The Catcher in the Rye (Identities and Issues in Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: J. D. Salinger
- First Published: 1951
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism, Bildungsroman
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, Family or family life, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Adolescence, Sex or sexuality, New York City, 1940’s, Alienation, Friendship, Brothers and sisters, Mental illness, Truthfulness and falsehood, Students or student life, Psychiatry or psychiatrists, Private schools
- Locales: New York, NY, Pennsylvania
The Work
More than most modern novels, The Catcher in the Rye is about identity. It tells of the often frustrating and futile search for self by a young person wandering in an adult urban world. Holden Caulfield’s emotional development has been arrested by the death of his younger brother Allie, and by a series of encounters that have shown him just what a “phony” world he is trying to grow up into. In the weekend in New York City that the novel chronicles, Holden searches for self, and, at the end, finds it.
The only good people in the novel are the...
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