The Catcher In The Rye: First Person Narration Is Critical Essay, Research Paper

The Catcher In the Rye: First Person Narration is Critical

In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the first person narration

is critical in helping the reader to know and understand the main character,

Holden Caulfield. Holden, in his narration, relates a flashback of a

significant period of his life, three days and nights on his own in New York

City. Through his narration, Holden discloses to the reader his innermost

thoughts and feelings. He thus provides the reader not only with information of

what occurred, but also how he felt about what happened.

Holden’s thoughts and ideas reveal many of his character traits. One

late Saturday night, four days before the beginning of school vacation, Holden

is alone, bored and restless, wondering what to do. He decides to leave Pencey,

his school, at once and travels to New York by train. He decides that, once in

New York, he will stay in a cheap motel until Wednesday, when he is to return

home. His plan shows the reader how very impetuous he is and how he acts on a

whim. He is unrealistic, thinking that he has a foolproof plan, even though

the extent of his plans are to “take a room in a hotel.., and just take it easy

till Wednesday.”

Holden’s excessive thoughts on death are not typical of most

adolescents. His near obsession with death might come from having experienced

two deaths in his early life. He constantly dwells on Allie, his brother’s,

death. From Holden’s thoughts, it is obvious that he loves and misses Allie.

In order to hold on to his brother and to minimize the pain of his loss, Holden

brings Allie’s baseball mitt along with him where ever he goes. The mitt has

additional meaning and significance for Holden because Allie had written poetry,

which Holden reads, on the baseball mitt. Holden’s preoccupation with death

can be seen in his contemplation of a dead classmate, James Castle. It tells

the reader something about Holden that he lends his turtleneck sweater to this

classmate, with whom he is not at all close.

Holden’s feelings about people reveal more of his positive traits. He

constantly calls people phonies, even his brother, D.B., who ” has sold out to

Hollywood.” Although insulting, his seemingly negative feelings show that

Holden is a thinking and analyzing, outspoken individual who values honesty and

sincerity. He is unimpressed with people who try to look good in other’s eyes.

Therefore, since it is obvious that Holden is bright, the reason for his

flunking out of school would seem to be from a lack of interest.

Holden has strong feelings of love towards children as evidenced

through his caring for Phoebe, his little sister. He is protective of her,

erasing bad words from the walls in her school and in a museum, in order that

she not learn from the graffiti. His fondness for children can be inferred

when he tells her that, at some time in the future, he wants to be the only

grown-up with “all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye

and all.” He’ll stand on the edge of a cliff and catch anybody who starts to

fall off the edge of the cliff. He got this image from his misinterpretation

of a line from the Robert Burns poem, ” if a body catch a body comin’ through

the rye.”

When situations are described, in person or in a book, they are

influenced by the one who describes them, and by his or her perceptions and

experiences. Through Holden’s expressions of his thoughts and feelings, the

reader sees a youth, sensitive to his surroundings, who chooses to deal with

life in unique ways. Holden is candid, spontaneous, analytical, thoughtful,

and sensitive, as evidenced by his narration. Like most adolescents, feelings

about people and relationships are often on his mind. Unfortunately, in

Holden’s case, he seems to expect the worst, believing that the result of

getting close to people is pain. Pain when others reject you or pain when they

leave you, such as when a friend walks off or a beloved brother dies. It would

not have been possible to feel Holden’s feelings or understand his thoughts

nearly as well had the book been written in third person.