Gordon College Old Hospital Rd.

East Tapinac, Olongapo City

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

(A REACTION)

Basa, Elgincolin
BSEd/ Major 2nd

Arlet
Year/English

Leaving childhood is hard for some teens; it is difficult to run off the problem free stage of life; sometimes it is hard to act as matured enough because of a playful attitude that was conceived during the early period of life. Parents send their children in different institutions because they want their child to be a responsible person, good individual and successful human being; they trains their child to get ready for their future because when the moment they joined the almighty God their child must already prepared themselves in striving their life with their own. There is a novel which was written by Jerome David Salinger entitled The Catcher in the Rye that portrays the story of a teen named Holden who has difficulty in getting serious with his life and that work of fiction could be relevant to the teen agers who is like Holden. The very first moment I heard the title of J. D. Salingers novel, it made me think; The Catcher in the Rye would mean something significant, after internalizing the concept of the literary work, I was enlightened because I discover the relevance of the title on the story. In the novel, Holden, stated that he want to be a Catcher in the Rye because he want to catch all the children who are going to jump on the cliff. If you are going to analyze deeply the statement of Holden, basically, it wants to portray that Holden wants to save the children from the real world because he wants to conserve and preserve the innocence of the child in the purest form, and he wants to protect the children from all the vices they are going to encounter in adulthood. Upon reading the novel, I noticed that Holden has a conflict with himself and society. He accused almost all of the people around him as phony and as a prisoner of his own mind, he dont know to himself that he is phony. I have sited different themes in the story and one theme that I have encountered is growing up is hard for teens in terms of psychological and emotional. In the case of Holden he is strongly attached to teen age life, he thinks that the world or everything or everyone around him is the fault of his failures but he dont even thinks his internal persona, I think he doesnt have an internal peace and that is the reason why it is hard for him to grow up and get matured. Another thing, flunking his subjects and insulting others is his

way of escaping his problem. I have analyzed the story and I thought that Holden told his story on a mental institution because he has a mental disorder and he needs to search for his own identity. Holden is a strong character because he did not change his personality all over the novel. In terms of identity, Holden is not a strong character, because he doesnt discover his self well, and he is confused of his own individuality. The Catcher in the Rye could be relevant in our present society because there are some teens that have difficulty in finding their own selves; most of them use rebellion as highway for them to express themselves well. And as a future mentor of the future generation, learning the personality, individuality and behavior of my students is must for us because this would give a cue on how to cope with my students behavior.