Catcher In The Rye Misfit Essay

Words: 767
Pages: 4

In the book, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, the protagonist, Holden, faces numerous challenges throughout his quest. Many people would classify him as either an ideal rebel or a neurotic misfit based off of the challenges he faces. In the novel, Holden is seen as a neurotic misfit because of him wanting to be the “catcher in the rye” and he the fact that he can’t connect with people in a normal way. The main character, Holden fits into the misfit category because of him wanting to be the “catcher in the rye”. J.D. For instance, Salinger writes, “‘Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some games in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around-nobody big, I mean-except me.’ (Salinger 191).” Holden sees himself as the big person out of all of the kids - not only …show more content…
For example, Salinger writes, “‘I hope you weren’t called home suddenly because of illness in the family.’ She [Mrs. Morrow] really looked worried about it. She wasn’t being nosy, you could tell. ‘No, everybody’s fine at home,’ I [Holden] said. ‘It’s me. I have to have this operation.’ ‘Oh! I’m so sorry,’ she said… ‘It isn’t very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.’... ‘It’s right near the outside. And it’s a very tiny one. They can take it out in about two minutes’ (Salinger 65).” Holden is using this little lie to prevent having to visit Mrs. Morrow at any point during Christmas break. Granted that this lie may seem “rebellious” or “rebel-like”, it’s just a little white as a caution from doing something he didn’t want to do. Not only that, but also he lied to get her off of his back because he knew he would never see this woman in his life again. Just because he uses little white lies doesn’t classify him as a rebel; a rebel has to disobey with an impact on people other than himself and