Catcher In The Rye Guidance

The Catcher in the rye is a book written by J.D Salinger. The book is about a rebellious teenager named Holden Caulfield. Holden is lost in life and struggles to find his way out depression. J.D Salinger shows in this book the true value of having guidance in your life when one grows up. Guidance will keep one from from being lost in life. Salinger shows the importance of having guidance early on in the book. In the beginning of Holden’s story, Holden explains how he acts quite young for his age.”Partly because I have a lousy vocabulary and partly because I act quite young for my age sometimes”( 9). Holden has been to many different schools apart from Pencey and at 17 he is acting immature. By showing the audience Holden acts really immature for his age, Salinger is demonstrating the lack of guidance boarding schools have given Holden. Salinger introduces Holden's older brother,D.B fairly early in the book as a writer in Hollywood. Holden tells the readers D.B became a writer after “He wrote this terrific book of short stories” (1) called The Secret Goldfish. Also, in page 140 Holden tells the reader that D.B was in the army for four years. Holden goes in and
explains how D.B was never really there for him. “I was practically a child at the time, but I remember when he used to come home on furlough and all, all he did was lie on his bed, practically”. In the real world ones older brother is someone you can trust for guidance. Salinger is showing that lack of guidance by making it clear D.B was never really there during Holden's childhood. Throughout the story, Holden does not talk so nicely about many different people, because of this it is hard to say holden has many friends.. The people he talks about don’t seem like people that can help guide him or help him go to the right path. For example, Stradlatter doesn't seem like someone who can help Holden through life. Holden describes Stradlatter as a “very sexy bastard” (32) and says he's “Only very sexy stuff interested him”(32). From the information the reader gets about Stradlatter it is easy to see he is not a very good person for Holden to be with. Salinger made that more obvious after Stradlatter beat up Holden after his date with Jane. The other person Holden would talk to at Pencey was Ackley, but he was a unhygienic mess of a person. Both Stradlatter and Ackley did not provide much guidance or friendship to Holden. At the end of the book Salinger makes it sort of obvious Holden needed guidance in his life.
Holden is talking to Phoebe and he explains how he wants to be The catcher in the rye. “Anyway, i keep picturing all these little kids playing...I know it's crazy.”(173). Holden tells Phoebe he wants to be the person who catches little kids when they can't see where they are going and fall off the rye field. He means he wants to be the one who helps kids without guidance. Holden sees childhood like running through a rye field. One can’t see where they are going through a rye field and you become lost, like in life. Then when a cliff comes up you fall off, Holden sees this cliff as adulthood. As a kid, you're running all over the place and without guidance, you fall off the cliff when going into
adulthood. J.D Salinger’s showing of the importance of guidance is something that all teenagers can look up to today. While many teenagers can do well in life many struggle with many different problems,not having guidance is one of them. One can look around at schools or any place and they will see many teenagers who are lost. Many of them don’t behave as they should and they are rebellious as Holden was in the book. Many teenagers today are like Holden and can see him as themselves. Salinger showed all of us in the book that without having guidance, one will get lost in life.