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Andy Cheng

Mrs. Stanford

ENG 231

5 May 2019

Innocence and Irrationality

Youth has the ability to give the perception of rationality to an otherwise irrational action

from an outsider’s point of view. This disconnect leads to the countless idiotic decisions that are

made by kids and teens as these individuals are still stumbling through life quite aimlessly.

Logic, wisdom, and risk appear less important the younger one is due to the lack of experiences

accumulated that introduce an aspect of restraint which tones down such scatter-brained actions.

An immature brain just views the world around it much differently than an adult one as it draws

non-sequiturs out of thin air when the correct conclusion would be much more reasonable, but

teens are just not very reasonable. ​The Catcher in the Rye​ and Holden Caufield’s character can

especially attest to this notion quite thoroughly as the novel explores Holden’s experiences

during his time at Pencey Prep and in New York City. At these locations, Holden’s interactions

with fellow students and old acquaintances fuel the idea of youthful irrationality and disconnect

between generations. Through Holden’s angsty and temperamental nature as well as his

unreliability, the novel creates a sense of relatability for teenagers who face the same concerns of

isolation and emotionality that continues to the present day.

There is no doubt that the protagonist Holden Caufield is a rash individual who follows

his instincts and feeling rather than properly thinking out his actions. This personality displays

throughout the novel with key examples shown with his rejection of supporting figures and his
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departure from Pencey. With the former, Holden decides to go meet educators that he has formed

a trusting relationship with Mr. Spencer and Mr. Antolini when he is dealing with despairing

situations such as getting expelled from Pencey and having nowhere to go in New York.

However, even as his teachers try to support him through advice and housing, Holden rejects

their aid due to his irrationality in coming to proper conclusions such as with Mr. Antolini

patting his head equating to homosexuality. Due to this mindset, Holden continuously burns

bridges with much of the support structure around him from friends to teachers to love interests

leaving him pretty much isolated from these actions. This progression is not unlike what

teenagers go through when they age, albeit on a much less intense scale. Teens progress through

several phases that involve trying to find out where they belong in terms of friend groups for

example. During this process, friends will be gained and lost as a person figures out who they fit

in with the best. For some, this process is easy and comes naturally to them, but for others, the

process goes against them as there is nowhere they fit in at and is isolated. Such situations have

never disappeared since the novel’s inception in the 1940s and still plague youths to the present.

Due to this similarity in isolation, Holden’s situation in the novel presents a character that

teenager readers can latch onto as a way of expressing their own plights that the teens are facing.

It can seem at times that older people simply do not understand what younger people are going

through and feeling due to a disconnect between generations and this novel appears as a mode of

escape to these disgruntled youth. The novel and Holden understand their struggles even if the

“phonies’ around them do not which is why the two connect so well with younger audiences as

the novel is an insight into the mind of a complex teenager.

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In this complex mind, there are also countless other emotions bottled up that explode out

at incomprehensible moments which further fuels youthful irrationality. Holden displays this trait

keenly with the situation where he leaves Pencey as alluded to earlier. During this scene, pent up

annoyance that stems from Stradlater not appreciating Holden’s writing about his late brother

Allie’s baseball glove and not divulging whether Stradlater slept with Jane Gallagher, an old

flame, bursts out in a fight between the two. Holden loses decisively and then is treated coldly by

Ackley, his dorm neighbor, which leads him to consider everybody at Pencey “phonies” before

angrily leaving for New York. This sudden outburst conveys Holden’s character well as it

demonstrates the temperamental angst that makes up his character. Annoying event after

annoying event alongside jealousy hit Holden which causes a backlash to occur in the fight and

the early departure from Pencey. Even if he had no real plans when he got to the big city, his

impulse told him to leave and that’s what Holden does. This knee-jerk reaction is again not

dissimilar to that of teens due to their impulsive nature. Doing without thinking is a common trait

that is connected to teenagers as many act without forethought of the consequences resulting

from their actions. Holden was definitely not thinking too heavily about these consequences as

he ends up in quite precarious situations such as with the prostitute and drinking all his money

away. Even so, this free nature is something relatable to younger people who feel the same

societal pressures constantly bearing down on them as Holden.

Relatability in perspectives is something that ​The Catcher in the Rye​ plays off of well

especially with readers in a similar age range to Holden. Holden Caufield presents such an

interesting character for readers with his questionable actions which makes him appealing as it

differentiates him from other characters found in literature that do not display such uniqueness.
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There are few other protagonists that teenagers can connect to as well as Holden due to the lack

of young characters portraying a teenage mind in an accurate manner with all the angst and

irrationality present. Due to this idea, the novel has become well known and loved among

adolescents because of the ease of inserting oneself into the shoes of Holden and figuring out his

thought processes that lead to such a state at the end. I myself enjoyed the novel quite a bit for

these reasons already discussed and as it was a relaxing read that was not difficult to decipher

with its colloquial diction; it has become my favorite book I’ve read this year I believe.
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Works Cited

Salinger, J. D. ​The Catcher in the Rye​. Little, Brown and Company, 1991.