Catcher In The Rye Essay Introduction Example For Students

Catcher In The Rye Essay Introduction Catcher in the RyeCatcher in the Rye by Jerome Salinger is based on a 16 year old young man. The storytakes place in New York where the main character, a seventeen-year-old Holden Caulfield,hasmany friends. He was kicked out ofPencey Prep, along with the two other schools before that, andis afraid to gohome and tell his parents. He wassupposed to leave Pencey Prep on a Wednesdayand finish out the semester andthen go home during Christmas break.Instead he leaves a few daysearlier and ventures out into New YorkCity. The story focused around thepeople he meets and theplaces he goes.Throughout the story, Holden has many flashbacks, where he remembers thepastand tries to make sense of the present using the knowledge he gainedthrough his past experiences. He visits many actual places such as, Central Park, The American Museum of NaturalHistory, andthe Metropolitan Museum of Art.Holden is an adolescent boy on the edge of adulthood, and he isjusttrying to make sense of his life and where he stands in it. The literary element characterization played a major role in this novel. In the story therewere not that manywell-developed characters in the story, but Holden were so well developedyoufelt as though you didnt need the other characters to make the storywork. While reading thestory, it feltas thought the reader were part of the story, hearing the sounds that Holdenheard, andyou felt you were in the same place at the same time. One critic had said, ;quot;A humanbeinghad been created out of ink, paper and the imagination.;quot; He was so very well roundedandthree-dimensional. Also, with him beingthe narrator, you could tell what he was thinking atevery moment. That brought to life the othercharacters. The narrator would tell hisopinions ofthem and then the reader could see them the same way Holden wasseeing them, not as if you werelooking at them through your own eyes. The way Holden related situations and eventsto everydaythings in life made things so much clearer to the reader and mad eit much easier to understand whyhe thought they was he did on certain issues. The theme of Catcher In The Rye canbe stated in the following statement; life is notalways fair and people arenot always fair, but you should try to make the best of everything. Holden knew quite a few people, and some ofthem he didnt like, but he was always nice to themand never tried to do anythingto intentionally hurt them. Also, whenhe got kicked out of PenceyPrep, he didnt get a negative attitude and turnagainst everyone. He just went on withhis life andmoved on doing other things.Also, while in New York City, he wasnt able to stay in the bestmotelsbut he didnt complain. He tried tomake the best of the situation and stayed in the hotelroom as little aspossible. Holden is the type of personthat would want to be some ones goodfriend, with the exception of his badlanguage and drunkard ness, because for the most part he hada very positiveoutlook on life and people in general.He tried to see the good in people, even whenthere wasnt any to beknown. The way the main character was portrayed in this novel makes youbelievethat the theme is mainly just make the best of with what you have. This holds true in thefollowing statement,the happiest people dont necessari ly have the best of everything, but theyjustmake the best of everything.