Josh Castro
Mrs Jacobson pd 8
English
26 February 2008
The perfect match
The famous author, J.D Salinger, the author of "The Catcher in the rye", created a
story that has been greatly inspired by his own life. Holden Caulfield a high class
teenager much like J.D Salinger is the main character in this novel. The book takes you
through Holdens many adventures from a private school in Pennsylvania to central park
in New York. Within it you see that Holden goes through many of the same growing
pains and looks at things in the same perspective as Salinger does. This and many other
similar ideas show how Salinger wrote The Catcher In the rye as an autobiographical
story.. The main character Holden is very similar to J.D salinger because they both had
the same personal issues, issues with society, and they both have a tendency toward
reclusiveness.
Many similarities between Holden Caufield and J.D Salinger are that they have many
of the same personal issues. Holden and Salinger’s education has many of the same
positive and negative issues. Holden's story in The Catcher in the Rye starts with Holden
attending Pencey prep, which is a boarding school. He was sent there by his parents, who
seemed to have been fading away from his life after Holden was kicked out of numerous
schools. On a very similar note, after failing out of numerous schools and being called
one of the worst English students, Salinger's parents sent him to Valley Forge Military
School, where he had a neighbor who always seemed to be barging in, who showed a
striking resemblance to Ackley in the story. In the story we learn that that Holden is the
son of wealthy parents from New York, J.D. Salinger was also born in New York to
upper-class parents. Salinger and Holden are also similar because of their many failed
attempts at finding a trustworthy long lasting relationship with a woman . Holden is very
different from other men in that time, he respects women and looks for relationships but
every time he tries he fails. His failed relationship attempts include the one with Sally
Hayes, Jane Gallagher, the three older women in the lounge, and the prostitute, Sunny.
On the other hand, Salinger's situation was not much better. His first love, Oona, left him,
and his first two marriages ended in a divorce. With this evidence it Is simple to see that
they both have a record with failed love attempts. It looks as if Salinger wanted to
express the pain and desperation he feels in losing so many relationships in his life
through Holden's many failed attempts of creating relationships.
Throughout the story you see Holden criticize society a significant amount of times,
Salinger used Holden as a model of himself telling people what he thinks about society.
In the story Holden expresses that his older brother, D.B., sold himself out by writing
scripts for movies instead of pursuing a serious literature career. He also believes that
actors and actresses in movies and plays seem too phony. When he encounters good
actors, he then argues that they are too good at what they do and seem too confident. "In
the first place, I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do. Some of
the good ones do, in a very slight way, but not in a way that's fun to watch. And if any
actor's good, you can always tell he knows he's good, and that spoils it."(117) Salinger
also hated movie actors, the reason for this is because Salinger lost his first love Oona
O'Neill to Charlie Chaplin which was a big movie actor at the time of Salinger. Salinger
and holden are also alike because hey both have mixed feelings about Catholics. Salinger
first thought both of his parents were Jewish, but as she was growing up, soon after his
bar mitzvah he found out that his mother was a catholic. He wasn't very happy that his
mother had been lying to him throughout his life, and in the book, he shares how Holden
has mixed feelings about Catholics. He says they're always trying to figure out if he's
Catholic, and thinks they would like him more if he was catholic. "That’s why I’m glad
those two nuns didn’t ask me if i was a catholic, it would have spoiled the
conversation.”(113). “Another similarity between the two is that they both hate war.
Salinger was sent to Germany and participated in d-day in Normandy, there he suffered
from combat stress reaction and was sent home” (Bloom, 3-7) In the book holden states
that he would hate going into war and that he would rather die sitting by an atom bomb.
"I’m sort of glad that they've got the atomic bomb invented. If there’s ever another war,
I’m going to sit right the hell on top of it."(141) That shows Salinger's dislike of his
service time in the war. It seems Salinger hated being in the army not because he had to
shoot and kill people, but because of what kind of people in the army he had to be
surrounded by. (Mori, par.9)
Holden and Salinger also share the common reclusive ideology that being alone and
away from everyone is the way they want to live. Holden hates being in social
environments and having to talk to people. It seems like there is something about
everyone Holden meets that he doesn’t like because he always ends up cutting the
conversation with the other person by either insulting them or leaving the room. An
example of this is when Holden’s teacher Mr. Spencer is talking to him. He starts out just
listening to Mr. Spencer but as time progressed he began giving holden a lecture about
taking school serious then Holden thought to himself about how he wanted to leave the
room and not talk to Mr. Spencer anymore.” All of a sudden then, I wanted to get the hell
out of the room. I could feel a terrific lecture coming on. I didn't mind the idea so much,
but I didn't feel like being lectured to and smell Vicks Nose Drops and look at old
Spencer in his pajamas and bathrobe all at the same time. I really didn't."(14). Salinger is
exactly the same because he does not like to socialize with other people, participate in
Interviews, be out in public, or have anyone knowing about what is going on in his
personal life. Also, Holden and Salinger remark that now that they told the people their
story they wish they hadn’t. "If you want to know the truth, I don't know what I think
about it. I'm sorry I told so many people about it…Don't ever tell anybody
anything."(214) says Holden at the end of the book. Salinger has not published another
book since the catcher in the rye but still continues to write short stories and books for
himself. He greatly dislikes getting attention for published books. Holden and Salinger's
behavior shows that, they like writing their stories out but hate getting attention for It.
The mentality of being away from everyone is also a main similarity between Holden and
Salinger. Holden has the dream that he wants to move out west away from everyone and
live in a place far from society “.I"ll be away. I'll probably be in Colorado on this
ranch."(166). This is the description of how Salinger has been living his life, in a cabin
house in New England. This shows that they both want to get away from pressures being
put on them from everything.
In The Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield shows many of the same issues J.D
Salinger had such as having many of the same personal issues like getting kicked out of
numerous schools, issues with society like disliking war , showing a tendency toward
reclusivness like preferring to be alone and away from everyone and multiple other
similarities show that This story was greatly influenced by Salingers life making the story
an autobiographical story.