Stereotypes In Catcher In The Rye

Lethargic, apathetic, callous, or careless; each of these words can describe the teenager stereotype. Other words that can describe the stereotype also include rebellious, troublemakers, loud, or obnoxious. These words do not apply to all teenagers all the time; yet, many of these words can apply to all teenagers at some small point in their lives, whether teenagers like it or not. These words can apply to J. D. Salinger's character Holden Caufield. In Salinger's The Cather in the Rye, Holden takes a trip to New York where he has a mental breakdown after flunking out of school. Salinger employs an unreliable narrator makes the novel The Catcher in the Rye more realistic and relatable, revealing the thoughts teens have about life and the outside

Countless readers at the end of the book see Holden as many adults see teenagers, obnoxious. There are many times in which Holden is obnoxious, but nowhere is there a better example than when Holden keeps asking about the ducks. Everytime Holden takes a cab, he ends up asking the cab driver where ducks go when the lake in Central Park freezes over. If a reader isn't looking for symbolism and is just reading the book for the story, this is just as obnoxious as it is for the cab drivers in New York because Holden never explains his motive behind the question. Even then, the symbolism is heavy enough for the average reader to pick up on it, and Holden’s unreliability works to connect the question to the motive. As readers go through the experience with him learning that the question is symbolic of his situation, Holden reveals that he still doesn’t understand what he should do even though he has an answer to his question. Holden asks the second cab driver he has until he gets an answer. This is similar in real life to how teenagers annoy adults since they, at one point or another, appear obnoxious to an adult. This can often time be in the case of teacher and student. It is hard for teachers to not find students obnoxious when many of the students complain about teachers being too harsh when the student doesn't put effort into their work. Many students who do this only think of themselves and not of what the

Holden himself is a callous person since he doesn't hold much regard for others throughout the story, just about what he will do. When Holden is drunk and tries calling Sally late at night, her grandmother answers the phone. When told to call back later, he tells the grandmother to wake Sally. He doesn't seem to care what time it is and tell the grandmother "Wake 'er up! Wake 'er up, hey. Attaboy" (Salinger 150). This showed Holden’s lack of respect for the need of sleep. Readers cannot be sure, due to Holden’s unreliability, but it revealed that Holden does not care for others at all due to his constant assumption that everyone is a phony of one kind or another or otherwise corny. This can is a callous act since many people would dislike someone calling them a phony. This also works for when Holden becomes frustrated with Stradlater, where although readers have no accurate account of what happened, but know that Holden picks a fight with Stradlater because Stradlater doesn’t give Holden information. Holden does his best to show try to set up Stradlater to seem like a self-important person, but since readers can’t trust Holden’s views of a person, readers have to make their own assumptions. Holden is able to make many people assume one thing about a person through his unreliable narration, usually making readers dislike a person through calling them