The Catcher in the Rye by J.D.Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye is a book that can be loved and understood on many different levels of comprehension and each reader who experiences it will come away with a fresh view of the world in which they live. A key factor that made this book enjoyable was the style in which its monologue was written. Anyone who has reached the age of sixteen will be able to identify with this unique and yet universal character of Holden Caulfield, for he contains bits and pieces of all of us. The book shows that Holden, although a sarcastic, nasty, unlikable guy, is a person inside who is just trying to save the virtue of innocence. The way Caulfield’s mind works is incredibly true to form – the contradictions, the hypocrisy, the confusion, the brief moments of sheer clarity followed by stretches of irrational thought. He thinks he’s better than the world, and he thinks he’s the lousiest person in the world at the same time. He wants everyone to go away and leave him alone, and he can’t bear anyone, not even some schmuck he really dislikes (with good reason), to leave him. He’s nothing but hypocrisy and contradictions and confusion. Salinger captures this in an amazing way. Holden wishes to preserve something of childhood innocence that gets hopelessly lost as we grow into the crazy and phony world of adulthood. Holden sees the world as perverted and narrow, and has a nervous breakdown when he sees innocent children about to fall of the cliff. This cliff is a thought of Holden’s of which he states when asked what he wants to be when he grows up. Holden says that he wants to be a catcher in the rye. He envisions children playing on a field of rye, and next to this field there’s a cliff. Holden would catch the children if they didn’t look where they were going and accidentally ran off the cliff. There is incredible symbolism in this statement. The children represent childhood innocence and purity. The cliff, or what lies below it, represents the tainted, impure “game” of life, in which so many people have fallen. These people, the phonies, are what Holden despises most. Holden demonstrates his desire to save innocence when he finds that someone’s written “Fuck you” on a school wall. “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- all cockeyed, naturally- what it meant, and how they’d all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days.” Holden rubbed the mark off, and felt extreme hatred toward the person who wrote it.
Holden isn’t perfect, isn’t overly likeably but that’s what makes the story so great. It’s a look at one man’s real life, not a happily-ever-after story. A great book for anyone whos secure enough to read to learn, but not for anyone who reads to escape.

Will Smith discussing Catcher in the Rye:

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