The catcher and the rye is about the struggle of a boy to find a point to his life. The author of this masterpiece, J.D. Salinger, gives a flawless performance of the thoughts and feelings of a skeptical teenage boy. Holden Claufield despises the world of phonies he has come to understand. He doesn’t have many friends, and he is failing in all his classes. He has many problems along those lines, and some how, all of his problems can be related to his younger brother’s death. Holden will come to find that life is what you make of it and some times having a family that cares for you, is incredibly important.
Holden is quite the negative type, for whatever reasons. He takes interest in nothing because he can easily find a logical reason why not to. He doesn’t even portray in social collaboration amongst schoolmates, aside from Stradlater and Ackley of course. He obviously does not join sports, plays, and other related activities, most likely because they are all too social. Holdens relationship with Stradlater, a GQ roommate, was more of a pastime activity, rather then a real friendship. Though Holden is a rather negative guy his thought structure is pure, and he is in general a good person with a free mind.
Holdens disappointments all share a common center of rotation. “people” is the key problem. He doesn’t like how they work, how they pretend to be something they are not. Like an indirect lie that is shouted with out a word being said. It is people that make the worlds a huge and utter disappointment to Holden. He even has a name for such people, he calls them “phonies”. The reason for the name is quite self-explanatory. The other type of people that disappoint Holden, are those who are with out respect for anything. The type that only care about what is important to themselves. Ones who would write an obscenity where children play, for self-amusement. Holden doesn’t like these types all, but he keeps his thoughts to himself and remains at peace.
Though Holdens negativity and disappointment level is great, he is unknowingly in search of happiness. Holdens initial life plan was to settle him self away from society, and if by chance there we people in this sanctuary, he would pretend to be deaf. One true thing that made Holden happy was sharing a moment with his sister, Peobe. He was happy by the fact that she was so smart and unique, he bragged about her several times through out the book. Even thought he may have been bias on a great deal of what he said about her, it was obvious he loved her. It was because of Peobe that Holden started thinking about his life, and where it was going. After his talk with Peobe he decided that his new goal would be one where he could help people, like a catcher in the rye.
This book allows the reader to enter in to another person’s mind, and experience things differently. The contents of this book is limited only by the boundaries of Holden mind. Though crude at times, in the end the reader can walk away with a feeling of “wow”. Easily a classic of English language novels, it ranked 64 out of the top100 drawn up by the editorial board of the modern library in 1998. It was written over 50 years ago, but it is still going strong. This will be a hard book for America to forget especially seeing that it is mercilessly forced in to the school systems of this Great Nation.
