Joseph Heller's The Catcher in the Rye

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Recommended: The narrative style of The Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher in the Rye

The book Catcher in the Rye is a story of Holden Caulfield's thoughts about

life and the world around him. Holden tells many of his opinions about

people and takes the reader on a 5-day trip into his mind. Holden,

throughout the book, made other people feel inferior to his own. I can

relate to this because although I do not view people inferior to me, I

judge others unequally. Holden and I both have similar judgements of

people from the way they act and behave. We also share feelings about

motivation as well as lack of it. After reading this book, I came to the

conclusion that Holden and I are much more similar than I initially

believed.

Holden portrayed others to be inferior to his own kind all throughout

the book. He made several references as to how people aren't as perfect as

he was. "The reason Stradlater fixed himself up to look good was

because he was madly in love with himself." Holden had a

difficults with no being good. He was afraid of not having any special talents or

abilities and and did other thi8ngs to make himself look tough.

"Boy, I sat at that goddam bar till around one o'clock or so, getting drunk

as a bastard. I could hardly see straight." Holden tried all he

could to try to be cool he was faking it just to fit in. He drank, cursed and criticized life l to make it

seem he was like he knew of his habits. I myself have found me doing this

at times, also. I, at times, feel the need to fit in to a group and do

things similar to what others do in order to be accepted by others, but I do have my limitations. I

smoked a cigarratte once by myself cause I saw everybody doing that so I was like let me see how it is, I tried it and

it didn’t grow on me but that was only once. Holden and I both

put people on levels higher and lower other than our own for amount of knowledge and

and characteristic

Holden used the term 'phonies' to describe more than a few people in

this book. He used the term to be what a person is if they don't act

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