Alex Zommer
Mrs. Haggerty
AP English—1
18 August 2014
The Catcher in the Rye AP Essay In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present activities, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a novel or play in which a character must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Then write an essay in which you show how the characters relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Holden Caulfield is constantly affected by his upbringing and how he was raised. In The Catcher in The Rye, J.D. Salinger shows the difference between Holden and Phoebe and how their different upbringings change who they are as people and how they treat others. Holden’s childhood has made him more of a reserved and conservative person who does not like who he has turned out to be. He misses his childhood and his innocence and is worried about Phoebe having the same thing happen to her. Holden expresses his worry about this many times throughout the novel and it ends up influencing one of the biggest decisions of his life. When Holden goes back home to see Phoebe he realizes how much of a young girl Phoebe still is and is worried that she is going to change like he did if she is to live a similar life to him. He has matured quickly and is not happy with the way things turned out for him. He is worried that Phoebe will get sucked into the perversion and corruption of the world that they live in. He knows that her life now is probably the best it will ever be and he does not want her to lose it like he lost his. The main time he shows this is when Phoebe takes his hat and his suitcase and starts to walk across the street when he tells her he is leaving and she says she wants to come with. She looks like a smaller version of him and he is worried she will turn out like he did. For this reason he decides he has to stay and be with Phoebe because he does not want her to lose her innocence like he did. He knows that if she were to leave home with him she would most likely turn out to be another version of him, and he does not want to see her like that. It’s easy to tell how much Holden cares about Phoebe because she is the only one, other than Allie, that Holden seems to enjoy all the time and is never rude to. Holden consistently is ridiculing and criticizing the things and the people around him. He seems to be a stereotypical grouchy old man who thinks everyone is a “phony” and seems to dislike
