Julia Rosati
Ms. Spano
World Lit & Comp Period F
23 May 2016
Holden’s Weekend
At some point in life we all face hardships that we struggle to overcome. In J.D. Salinger’s realistic fiction novel The Catcher in the Rye, the sixteen year old narrator, Holden Caulfield, is doubting life. Holden has two brothers, D.B. and Allie. His older brother, D.B., is a journalist in Hollywood, and Holden thinks he is a ‘phony’. His younger brother Allie died in 1946 of leukemia at the age of eleven when Holden was thirteen. Holden also has a younger sister Phoebe who is ten years old. He describes her to be the most sympathetic person you could ever meet. Holden’s parents are not spoken about in the book, they are very touchy and do not like personal information shared about them. He begins his story in the year 1948 when he left Pencey Prep in Pennsylvania.
Holden tells about the Saturday of the last football game of the year against Saxon Hall. He was watching the game from the top of …show more content…
He has to tell Phoebe that he was kicked out of school, making her mad at him. Holden tries to say why he was unhappy, but she says he does not like anything. Phoebe asks him what he wants to do with the rest of his life and he says he has an image from Robert Burns song “Comin’ Thro’ the Rye” of ‘the catcher in the rye’. Holden pictures a rye field on top of a cliff with children playing on it that are about to fall off the edge and that he will be there ‘catching’ them from falling off. Phoebe notices that Holden read the lyric wrong and that it is “if a body meet a body, comin thro the rye” not “if a body catch a body comin’ thro the rye.” The meaning with the word “meet” in the song is sex, but when Holden puts in the word “catch” it means the complete opposite. Holden imagines catching children before they loose their innocence and fall in the adult world of
Ms. Spano
World Lit & Comp Period F
23 May 2016
Holden’s Weekend
At some point in life we all face hardships that we struggle to overcome. In J.D. Salinger’s realistic fiction novel The Catcher in the Rye, the sixteen year old narrator, Holden Caulfield, is doubting life. Holden has two brothers, D.B. and Allie. His older brother, D.B., is a journalist in Hollywood, and Holden thinks he is a ‘phony’. His younger brother Allie died in 1946 of leukemia at the age of eleven when Holden was thirteen. Holden also has a younger sister Phoebe who is ten years old. He describes her to be the most sympathetic person you could ever meet. Holden’s parents are not spoken about in the book, they are very touchy and do not like personal information shared about them. He begins his story in the year 1948 when he left Pencey Prep in Pennsylvania.
Holden tells about the Saturday of the last football game of the year against Saxon Hall. He was watching the game from the top of …show more content…
He has to tell Phoebe that he was kicked out of school, making her mad at him. Holden tries to say why he was unhappy, but she says he does not like anything. Phoebe asks him what he wants to do with the rest of his life and he says he has an image from Robert Burns song “Comin’ Thro’ the Rye” of ‘the catcher in the rye’. Holden pictures a rye field on top of a cliff with children playing on it that are about to fall off the edge and that he will be there ‘catching’ them from falling off. Phoebe notices that Holden read the lyric wrong and that it is “if a body meet a body, comin thro the rye” not “if a body catch a body comin’ thro the rye.” The meaning with the word “meet” in the song is sex, but when Holden puts in the word “catch” it means the complete opposite. Holden imagines catching children before they loose their innocence and fall in the adult world of