Catcher In The Rye Essay

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Caitlin Fuhrman
The Catcher in the Rye has some characters that teenagers can hardly connect with and make the story respectable or enjoyable; they act unusual and leave the reader more confused than educated. Touching on the strange behavior of characters, those who exhibit the most of these actions are Holden Caulfield, Ward Stradlater, and Sally Hayes. Caulfield is the guiltiest with how he acts, but Stradlater and Hayes can be arguably as bad. First of all, Stradlater has strange speech ticks, like repeating words and phrases, (“I’ll be up the creek…” in chapter 4, page 32). He repeats that he will be “up the creek” if he doesn’t finish a composition for English, over and over again. Stradlater also sticks only to the composition; half of his dialogue in chapter four is about the English composition, even after Caulfield agrees to help him with the project. Finally, Stradlater contradicts himself when Caulfield asks his permission to go out with one of Stradlater’s old dates. At first he agrees, saying she’s free game, and then tells Caulfield that he can’t. (“Take her… She’s too old for you” page 34) this shows that Stradlater doesn’t think before he speaks, nor does he think often of what he is saying. Next is Caulfield. Throughout the whole novel, Caulfield shows that he has strange speech patterns, talking and rambling in circles around subjects while he’s telling the story. The way Caulfield speaks makes it more difficult for the story to be understood. Caulfield also has issues with how he has random outbursts; not of anger, but of desire. On page 35, while Stradlater is shaving, Caulfield has the sudden desire to tackle Stradlater and put him in a choke hold. There was no rhyme or reason for choking Stradlater; he just decided he wanted to. Lastly is his lack of interest in activities that boys his age would find enjoyable. (“Ice-skating… right now?” in chapter 17, page 142.) Anybody in Caulfield’s situation would jump on the offer to go ice-skating, at least in present time. Caulfield, on the
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