égalité, fraternité, liberté

Cenet Durak, Switzerland

Let’ say, you are a teenager who is searching for something in his or her life, something that would make you happy once in your life. A lot of teenagers are searching for kindness in people, others are searching for love and comfort, and others are traveling all around the world to find true friends.

Holden Caulfield (pg.17) is one example out of 348 million (33,6%) teenagers . I read the book with an unbiased mind. I think, what the author of “The catcher in rye” (J.D.Salinger) tries to explain is that sometimes you can go through trouble, but at the end you end up being in the place you should be. Call me naive, but I think everything we go through in our lives prepares us somehow for something bigger in the future.
Holden Caulfield was in the beginning at a school called Pencey and felt like he did not belong over there. While he was in Pencey, he often talked about his little brother Allie who died at a young age. Holden also described himself as corny, old, and strange, because of his grey hair at early age and his solitary. When Holden left Pencey, he did not go home until Wednesday. Therefore, he went to a payphone and called some of his crushes, friends and frenemies. He did not like to be solitary. It was compulsory for him to have someone to care about.

The whole story is about the people, he cares about and the ones, he likes to care about, but he does not know how because there is a missing link in knowing them and being friends with them. Generally, his siblings are the most important people for him. His friends. Allie who is dead and Phoebe who relies on him.
Already at a young age Holden saw a lot of bad things. One of his classmates, who lived next door committed suicide in Pencey. His interactions with his teachers and bad grades caused him to drop out of school, which led to the story of the book : ”The catcher in the rye”. Shortly after, he dropped out of Pencey, he took a taxi undecided where he wanted to go. Inside he was thinking to go to New York and he did. In his hurry he changed his mind and told the taxi driver to take him to Central Park, New York. While the taxi driver was trying to figure out, where he could possibly turn. Holden asked him : ”Do you know where the ducks are in the winter, when the lake freezes? I mean, I see them in the summer in the central park, all the time”. The taxi driver is baffled and answered : ”I don’t know where the goddam ducks are.” The rest of the time, while being in the taxi, the driver kept talking and kind of getting sore. All of sudden, he claimed :”They have to be somewhere, God would not let them die“. Holden stayed silent in that moment. I think in moments like these Holden was thinking that, what the taxi driver responded could be true. Subsequently, he arrived at the central park because he wanted to check on the ducks.

Afterwards, he went to a motel or hotel, where he met some hookers (prostitutes) and decided to stay with one of them, at her room, who was possibly his age or younger. Throughout the time in the room with the young girl, he only wanted to talk and someone who would like to listen to him, but in his bad luck, she did not listen at all. Again Holden felt misunderstood and behaved badly after he left the motel or hotel wounded because of the money battle about the five dollars, he should have given to the hooker.

Throughout the story, he kept calling some girls out of a payphone like old Sally. He also toyed with the idea of running away with her somewhere into the woods. He slept in a subway in New York for a night, which he had to leave because of the people. Then he saw his old teacher who offered him his couch to sleep on, and at the end he ended up being with his sister who was his true friend. After experiencing all of these in around three days. Holden found comfort in his unusual life situation and decided to stay, where he was.
Finally, I can say Holden Caulfield you are a great guy. I do not know why J.D. Salinger wrote “The catcher in the rye”, but I am glad he did. “The catcher in the rye” is an incredible masterpiece. The book does not describe a life of a teenager, it describes what happens at the end of every story. The people and the things that belong together come together. We end up where we should have been the entire time, but we needed a bit longer to arrive and that is the only bad luck.