel?” he responds, “He’s not worthless. I love him.” That’s Updike, I realize now—I don’t think I would have seen it back then . He loves Rabbit, the way God loves all his little sinners. It made me love him too—because I did love Rabbit at seventeen, as I’d loved Holden before him—this insistence that he deserves attention, that terrible people can still be tragic and worthy of love. There’s a complexity to the morals, and a sophistication to the point of view, that I have trouble believing I would have grasped on first read. Eccles does succeed in convincing Harry to return to his wife when she goes into labor with their second child. He’s so relieved to be forgiven, relieved that neither of them dies in childbirth, which would seem just punishment, that they spend a month or two in hazy bliss. The happiness here is a false bottom. He tries to seduce her one night before she’s ready. She feels used and turns him away. Angry, he gets up to leave again. “Why can’t you try to imagine how I feel ? I’ve just had a baby,” she says. “I can,” he says, “I can but I don’t want to, it’s not the thing, the thing is how I feel.” When Janice wonders of Harry, after he’s gone, “What was so precious about him?” we understand it’s that he’s in a novel, because the novel’s about him. Updike, the God of this novel, can imagine how Janice feels—he understands why Janice drinks, the same reason Rabbit runs, for freedom. (She is stuck, either stuck with Harry or stuck alone, but a drink helps a little, it makes “the edges nice and rainbowy.”) He withholds that understanding, that ability or willingness, from Harry, so Harry can act as he does, selfishly, cruelly. So we can live vicariously through Harry’s escapes, and then see him punished for his mistakes.

Eccles’ wife says, “You never should have brought them back together”—implicating him. Eccles calls Harry and tells him, “A terrible thing has happened to us.” That us is Eccles and Harry, Eccles and God and Harry—or author and character, author and reader. We’re all in this mess together, we all murdered the baby. In the aftermath Harry seems to almost know, to finally know, he’s been in the wrong—“He feels he will never resist anything again”—but he can’t quite know it, because what held him back from going home was “the feeling that somewhere there was something better for him.” Something better, that is, than settling down with the first woman he got pregnant, who is likewise forced to settle for him; something better than a job on his father-in-law’s car lot, when he used to know the glory of the court. This is the complexity I mean, this teetering refusal to side quite for or against Harry Angstrom. The choice between freedom and duty is not an easy choice, the book allows, not actually. And it’s not a question of fairness. That wanting more than life usually offers is somehow evil—this is a tragedy.

It’s not at all like I remembered, I kept telling people, when I mentioned I was reading Rabbit, Run . But really, I remembered barely anything about it. Just a couple of scenes—that first time in the bar, drinking daiquiris, with his old coach and Ruth, and the bathtub—and the general idea of lost youth. And it’s not lost innocence. Youth isn’t innocence, it’s possibility.

Excerpted from Any Person Is the Only Self: Essays by Elisa Gabbert. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Copyright © 2024 by Elisa Gabbert. All rights reserved.

Elisa Gabbert is the author of seven collections of poetry, essays, and criticism, most recently Any Person Is the Only Self (published this June by FSG), Normal Distance , and The Unreality of Memory & Other Essays . She writes the On Poetry column for the New York Times, and her work has appeared in Harper’s, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, The Believer, and elsewhere. She lives in Providence.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Catcher in The Rye — The Theme of Loneliness and Alienation in J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye”

The Theme of Loneliness and Alienation in J.d. Salinger’s "Catcher in The Rye"

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The Catcher in the Rye Enigma Revisited

The 1951 J.D. Salinger novel The Catcher in the Rye has long been one of the most controversial literary tomes, inspiring films and criminal conspiracies. John Lennon’s murderer, Marc David Chapman, carried the book at the murder and continued reading it while Lennon lay bleeding at his feet. He has said that he wished to model his life after the novel's protagonist, Holden Caulfield, identifying with Holden’s misanthropic world view.

John Hinckley, after his attack on President Ronald Reagan, was found to have a copy of Rye , but the book did not have anything to do with his psychosis. Nevertheless, his attack has been lumped with the many conspiracy theories that emerged after Lennon’s murder.

The 1997 Mel Gibson film, Conspiracy Theory, introduced the possibility that a secret code in the novel triggered political assassins who are compelled to buy the novel to complete missions.

“ The allegation directed at Salinger is that he (and/or his publisher) craftily implanted into the book neurolinguistic passages, or coded messages, that act as post-hypnotic suggestions or mind control "triggers." In turn, these triggers enabled CIA handlers to activate Manchurian Candidates for assassinations. Some conspiracy theorists also believe the novel was part of the CIA's now mostly-declassified mind control program MK-Ultra, and that while assassins were being brainwashed they were forced to read the book over and over until it was embedded in their minds.” ( The Catcher in the Rye Enigma: by James Morcan ,  Lance Morcan

There have been numerous books, podcasts, and lectures positing even more outlandish schemes emanating from the pen of Jerome David Salinger. One of the most amusing was a three part video on YouTube showing the hidden ‘Catcher’ symbols in Stanley Kubrick’s film The Shining . 

When I was 16, I read The Catcher in the Rye and loved it for all the wrong reasons. After a discussion about the book with my husband, who wasn’t a fan,  I decided to reread it as an adult and found it overwhelmingly relevant to today and understood finally why it’s a classic.

As a teenager, I could not identify with the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, and his angst-driven search for life’s answers. I was in my 12 th year of  an all-girls Catholic education and had all the tools I needed to deal with trauma and the vicissitudes of urban strife. Poor Holden had nothing to stop his depression and painful search for relevance in his scary impending adulthood. What we did have in common was the fact that we were native New Yorkers, and what I loved about Catcher was the description of Holden’s trek into the Manhattan sites I had also escaped to from life in the barrio.  I lived in the museums of Art and Natural History. I rode the carousel in my beloved playground of Central Park.

Reading the novel now as a mother and grandmother, I was struck with the overwhelming epiphany of what Salinger meant to convey. Catcher in the Rye , I believe, is a cautionary tale warning us that we must guard the innocence of children.

Many of the reviewers, pundits and educators have expressed the opinion that J.D. Salinger is Holden Caulfield, but I disagree. Holden is a fictional character created by Salinger with some similar traits, but one must remember that Holden is a teenager and Salinger was in his thirties when Catcher was published. The impetus behind their behavior, however, was a form of post-traumatic stress syndrome in both lives.

The death from leukemia of his brother Allie when Holden was 13 exacerbated his feelings of alienation and loneliness. Salinger, on the other hand, had been on a boat on D-Day and witnessed the slaughter of the first troops landing on Omaha Beach. He had seen the horror of  the concentration camps and had also been involved with the interrogation of Nazis.  Salinger once told his daughter, "You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter how long you live."

The horror of war can, at times, stir the souls of the creative witness to it, and Salinger was not the only one to produce works of artistic merit. A.A. Milne served in both WWI and WWII and from his tortured mind sprung Winnie the Pooh. More recently, singer James Blunt, a British captain in the Bosnian war, wrote haunting songs of his experiences.

The war probably confirmed Salinger’s conclusion that the world was a bad place for the young and innocent. Holden believes fervently that the adult world will corrupt the innocence of children. In the novel, it is Holden’s growing sexual urges that he represses that has him equate sex and adulthood as the enemy. He sees profane writings on a bathroom wall and erases it so that children won’t see it, but he also realizes that he can’t erase the filthy words that will be written on more walls.

He, not Salinger, mistakes the words of Robert Burns' poem Coming through the Rye . The actual first words are: "When a body meets a body coming through the rye." Holden remembers the words as: "When a body catches a body." He tells his beloved sister Phoebe that he imagines seeing children in a field of rye playing too close to a cliff, and if they fall off, he will be the catcher in the rye. 

This, I believe, is the theme behind the novel. A warning to protect the innocence of children by not exposing them to the sins of adults. I may be wrong, but considering how today’s children are being groomed to be sexualized as young as kindergarten age, with drag queens reading to them in libraries or Netflix and Disney cartoons showcasing what was once considered deviance, Salinger must be turning over in his grave.

 aliciav.colon [at] gmail.com

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