Ensaio sobre: O Apanhador no Campo de Centeio

Bárbara Santos

Ms. Fontaine Phillips

American Literature 6

06 December 2013

The Catcher and the Rye and Holden Caulfield’s misery

        The Catcher in the Rye, the first and only novel by the American author J. D. Salinger, has become a classic over the years. Originally published in 1951, the novel is taught in American high schools even today, mainly because of its appeal to young readers. The main character, Holden Caulfied, is a 16 year old boy who talks to the reader as if talking to a friend, using slangs and swear words. He has a humorous speech but despite that, the reader realizes Holden is an exceptionally unhappy person. He isn’t interested in anything, is expelled from several different schools, doesn’t have any friends and feels very lonely. From the people he interacts with, the only one he really cares about is his younger sister, Phoebe, because she’s still a kid and hasn’t been corrupted by the world. By the end of the novel, the reader realizes that Salinger has used Holden to show us that while the attempt to weed out the truth from lies in our world is a noble quality, pursing this line of thinking for too long will achieve nothing but personal misery.

        Salinger shows Holden as an extremely judgmental person, constantly characterizing most people and most things as “phony,” which makes him become antisocial. At the beginning of the novel, he doesn’t have any friends and doesn’t like his acquaintances; however, still craves for human interaction, so he forces himself to spend time with people he doesn’t care about. Holden is a very observant person and thinks that “People never notice anything,” not realizing he is different for noticing so much (Salinger 9). His resentment towards people not noticing comes from his strong desire for someone to realize he is depressed; his failure in most of his classes despite being smart is an attempt to draw people’s attentions and, when it doesn’t, his antisocial behavior increases. He finds reasons to be judgmental about people in the smallest things and thinks people aren’t well intentioned, even when he doesn’t have enough information to actually form an opinion. In chapter 17, when Holden tells the reader, “You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they were,” he is essentially characterizing “phony” people as liars because he doesn’t consider them to be actually interested in the play, even though he doesn’t know them (Salinger 126). Holden categorizes people as “phony” or good, and most are put in the first category; therefore, everything they do or say is interpreted as bad. If someone he likes, like Jane or Phoebe, was talking about the play, he would take it as a sign of intelligence, not of bragging. The Catcher in the Rye focuses in character development rather than plot development, and a significant part of Holden’s development is how he interprets the world around him. He does that by observing other people. He despises those who are hypocritical but “doesn’t follow his proclaimed norms” (Mitchell). Holden dislikes Ackley but still invites him to the movies, he hates movies, but throughout the novel he sees and talks about many; he is a wealthy white boy and knows he’ll probably end up being a lawyer and drinking martinis and playing golf – becoming exactly the type of person he hates and, for that reason, he is terrified of growing up.

        Since all he sees in the world are bad things and bad people, the author shows him turning to his own version of God, without even noticing it – Allie, his little brother who died due to leukemia at age 12. Holden, despite of being “sort of an atheist” still wishes to pray occasionally, but often times doesn’t or can’t (Salinger 99). He says “I can’t always pray when I feel like it,” so he talks to Allie when feeling particularly depressed (Salinger 99). His little brother represents what he tries so hard to preserve, innocence. Allie got away before it was too late for him, he will never be “phony,” he won’t ever become a “prostitute” in Hollywood like Holden’s older brother D.B., he won’t ever be a lawyer drinking martinis and playing golf, he’s safe. In Holden’s point of view, “Allie represents immunity from the dangers of society… Fascinated with Allie’s solution to the problem, Holden defies him, preserving him in his memory… praying aloud to him” (Mitchell). Holden isn’t happy Allie is dead and misses him tremendously, and more than anything he misses having someone to talk to, a friend. After a prostitute whom he hires, but doesn’t have sex with, is gone and he has no hopes of having any human interaction that night, he states “I felt so depressed, you can’t even imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud to Allie,” because it gives him the illusion of still having a friend and making up for what Holden thinks he did wrong regarding his brother (Salinger 98). However, he is happy that Allie got away before it was too late for him. In Holden’s perception, it’s too late for D.B., who used to write terrific short stories but now writes movies in Hollywood and “represents wholehearted acceptance of society's norms” (Mitchell). He sees D.B. growing up and is afraid of doing so as well; he thinks of Allie’s solution to the problem and is captivated by it.