'The Catcher in the Rye' review - Katy Merrett

During the 50’s Salinger wrote a novel that created a world of controversy and debate, only over time have we come to understand and explore the deeper meanings behind Salinger’s complex and troubled Holden Caulfield, who is exploring and discovering  the difficult world between childhood and adulthood. The experiences which we encounter in the book are what you could call ‘Rites of passage’ for a teenage life, though only reading through a 16 year olds perspective are we truly able to relate, understand and possibly agree with the choices made and consequences encountered.

“…Salinger creates a brash atmosphere from the very beginning of the book with Holden being portrayed as insolent, lazy and quite frankly, completely clueless about his future.” – Aiman.A, the Guardian.

Indeed to some extent we see the protagonist as ‘lazy’ but we also see how aware he is of his surroundings; his fascination with everyday information allows us to see that although on the surface juvenile and ‘clueless’ the protagonist is a deep thinker, able to see through to the wider world, this is conveyed through his amazement with the ducks.

The ‘brash’ atmosphere created hits us instantly with the possibly rude referral to David Copperfield’s way of writing, rather than knowing about a person, Salinger wants us to get to know the protagonist personally, thus giving us a clearer understanding of the events that happen and how the protagonist deals with them.

“Holden Caulfield is not likable – he is antagonistic, smokes incessantly, and uses foul language in nearly every sentence…” – Wendy, caribousmom.com

Agreeing with the negativity of this comment, with the protagonist’s constant blaspheming we may see that although sent to a ‘fancy Prep-school’ we are able to see the dark and misunderstood side of him that is partly covered by his unreliable narration. His ability to remember incidences and conversation that happened when he was ‘so drunk’ leads us to believe he is an unreliable narrator; we also only have emotions conveyed to us through the protagonist so we are left guessing as to what others think. I find, however, his extreme levels of confidence in certain situations allow us to see he can be ‘full of himself’ and possibly intimidatingly over confident.

Salinger has cleverly created a novel to which we find represents us, in one way or another. The simplistic lives of some characters within the novel allow us to reflect and see what else there could be as the protagonist advances our way of thinking to allow us to see that it’s okay to ask ‘why?’.  This human condition influences our lives daily and what I found I discovered is that the protagonist reminds us that although we may be here, we must be here for a reason, and therefore it is our duty to find out why no matter how much we slip up.