Holden Awakens With His English Teacher example essay topic

Author: Jerome David Salinger was born in 1919 on New Year's Day. Growing up in New York City, he soon learned all about the bustle of the city. His parents were Sol Salinger, a wealthy ham importer, and Miriam Salinger. Salinger attended New York public high school and was considered an average student in most subjects. Most of his teachers found him to be a shy, polite, introverted boy. He flunked out of the first private school he attended- Mc Burney.

Later, he enrolled in Valley Forge Military Academy and graduated in 1936. Soon he began to write, despite his father's efforts to teach him the business of importing. Salinger was drafted by the United States Army in 1942 where he specialized in counter-intelligence. In 1944 he stormed Normandy with the other allies during D-Day. Soon after returning from the war, Salinger began to isolate himself more and more from society.

He married in 1955 and has two children. Salinger's continued withdrawal from society has continued and today he is virtually unknown outside of the world of literature. Plot: "The Catcher in the Rye" is a story of an emotionally disturbed young sixteen year old boy named Holden Caulfield. Holden tells the story himself so you can see first hand what kind of person he is. The story begins as he is leaves Pence Prep., his school. He was actually thrown out of it, because he flunked five of his six courses.

The way Holden describes his school you kind of understand that he isn't very sad about it. He hated this school. He also hated the other schools he flunked out of. After a fight with his roommate he decides to go to New York before he goes home to his parents who by then should have already received the letter in which the news of his being thrown out would be given.

When he arrives in New York, Holden checks himself in a hotel. After looking out the window where he sees a guy who wears women's clothing and a couple who are spitting their drinks into each others mouths, he decides to call a girl he never even met. The phone call doesn't go as planed and Holden doesn't get to meet her. After a small encounter with three women who are in their thirties in the hotels bar he goes to another bar.

When he returns he is offered a prostitute and he accepts. Only when she is in his room he is all of sudden relentless and doesn't want her services any more, but just pays her for a conversation. The next morning he is woken up by the girl's pimp who hits him in the stomach while the girl takes another five dollars for her services. Holden afterwards goes on a date with an old girlfriend of his but the date ends as he calls her "pain in the ass".

Holden calls a friend of his up and they meet but after Holden makes some stupid remarks about homosexuals and about his friends girlfriend he is left alone drinking scotch. He then decides to go home and talk to his kid sister Phoebe. She is very mature for her age and gets very mad when she discovers that her brother was kicked out of school. Holden then goes to visit his old English teacher who tries to help him in solving his problems. But as Holden awakens with his English teacher stroking his head, Holden believes that his teacher is making a sexual pass at him so he leaves and sleeps in Grand Central Station for a few hours. After that he decides to leave New York and start a life some where else, but when his sister wants to come along with him he gets furious and she begins to cry.

To make her stop crying he takes her to the zoo where she rides a carousel and where the story Holden is telling ends. The last pages are about Holden's present whereabouts, which is sort of facility for mentally unstable. Personal opinion: I find the book to be really good. Holden is very sincere in the way he speaks about his life, and even though he sometimes jumps from one subject to another you can still follow his thoughts. I can more or less understand where Holden is coming from, and I think most teenagers also can, because his problems are not those of some high-school teenager who doesn't know what car to purchase or what dress to wear to the prom.

Holden is trying to find a sense in life, his position, and this is something with which I can sympathize. I think every teenager goes through such a faze, and the only difference between Holden's situation and that of others is that Holden has a series of unfortunate problems that he has to solve and which he can't. He falls always deeper into a depression from which he can't climb out of. So he does a lot of things which any normal teenager would do. He gets drunk, for example. You can see by the way he handles things that he is no way near being a mature person.

I think Holden's story is one of the most dramatic, but in a way funny and weird stories I ever read.