Weekly Blog Post: Catcher In The Rye

Catcher In The Rye by J.D Salinger

          This book is mainly about a teenager named Holden Caulfield's life and it captures some moments and skips some. The captured moments are not really filled with problems, but just things that are important. One problem is being unsuccessful and that's really it although he does struggle with his friends and girls, being unsuccessful's a real big problem.Being unsuccessful not only leads to family trouble, but friend troubles as well. Holden has flunked every class except for English in Pencey, the school he goes to. He then gets kicked out because of this. But that's not the only school he's been kicked out of; he's been kicked out two other schools. Holden even decides to not live with education anymore and just work in a ranch out in the west. That's his problem: being unsuccessful.

          But being unsuccessful leads to family trouble. His father is extremelly strict on education and is already tired of Holden flunking out of every schools he goes to. His father wants him to go to Harvard. Holden's little sister is definitely on Holden's side and cares for him a lot as well. Eventually,even Phoebe gets scared that their father would kill Holden for flunking out of Pencey.

          Holden deals with troubles with friends as well. For one thing, Holden doesn't really have friends, just roommates and classmates. You see,Holden has a problem where he can end up hating someone just by their characteristics. He leaves Pencey in the end with a big fight with his roommate, Stradlater and he trashes a nice girl that he was on a date with. He can't even make good friends with his classmate Ackley who is quite a disgusting fellow.

          This book really talks about Holden's time in New York after Pencey rather than focusing on everything else, but what do you think you would do if you were in Holden's shoes? What would you do if you failed at school and making friends? I think that I would go off on my own and run away.