Catcher in the Rye Analysis

Kathleen Cooley Ms. Bertram English 2 Honors 24 September 2009 The Catcher in the Rye The Catcher in the Rye is a famous novel written by J. D. Salinger. Taken place in New York City. The main character, known as Holden Caulfield, tries to discover the meaning of life and goes through many obstacles. In his tone throughout the story, he narrates and describes how certain people have an affect on him, also what they mean to him. As Holden Caulfield narrates the story, each character is given specialized details. What Holden sees in them, if they are phony or real. Symbolism is portrayed through the entire novel. Certain tatements are written as one object but represent a disguised meaning. Throughout the entire novel, Holden Caulfield always seems to ostracize everyone. He is always writing about others, how they look or what he feels for them. But never comes through to get close enough with someone emotionally. Holden does not have relations with anyone, he thinks everyone is phony. He always just seemed to be confused about life. Also he has not finished school, and all he is doing is wondering around every night around New York City. He should be trying to get back into school for a good education to have a bright future.

When Holden writes about each of his friends or relatives he gives them specialized details. For example, He writes "I mean most girls are so dumb and all. After you neck them for a while, you can really watch them losing their brains. You take a girl when she really gets passionate, she just hasn't any brains. " (Salinger ch. 13 pg 92). Holden explains his thoughts about girls, witch he does not have any feeling for. He does not really have any feelings for anyone not just girls, but for his family also, since he’s really not with them or in contact with them anyhow. Symbolism plays a major role in this novel.

Holden writes about objects, but are really given disguised meanings. An example “My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder’s mitt. He was left-handed. The thing that was descriptive about it, though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he’d have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up at bat. ” (Salinger ch. 5 pg 38). Notice how he writes descriptive details about the mitt. As if it is more important to him than it is to Allie, his brother that is dead now.

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Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is a great example for tone, character, and symbolism. There are many examples that are given throughout the entire novel of these rhetorical devices. As Holden is growing from a little boy to a young adult, He is very confused about his life and really has no idea where he is going in his future. He writes about the many obstacles that he is going through. As if He is trying to give the reader a message and that message is, for your life, it is your own story and you have to write the pages and complete it. .

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