Catcher in the Rye Essay: Holden and the Complexity of Adult Life

Holden and the Complexity of Adult support What was wrong with Holden, the main character in The backstop in the Rye, by J.D.Salinger, was his moral revulsion against anything that was ugly, evil, cruel, or what he called "phoney" and his acute reactivity to beauty and innocence, especially the innocence of the very young, in whom he proverb reflected his own lost childhood. There is something wrong or lacking in the novels of despair and frustration of many writers. The sour note of bitterness and the pass off theme of sadism have become almost a convention, never exhaustively informed by the authors dependence on a psychoanalytical interpretation of a major character. The male childs who argon spoiled or turned into budding homosexuals by their mothers and a loveless home life are as acquainted(predicate) to us today as stalwart and dependable young heroes such(prenominal) as John Wayne were to an earlier generation. We have accepted this interpretation of the inquietude and bewilderment of our young men and boys because no one had anything better to offer. It is tragic to hear the anguished cry of parents "What have we done to harm him? wherefore doesnt he care about anything? He is a bright boy, moreover why does he fail to pass his examinations? Why wont he communication to us?" A remarkable and absorbing novel, J. D. Salingers "The Catcher in the Rye," may serve to calm the apprehensions of fathers and mothers about their own responsibilities, though it doesnt attempt to explain why all boys who dismay their elders have failed to pass successfully the barricade between childhood and young manhood. It is profoundly moving and a disturbing book, but it is not hopeless. Holden Caulfield, sixteen years old and six tush two inches in hei... ...Boy, I was shaking like a madman." The Catcher in the Rye is not all horror of this sort. There is a wry humor in this sixteen-year-olds trying to live up to his heig ht, to take in with men, to understand mature sex and why he is still a virgin at his age. His affection for children is spontaneous and delightful. There are hardly a(prenominal) little girls in modern fiction as charming and adorable as his little sister, Phoebe. Altogether this is a book to be rede thoughtfully and more than once. It is about an unusually sensitive and intelligent boy but, then, are not all boys unusual and worthy of understanding? If they are bewildered at the complexity of modern life, unsure of themselves, surprise by the spectacle of perversity and evil around them - are not adults equally shocked by the knowledge that even children cannot escape this contact and awareness?