The Catcher in the Rye - My Hero, Holden Caulfield

Holden Caulfield, also my choice of hero in The Catcher in the Rye, is a very standoffish character. He is about sixteen years old and attends (before he was kicked out for failing grades) Pencey Prep. Holden is known throughout the novel to be a very depressed character that has a hard time grasping reality and growing up. I think his biggest goal in the novel is to hold on to his innocence for as long as he can. He has a hard time doing this when he is seen drinking at bars and meeting up with a prostitute toward the end of the novel.

Holden’s favorite word to use in the novel is “phony”. The rebellious teenager is constantly labeling people as phonies because he feels society is nothing but a bunch of fake hypocrites. In a way, I agree with Holden, in the fact that there are actually a lot of phonies out there. Although I do think he had somewhat of a problem seeing that ultimately anyone he talked to or looked as was a phony in his book. I feel sorry for the little guy because he actually begins to portray some of the traits he says that phonies possess. Steinbeck says it all with his quote regarding Holden. “The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it,” (Original cover of book).

In my opinion, Holden is a very influential character, probably one of the most influential out of all novels I have read. I find him to be a very sarcastic, straightforward individual. It is easy to relate to him because I myself am that way. I like to tell it as it is, and I will admit I too am a little scared of growing up. But aren’t we all? I think Salinger does a magnificent job portraying Caulfield as a character most of us can relate to. He allows readers into the world of a teenage boy struggling to accept adulthood into his life. We all go through that struggle at some point in our lives, so it is nice to know we are not alone (even if the only other person going through the same thing is a fictional sixteen year old boy from New York City).

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown and, 1991. Print.