Salinger And Holden Caulfield Similarities

The end of World War II, a time in the beginning of the 1950’s when prosperity and success was on the rise; the glorifying death of The Great Depression, less than a decade of the United States allied with Great Britain and the Soviet Union, the most powerful of all forces this world has ever seen. The U.S. was so deeply entrenched in a nuclear arms race and the birth of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. It was clear to Salinger that the Americans, equipped for the first time in a long while with a good amount of money, flooded to the suburbs and replaced any sorrows they might have had with material products and consumerism; creating an America of conformity and extravagance that Salinger would devote much of his writing to critiquing. There is a strong resemblance of Holden Caulfield to J.D. Salinger in which one could say it is quite autobiographical about Salinger's views of the world. Whereas Holden gave up the dream of ditching society and living by himself away from everyone else, Salinger didn't. After the success of the novel put him in high demand in the public eye, he withdrew and lived a life of isolation. Salinger’s early life indeed paralleled that of the character Holden in
"Catcher in the Rye" in several significant ways, one of which is that Salinger grew up and spent his entire life in the wealthy apartment district of Manhattan. He was also sent to prep schools where he had difficulty adjusting. He was later sent to a military academy, from which he was graduated in 1936. Although he participated in some extra-curricular activities, it appears he did so for the sake of pleasing others and was more interested in writing, which he often did after "lights-out" under the covers of his bed. He had one sibling just like Holden did, a sister as a matter of fact, although she was older and did not die in a tragic manner. Like most writers, Salinger appears to have chosen topics he knew about. "Catcher in the Rye" is about the desperate loneliness of a shy, adolescent boy who feels trapped among "phonies" in a prep school. The similarities are clear, even to the final point; Salinger became a recluse, much as Holden Caulfield might have given the wealth of his family and the means of an inheritance. The most noticeable of Holden's peculiarities is how extremely judgmental he is of almost everything and everybody. He criticizes and philosophizes about people who are boring, people who are insecure, and, above all, people who are "phony." Holden carries this penchant for passing judgment to such an extreme that it often becomes extremely funny, such as when he speculates that people are so thoughtless that it wouldn’t be a surprise if someone were to vandalize his tombstone. Holden applies the term "phony" not to people who are insincere but to those who are too conventional or too typical-for instance, teachers who "act like" teachers by assuming a different demeanor in class than they do in conversation or people who dress and act like the other members of their social class. While Holden uses the label "phony" to imply that such people are superficial, his use of the term actually indicates that his own perceptions of other people are superficial. In almost every case, he rejects more complex judgments in favor of simple categorical ones. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is an excellent novel and was written to absolute perfection with the use of rhetorical devices and literary elements. The novel itself is all about how a young teenager who narrates the events of his life get him into a mental hospital, he tries to seek advice from his old high school professors who in turn give him the same advice which has not been helpful. His point of view of the world is highly unique and philosophical which he constantly states that this world is full of phonies. Holden is incredibly talented and extremely intelligent but his view on the world is so unorthodox it makes the rest of us have a different perspective on life and of the world we live in.
The story Salinger creates is Holden Caulfield is the main character, protagonist, and his own antagonist in the story.
The novel takes place all within one crazy, extraordinary week of Holden’s high school life. He is an incredibly brilliant young man who at the same time can be so foolish, the choices he makes all affect him in the future and he knows that what he is doing most of the time is wrong, but still accepts it and knows that what is to come will affect him in the worst of ways but still continuous to make horrible mistakes. He has every reason to feel and act the way he does, the things Holden’s been through in his life made him the way he is but that is no reason to lose hope and stop believing in human nature because there is always good people in bad
places.
Holden is trying his absolute best to find stability, acceptance, and trust in a broken down society full of people that are frauds and continue to disappoint him, letting him down, and hurting him. Everyone he’s ever met or known is a phony who doesn’t fail to get disappointed by society. All Holden wants is to find his place in society and to trust in it once more the way he once did in his days of youth when he was still innocent. The way Holden sees people as phonies is in such a way that people don’t act with full honesty at all, but rather in such a way that seems to be socially acceptable and polite, and the one thing that makes him really give up hope with everyone is how people have the audacity to not care about the choices one makes and how itaffects the way it make some people or even a whole society feel.
Holden being the one telling the story makes his tone quite like the Catcher’s tone. Holden has compassion. He’s cynical, he sees right through Sunny’s pretense of being a seasoned whore, and he makes sarcastic digs about how she’s a bad conversationalist, but he’s compassionate. He sees her as a real person.

At the same time, Holden finds nearly everything to be depressing. He is always depressed mostly because of the death of his brother. His brother died at a young age of eleven, he seemed have been close to Allie, and it was a traumatic death (leukemia while they were away for the summer in Maine, a happy time turned tragic for him), at least for a thirteen year old.
His parents seem to be fairly disinterested in him (he describes them as "occupied" before he was born), they don't let him grieve for his brother properly, they just shuffle him from school to school without realizing that he may have a real problem. Even as he's telling the story, he is in a hospital in California. They sent him across the country, which seems like another way to keep him distant. They seem to regard him as a screw up.

He obviously has some issues with his self esteem; he refers to himself as the only dumb one in the family. He is quick to put down Stradlater for being handsome. He is an underachiever.
He talks about suicide a few times.
He thinks that it would be a good life to live in the woods and not have to deal with other people.
He is obsessed with a Jane, a gal that never really showed affection for him in return. It is a good way for him to avoid intimacy.