Catcher In The Rye Setting

Improved Essays
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is a story about childhood, and of finding one’s self in society. It is the story of Holden Caulfield and his everyday encounters and problems with other people in society. The story depicts a week in the life of Holden, a week full of events and encounters that permanently change his life forever. In the Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger uses the character of Holden Caulfield, conflict, and setting to convey the theme that although the world may seem to be full of phonies or difficult and boring people, one must find a way to overlook his individuality and coexist in society. The first literary technique J.D. Salinger utilizes is the character of Holden Caulfield. Although Holden can be analyzed

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    J.D. Salinger and Holden Caulfield Psychoanalysis J.D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye, writes about a cynical teenage boy named Holden Caulfield who has a difficult time expressing his emotions to other people. Salinger also had a hard time with his social life, so he composed this novel to express his own difficulties through Holden Caulfield. When analyzing this novel, it is clear to see the similarities between Salinger’s own personal life and the life he creates for Holden. J.D. Salinger uses the character Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye to reflect his own social problems: interacting with other people, relationships, and status expectations.…

    • 1550 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ is a 1951 novel written by J.D. Salinger. Set in the 1940’s, it is told from the point of view of a troubled teen, Holden Caulfield. It looks at his emotions and view of the world which show the reader his distressed nature. This novel focuses on the alienation of the main character, madness and mental illness, mortality and lies and Deceit. Despite Holden’s constant interaction with others throughout ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ it still seemed to me that, whether intentional or not, he was bringing his isolation upon himself.…

    • 119 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Within our humanistic culture, people tend to pursue many things, and in doing so believe that they will find meaning. These pursuits include business success, wealth, relationships and entertainment. People have testified that while they achieved their goals of wealth, relationships and pleasure, there was still a deep void inside, a feeling of emptiness that nothing seemed to fill. Shawn Sutherlands, Seeing Red, lays open an overeducated, underemployed character, Ethan Reid, who is struggling to reconcile expectations with reality. Similarly, J.D. Salinger’s, The Catcher in the Rye, illustrates a teenager, Holden Caulfield and his dramatic struggle against growing up and facing his own reality.…

    • 149 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, we see the narrator, Holden Caulfield, sink deeper and deeper into his mental instability. This began when Holden lost his brother, and went on as he started his adventure, fearing he would lose the rest of his family as well. Though this causes him not to be a very reliable source, it does make him more relatable to the book’s teenage audience. In your teenage years, you begin to question not only yourself, but the world around you, which can be seen through Holden's constant hypocrisy, angst, and overall sense of rebellion throughout the novel. The Catcher in the Rye has made itself very well known for a multitude of reasons.…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the author uses symbolic images that the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, encounters. Holden in the novel goes through several life obstacles and tries to find acceptance to adulthood. Throughout the novel, Holden often acts the opposite of society and wishes for the present day to have more of the nostalgia he had in the past. The Catcher in the Rye illustrates how Holden tries to find stability and acceptance in a broken society full of phonies and liars.…

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    J.D. Salinger wrote and released “The Catcher In The Rye” in July 16, 1951. The story is about a young boy who had many problems, especially the fear of change and growing up. Holden Caulfield is a 16 year old boy who has been expelled from school four times. Salinger uses symbolism to show Holden’s thoughts and feelings and to describe his personality too. Salinger does this because Holden is not mature enough to see these things for himself.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Even though Holden does not save the world, he makes strides towards finding himself and resolving his own exceptional feelings of loss, misanthropy, and apathy. Even though many critics believe the protagonist of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, is merely a depressed teenager who has failed to fit into the standards and expectations of society, Holden’s saga epitomizes a hero’s journey in that he strives to find himself through hardships and loneliness. Indeed, Holden Caulfield represents a different kind of hero, but is a hero nonetheless. Like in the hero’s journey, Holden Caulfield comes from a…

    • 1982 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Spencer Seton Ms. Maggert English Honors 3 01 November 2016 The Transition In J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye we follow a young teen Holden Caulfield. We follow him throughout the emotion filled process of leaving childhood and entering adulthood. Holden grew up in a time where you were either a kid or an adult, the 1950’s. There was no teenage growing period for young adults and Holden suffered greatly due to this.…

    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Holden Caulfield Innocence

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages

    This based on the idea of Holden being the “Catcher in the Rye”. Holden is described as “the protector and savior of innocence”. But Baumbach notes that Holden is still a child running through the rye and he has no one to catch him. To become the catcher, Holden must mature and leave childhood behind him. Salinger uses Holden’s distaste towards the corruption of adulthood (using words like “phony”) as a revelation of Holden resisting growing up.…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Holden’s Dearest People and Things The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger is a novel about Holden Caulfield a young man coming of age in the 1950’s. Holden feels trapped between childhood and adulthood and has been kicked out of yet another boarding school because of his dismal attitude towards life and growing into an adult. He feels most adults are phonies and he is reluctant to become one himself. Holden has a great mistrust of adults and he is constantly at odds with them.…

    • 1472 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Catcher In The Rye by J.D Salinger tells a story about a troubled teenager named, Holden Caulfield, who struggles with the fact that everyone has to change and grow up. Holden Caulfield has changed his perspectives in a few areas throughout the novel. He struggles with change, growing up, and expressing his feelings to other people. From the beginning of the novel, Holden isolates himself from society by ignoring helpful advice and holding on to his desire that everything in the world must remain unchanged. In the second chapter of the novel, Holden intentionally ignores Mr. Spencer’s advice, “life is a game, boy.…

    • 932 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel The Catcher in the Rye authored by J.D. Salinger, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is a teenager who refuses to accept that he is becoming an adult. Holden is obsessed about being a child and refuses to stop horsing around. He chooses to place himself between the world of simple innocence and complex adulthood. Holden is the narrator and he chooses to tell the story in his own contradicting manner. Holden controls his experiences and his narrations of the same are distorted from reality.…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger Session 2 Review The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger, was an amazing book that forced me to open my eyes to what the mid 20th century was like. It is about the main character Holden, who flunked out of school, going around New York and doing foolish things. It forces him to contemplate what he wants to do with his life and who he wants to be. This question is something that everyone around that age has to decide for themselves, and this book taught me more about that choice.…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Salinger shows his attentiveness toward the rhythms of speech by using italics quite frequently in order to let the reader know when a character is placing emphasis on a word, or even on just a syllable, in dialogue. The emphasis of a single syllable shows a realism to the dialogue of The Catcher in the Rye rarely seen not only in the works of Salinger?s time, but also before and after it. Salinger?s emphasis on the rhythm of speech is mirrored in his emphasis on the rhythm of thought, which, in turn, emphasizes the importance of both. Salinger uses paragraph breaks not only to change from one subject to another, but also to accentuate certain thoughts. In another demonstration of his literary brilliance, Salinger shows that he knows the human mind by using shorter paragraphs for more important matters.…

    • 1307 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Observing a person’s actions may not always reveal who they truly are as a person; the only possible way is to take a trip through their mind. Although this is not humanly possible, J.D. Salinger makes it possible through the techniques he uses in his novel: The Catcher in The Rye. Different styles of writing are incorporated to reveal who Holden Caulfield really is; from first person narration to the thoughts running through his mind to the limited word choices, Salinger’s structure and stylistic choices in The Catcher in the Rye highlight Holden’s personality traits. Salinger’s use of first person narration throughout the novel provides readers with a glimpse into the thoughts of Holden, revealing who he is as a person.…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays