Catcher In The Rye Research Papers

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Since Jerome David Salinger had troubles growing up, he uses his personal experiences from boarding school to write about a pessimistic teenager who has academic struggles as well as mental struggles. Salinger grew up going to many different prep schools as well as his character Holden Caulfield in the Catcher in the Rye. Holden deals with depression in this book as Salinger himself has dealt with depression induced by the stress from the war. Salinger uses his personal experiences to form his common characters who show up in other stories. In Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger shows a boy's struggle with growing up and maturing. Depression is becoming more and more prevalent in adolescents in today's society.In Salingers novel, he uses an exaggerated …show more content…
He had an older sister and he lived a middle class life. His father was jewish and his mother was irish. (Literary Reference Center Plus) Salinger had the same kind of lifestyle that his most famous character, Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye, had. Salinger grew up with academic troubles and switched schools often. He attended several prep schools and then decided that the Valley Forge Military Academy was a good fit for him. He served as manager of the fencing team. The authors own boarding school experience helped him create his literary alter ego, Holden Caulfield. Both were team managers for their school and both had academic troubles. (Great American Writers: Twentieth Century) In 1941, Salinger went into World War II. The author would carry a typewriter in his jeep to write as he traveled. “Personal Notes of an Infantryman” was written and taken from his war experiences. (Great American Writers: Twentieth Century) He participated in one of the bloodiest episodes of the war. The effect of the war caused him to be hospitalized for a short time because of war induced stress. His work, “For Esme - With Love and Squalor” deals with the shock of the war. (Literary Reference Center Plus) Salinger was interested in eastern religion and it shows in “Franny and Zooey” with references to Hinduism and Buddhism. (Literary Reference Center Plus) The first appearances of Holden Caulfield before Catcher in the Rye. These were early successes for Salinger. (Great American Writers: Twentieth Century) “Franny and Zooey” is one book with two stories which form the same theme, how the suicide of Seymour Glass still affects the Glass family. Franny Glass and Zooey Glass are siblings in the stories and this book is part of the many fictional Glass family short stories J.D. Salinger writes about. This short story is published in 1961 and the time period is 1950’s. This was wrote after Catcher in the

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