Catcher In The Rye Assignment

The Catcher in the Rye The book I read for my book report project was The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. In this book you take a journey through the thoughts and eyes of, the main character, Holden Caulfield. As the book starts out you slowly start to see Holden's mental instability, and as the book goes on it just get clearer and clearer he is depressed and mentally struggling. You learn Holden is incapable of thinking rationally for example when he asked Sally to runaway with him and start a life in the west. Even inside his own thoughts he knows this idea is crazy, but he proposes it anyway. You also see he is severely depressed like when he thinks of his brother Allie. He wishes he was still here and you can tell this subject greatly affects him.As you move towards the end of the book it becomes clear that Holden is also troubled by his loss of child inoccence. In the end it is confirmed …show more content…
The meaning of this is known towards the end of the book when Holden is with Phoebe. Holden tells Phoebe that he wants to grow up and be a Catcher in the Rye. He describes this as him on a cliff side with a big baseball mitt ,and then how he would catch all the children who would fall off the rye patch on the cliff hence the catcher in the rye. I think the author wanted us to get that Holden struggles with losing his childhood innocence, and how he wants nothing more than to be a kid again. The meaning of the title definitely changed for me from pre to post reading. Before reading the book I had no idea what the title meant and didn’t even think about it going into a deep meaning. After reading the book I realized the title meant a lot to Holden, and how it represents his childhood leaving him when he isn't quite ready for that part of his life to be