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Catcher in the Rye Essay In the Cather in the Rye, J.D. Salinger uses very distinct personality of Holden in his novel. Holden, the main character, tells his life story in a short span of four days in the first person. Holden constantly uses profane language and often has negative opinions about adults, and the way society is run. He numerously uses the word "phony" to describe adults, but still seems to have a warm side to certain adults, like his sister Phoebe and some of his former teachers. J.D. Salinger uses a very effective way of porpraying Holden's personality and thoughts by using the first person. J.D. Salinger uses the first person as an effective way to present this story to the reader. Holden starts off the book saying "If you really want to hear abou tit, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but i dont feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth," on page 1. This gives a very big first impression of Holden that he is prehaps generally unhappy and has a very pessismitic outlook on life. This first line is a good foreshadowing of things to come in Holden's four day story. Holden's frequent use of profanity suggests that prohaps Holden isn't a very nice and welcoming person in the first half of the book. His numerous uses of words such as "god damn" and "hell" and his less than perfect grammer use show that he is a big ignorant. He gets kicked out of school more than once because he didn't do almost anything in school. As the book goes on, Holden slowly shows more warmth in his intereraction with other characters. He does things like pay for drinks when he is around friends, and donates 10 dollars to an organization for Nuns. Holden agrees to even write an essay for Stradlater, which he worked very hard on. Most of his passion and his love shown comes from his interaction, and his montioning of his sister Phoebe. He longs for a good relationship with Phoebe. He talks about her like she is his life, and seems to be even more interested in her than in his long love Jane. Holden's reoccuring talk of sex and excessively drinking shows that hes still in his adolescent stage. He constantly talks about sex, and seems to be more stuck on sex than an actual relationship. He gets extremely drunk a few times in the novel. He starts to lose his control and emotional problems come out near the end of the novel. Holden becomes suicidal, and has mysterious emotional problems. His paranoia and mood changes confuse the personality of Holden. He seems like he has many different personalites with different people, which contradicts his hate for phony people. In conclusoin, Holden is presented with a strange and unique characterization. He has many different traits, and can be described many ways, depending on who describes him. His interaction with characters in the novel varies quite greatly. Holden gives off many different impressions throughout the course of the book. It's hard what to think of Holden, especially in the beginning, and the end. His emotional problems in the end complicate things even more. Holden, seemingly out of nowhere even though it was foreshadowed by Stradlater, becomes suicidal. Besides all this, Holden still knows how to be a loving, warm person, and shows it with his interaction of characters. His thoughts and conversation with Phoebe reveal to the author that Holden actually cares about something, and loves someone.
