Holden Caulfield's Adolescent Protest: Discussions of Language and Rhetoric in Salinger's The Catch in the Rye

Abstract

Salinger's unforgettable Holden Caulfield is difficult to overlook in discussions about teen-age angst projected through adolescent speech because his life embodies the adolescent's struggle to communicate with society. His experiences with language and communication are typical and representative for a sixteen year-old boy, but his socio­ economic position is by no means typical or representative of the average adolescent. His father is a wealthy corporation attorney in post-World War II Manhattan, and Holden lives a more than comfortable lifestyle, catching cabs around the city and traveling with expensive luggage. However, his family's economic status does not obscure the fact that language and communication are universally human themes which transcend social constructs such as money, power, and education.