Catcher In The Rye Style Analysis

1)Author’s style and examples The Catcher in the Rye has a very dark and melancholy tone. This comes from the word choice that Salinger implements into his writing, which includes many vulgar terms and words that provoke sad thoughts. It is the repetition of words, such as goddamn and depressing that help create this dark tone. This also allows the reader to understand Holden Caulfield’s personality. For example, it is very clear to the reader that he does not like celebrities because he believes them all to be corny and phony. These two words, corny and phony, are perhaps the most used words throughout the book. There are multiple parts of the book where he really elaborates on why he strongly dislikes phonies, such as in chapter 22. Holden …show more content…
In the course of the book, Holden, being seventeen, is about to cross the threshold of adulthood. He puts himself into many adult situations, as he is an under age drinker, dances in an adult bar, and tried to drink with women of whom are much older than he. Another important aspect of the story is his mental state. Allie’s death took a heavy toll on Holden, as page 38 reads, “I was only thirteen. And they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage.” He ended up sleeping in the garage the night Allie died. Another example of how badly damaged Holden is, is when he encounters Maurice, the pimp. After stealing from Holden and smacked him, Holden stated, “What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out of the window.”(pg. 104) This troubled me because Holden never touched Sunny out of pity for her, and Maurice tried to cheat him out of more money, and then robbed him. The most crestfallen part of the book was when Phoebe runs after Holden with her suit case, ready to run away with him. She ran up to him and said “I’m going with you. Can I?....Please?.” This was memorable because she was ready to leave her family and skip a play, of which she had a lead role in, to run away with her brother at such a young age. The final quote worth mentioning is on page 213. When Holden had seen Phoebe on the carrousel, he broke into tears of joy as it reads, “but I got soaked anyway. I didn't care, though. I felt so damn happy all of a sudden……… I was damn near bawling.” Throughout the plot, Holden has been rejected, beat up, has grieved over the loss of a dear family member, but this is one of the few moments where he is actually