The Catcher in the Rye #1

The Catcher in the Rye was told by the main character. Holden Caulfield was the narrator of this story. Therefore, this story was written in first person. I liked how the story was written in this style. You really got to know exactly what Holden was thinking and the whole story was based on his ideas and thoughts. Most of the time Holden was very tense and was thinking negative thoughts. He never really saw the good in things and hated a lot of people. He thought a lot of people were fake and he referred to them as "phonies." "A million reasons why. It was one of the worst schools I ever went to. It was full of phonies. And mean guys." (Salinger 217) Holden hardly liked anyone. But, he loved his little sister Phoebe. Since Holden loved her so much and would do anything for her I believe that Salinger values family and doing what you can for the people you loved. Holden had to sneak in and out of his house so he could see her. It was a very scary, tense moment but he did it for her. Salinger also wrote in a different style than most authors do. He wrote in first person which really isn't that different but he usually focused on all the negative things during the story. Almost everything in the story was sad or made you worry. That made his writing different and I think he likes being different than others and thinks it is okay to be different than most other people. Which I agree with. It is no fun to be like everyone else around because then life is boring. I appreciate that Salinger tried to be different and wrote differently then most other authors. But, I really did not learn a lot about the author's values or attitudes from this story. Just because most of the story was focused on the negative things in life and nothing really positive.