The Catcher in the Rye: Live Truly

The novel The Catcher in the Rye written by Jerome David Salinger opens with the narrator, Holden Caulfield, a seventeen-year-old boy from New York City, telling the story of three days in his life. In this book, Salinger expresses his desire for true love and purity.

For the hero, Holden, it is the adult world that has driven him insane. He just cannot relate to anyone except for his kid sister Phoebe. Everything and all other people seem "phony" to him. Holden is unable to accept life. Since Holden is becoming an adult himself, he is unhappy with what he will represent. He flunks out of three boarding schools in a row, the latest of them Pencey Prep. After an unpleasant experience with his history teacher "Old Spencer," his roommate Stradlater and the boy next door, Robert Ackley, Holden decides to leave Pencey four days early for Christmas break. He knows that he cannot return to his parents because they are not aware that he has been expelled again. Holden spends the next three days wandering aimlessly around New York City. In those three short days, he suffers a lot. Finally, he meets his sister, who tells him she wants to run away with him and that she will never go back to school. Holden sees himself in her, finally changes his mind and decides to go back to his parents.

Salinger develops his own style of the use of language. The Catcher in the Rye is written in a subjective style from the point of view of its protagonist, Holden Caulfield, following his exact thought processes. There is flow in the seemingly disjointed ideas and episodes; for example, as Holden sits in a chair in his dorm, minor events such as picking up a book or looking at a table, unfold into discussions about experiences. Critical reviews agree that the novel accurately reflected the teenage colloquial speech of the time. Words and phrases that frequently appear include "Phony" "That killed me" "Flit" "FlittyWuddya” "Crumby". These are able to increase the vivid language and appealing and can give the readers emotional resonance, rouse readers' desire of exploration and thinking. For example, ?It was cold as a witch?s teat.” such jocular and humorous metaphor is so wonderful that it may come as a bit of a shock. But, it does not make the readers feel sick, instead, it sparks 1

their interest to think about why the author express by this way.

Except the flexible application of various spoken languages and slangs, there is another prior factor that it has a very far-reaching significance makes The Catcher in the Rye being recognized more and more. It is a war between phoniness and authenticity. Holden labels almost everyone a “phony,” excepting Phoebe, Allie, and himself. In Holden's eyes, a “phony” is someone who embraces the world?s mundane demands and tries to make something out of nothing—that is, just about everyone who studies in school or who puts on airs in order to do a job or achieve a goal. So, he escapes from the school even the society to find some authentic living, to hold on to someone like Phoebe or Allie who knows nothing of the world?s superficiality and therefore is not tainted by it, but he is afraid to make it too real out of the justified fear of one day losing them forever.

What Holden is searching for is what Salinger wants. In the case of J. D Salinger?s The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger painted the image of Holden Caulfield on the canvas of his own life. J. D. Salinger?s personal experiences and beliefs are reflected in the settings, the protagonist, and the themes of The Catcher in the Rye. He developed a character, Holden Caulfield, whose attitude and values are comparable to his. He also built the central themes of the novel through the implementations of motifs that illustrate his own beliefs. In conclusion, through the usage of his own experiences, Salinger created one of the greatest portrayals of teenage struggles amidst a confusing and unappealing society. He is keen to seek for true love and purity but simultaneously he fears loosing all that he possesses.

All in all, throughout Salinger's creation of Holden, I sense a profound pathos. Without question Salinger makes us deeply sorry for Holden's failures, and as a result we are left with little hope at the end when we learn that Holden does not know whether he is going to succeed at school. But his "little hope" makes us review the novel with an eye toward answering the question of whether the world in which Holden finds himself is really worth succeeding in on its own terms, and encourages us live truly.

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第二篇：the catcher in the ray《麦田里的守望者》读后感

The Perplexity and Painfulness of the Teenager

——The Catcher in the Ray

There are half of uncivilized words in this book. This is the first feeling when I read this book. Then I feel confused and stresseed about the people in this book. They are contradictory, especially the leading character——Holden Caulfied. Holden of this book is a secondary school students came from wealthy middle-class 16-year-old boy, in the fourth after being expelled from school, not dare to go home, alone in the United States the most prosperous of New York City one day and two nights wandering living small inn, go to nightclubs, girlfriend promiscuity, alcoholism·he saw the ugly capitalist society, access to a wide variety of characters, most of which are "false false mode of" hypocrite. Holden could not around almost everything, he even wants to flee the real world, to the remote to pretend a deaf and dumb people and married with a beautiful and also deaf woman, but to really do so, it is impossible, and he can only live in contradiction: the most hated him in this lifetime movies, but bored to death also had to spend their time in the cinema; him offensive sexual relations without love, but a confused and called a prostitute; He hated the vulgar vanity of his girlfriend Sally , but obsessed with her beauty, could not help with her play kossy-poo. Therefore, even though he could not stand the social, he had no choice but to depression, like anxiety, using a variety of comforting illusions about themselves, self-deception, and finally we still can not avoid the reality of social compromise, into a genuine treason, which can be said to be the author JD Salinger His characters and the tragedy of Holden is located.

Jerome David Salinger, born in 1919 in New York City, son of ham and cheese to do the import business of the Jewish businessman, a very rich family. 15-year-old Salinger, parents were sent to a military school in Pennsylvania in time to live, it is said, The Catcher in the Rye in the description on the boarding school, it is that most of the schools as the background. In 1936, Salinger in the military school graduate, he has made his life only a diploma. From 1940 in the "fiction" magazine published his first short story, that in 1951 he published the novel. The Catcher in the Rye only in the more than 10 years, he made a total of 20 a number of short stories, some are still short of "classic" and "New Yorker" and other well-known journals, so he has a little bit of literary fame. Fame after he lived to the countryside, specially built for themselves a window of only a cement room for study each day with 8:30 on a lunch box into the writing, it was not until 17:30, no one at home are not allowed to Go in to disturb him; who, if only by telephone. He is also said to be writing process is very arduous, The Catcher in the Rye was first published in the progress of his writing more and more slowly, only the publication of three 10-year Medium length text open and a short, was not even published works. Occasionally fortunate enough to have seen him said, his face has been "showing signs of aging." His work has been completed and the number is said to be considerable, but he refused to make out. Publishers have a lot of fight in his mind, even after his death, such as how to get all of his works out of copyright, but so far, in addition to the book, the author published only a short set of "Nine Stories" and "were a carpenter" (1963).

The hero Holden always swears so much, he nearly hates everything. He even hates the word "grand" very much, and also thinks "Good luck" sounds terrible. He said himself that "I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life". I think he is combination of contradictions. He always does something he doesn't like. But, he is very kind I think. Actually, he is full of love and sympathy. He could lend his cote and printer to someone even he doesn't know him. He could donate much

money to nuns, and say the money is just a little. When nuns thanks about it, he would feel embarrassed.

He became this guy just because that social. His parents and teacher force him to study hard just for "buying a hell of Cadillac", and even his most respect teacher said that,"the mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one". This is a kind of self-interested and utilitarianism. Holden doesn't willing to follow this, then he doesn't study and react as a hoodlum, he just chooses this way to resist this social. His dream is very simple " I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff-I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the ray and all." He just shouted all children's dream——they want to be protected.

Then I remember an Singapore movie named I'm Not Stupid 2. The children in this movie become bad and make many mistakes because their parents pay little attention to them. Their hearts are kind actually. Finally, their parents realize their faults and shoe their love to them, they become excellent. In my heart, there are no complete villains in this world, these people must suffered pains in life. If they lived happily, they will become another people.

Holden has a brother D.B.——he is a writer in Hollywood. A little sister Phoebe, he loves Phoebe, he said his sister is the most pretty an d smart girl. And a little brother Allie who got leukemia and died, he said that Allie was a wizard. You can see that Holden love them very much. Once he thought he died, then he hopes that when he does die somebody has sense enough to just dump him in the river or something. Anything except sticking him in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody! This is actually true. People always want to treasure things after losing them. Then he mentioned his died brother Allie: He hates to go his grave. He doesn't enjoy seeing him in that crazy cemetery, surrounding by dead guys and tombstones and all. And when it rains, all the visiters to see him could go to their cars and turn on their radio and all then go someplace nice for dinner-enerybody except Allie, this makes him crazy. This is really cruel.

I took some notes of philosophical sentences from this book.

He said that,"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrfic friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.That doesn't happen much, though". I love this description of a good book. It just speaking my feelings after reading an excellent book in an active way which I never think of this way. I cleared my mind at once after reading this sentence.

When he missed his sister Phoebe, then he decided to go to home to talk with her. When he walked in his home in the dark, he said that, I certainly knew I was home, though. Our foyer has a funny smelllike anyplace else. I don't know what the hell it is. It isn't cauliflower or perfume, but you always konw you're home. Yes, this is his feeling about his home, maybe this is all people's feeling about home.

This book pressed my emotions, and I can't speak my feeling clearly actually. Everybody must have their own thought about this book, I think.