Catcher in the Rye

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The special moments in life only last a short period of time. In The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger portrays a young fellow that dislikes himself and the world that surrounds him. The protagonist shows the way many teenagers feel about themselves and their relations with their parents, their friends and the opposite sex. Salinger uses secondary characters to remark Holden’s isolation in society, the mood and his immaturity.

Holden, the main character in the book, feels isolated in a society where almost nobody cares for him, he acts sometimes in strange ways and tends to react in very peculiar ways. Along the story, there are many examples of Holden’s isolation but there are three that stand out because of their double meanings. One of them is how he is pretending to be walking through the park and acts as if he was shot. Normally people do not do this. One might think that he is crazy or that he does not really care about life. Both interpretations are correct but the best one in this case is that really he does not care about life, he is just bored and acts as if someone had killed him and he was dead. This fact allows  the reader to get the impression that Holden has a miserable life and does not want to live any more.  The second example of Holden’s isolation and a proof that he is a strange character is when he is in a taxi and  tries to struck up a conversation with  the driver by asking him, “ Where do ducks go?”. This makes him look weird and  lonely and it proves that he does not have any one to talk to. His loneliness is increasing in his mind and makes him do really dumb things. The fact that he is talking to random people asking strange questions tells us how he misses his family, Jane and Sally. His strange behaviour  can also be considered  as a sign of craziness or some sort of  mental

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problem. The third situation is when  he starts screaming at Sally because she does not want to leave school and  marry  him. That is a very strange behaviour because Holden is very young and does not know Sally that much as to think of marrying her. Sally reacts telling him that he is crazy. Holden’s idea of leaving the school was a bit surrealist in the sense that  neither him nor Sally  could just leave their lives and go to another place. This tells us how lonely Holden is in the school, because he wants to escape from  school ...

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