How Is Holden Caulfield A Hero

The Catcher in the Rye: A Book About a Teen yet Unsuited for Teens In a quintessential storybook, a hero's character is meant to convey a lesson, and teach a behavior that the reader should adopt. Unfortunately, not all protagonists have the good character of the archetypical hero. Such is the case in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, one of the most widely taught and analyzed novels with a teenage protagonist: sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield. Although The Catcher in the Rye is an enduring classic about the woes of growing up, its content is inappropriate for school study due to the fact that the main character, Holden Caulfield, is a poor role model for impressionable adolescents. One of Holden Caulfield's most deplorable actions

In nearly every instance that Caulfield encounters a woman, he salaciously describes their physical appearance as if they were lesser beings. These women are merely distinguished by their hair color, their physical assets, or lack thereof, and whether or not he is attracted to them. In one instance, even after learning the ladies' names, Caulfield crassly continues to call Bernice "the blonde one" and Laverne "the ugly one" (Salinger 75). Because he is the narrator of the story, Holden limits the reader's knowledge of what the women are actually like in personality and character. This is a message that should not be accepted or taught to anyone, especially in a time when women face harassment, both online and in real life. The words used in The Catcher in the Rye are not unlike those in President Trump's Access Hollywood tapes, which contain lewd comments on journalist Nancy O'Dell's body. O'dell later reflected, "there is no room for objectification of women, or anyone for that matter, not even in the locker room...the conversation has got to change because everybody deserves respect no matter the gender or setting" (Izadi 1). While Holden Caulfield's comments are fictional, they may spread the idea, particularly to teenage boys, that such "locker room talk" is acceptable and will garner respect from other boys. There is no reason that students should

In fact, it is true that swearing is generated on a completely different side of the brain than everyday speech, thought, and action (Ong 1-2). However, according to the studies researches at Brigham Young University, teenagers in particular are especially vulnerable to the influence of profanity, because "behavioral constructs are still being developed during these formative years" (Coyne 2). For this reason, The Catcher in the Rye is only suited for older audiences who are more mature and better able to realize the potential deeper meaning behind explicit nature of the novel rather than simply the crude nature of the words. Unless schools are trying to condone these types of behaviors, they should not expose students to vulgar content. Additionally, adolescents may be more likely to imitate Caulfield's speech because of his status. In the same study, researchers found that profanity is most often uttered by "characters that possess characteristics that adolescents might wish to obtain" (Merrill). This phenomenon is known as social learning theory, and it is what causes behavior found in the media to be observed and consequently reproduced by adolescents in their everyday life (Merrill). Surely Holden Caulfield, a wealthy prep school dropout who bums around using his parents'