The catcher in the rye :: essays research papers

"The Catcher In The Rye"     In the novel The Catcher In The Rye we read about a sixteen course of study emeritus boy namedHolden Caulfield. The story starts off telling us about how he gets kicked out of a preppyHigh School and uses his parents money to move to impertinently York. Throughout the story wesee Holden expressing different types of personality The one he shows the world, which Ibelieve is that he is an intelligent young man that doesnt try, who he thinks he is, whichis a depressed person who is looking for companionship, and who he really is, a sacredkid who who doesnt know what he wants out of life.     Holden went to Pencey Prep., which is a High School in Agerstown Pennsylvania.He was thrown out of the school because he was failing almost all his classes except forEnglish. Holden has the ability to pass his classes and charge with good grades but hedoesnt apply himself. This is what Holden shows the world, he is cap able of passing andis intelligent but doesnt try. They gave me frequent warning to start applyingmyself-especially slightly midterms,...but I didnt do it. (Salinger 4) Also as Holden talksthroughout the story we can tell that he is very intelligent because of the way he describeseverything, even though his grammar isnt so well.     Underneath Holdens act of being this kid who just doesnt try I think inwardly hethinks he is depressed and doesnt care about anything. He gets kicked out of High Schooland doesnt try to go to another one, kind of he goes to New York looking for sex andtraveling form bar to bar for people to talk to. He winds up talking with people he reallydoesnt like because he is just looking for companionship, like the three girls he met inthe bar and the taxi cab driver who he talks to about what happens to the fish in the lakewhen it freezes. He even hires a prostitute to have sex but winds just talking to her about nothing because essentially he wants to a friend. He says to the prostitute Dont you feellike talking for a while (Salinger 95)     In my opinion, Holden is really scare of life. He doesnt know what he wants outof it and he is afraid that if he tries to get what he wants he will screw it up. For exampleHolden asks old Sally to run away with him and settle down in Vermont or Mass.