Blog 44

Question four asks "Who is the "hero" in this book and what are some of his/her traits? What does he/she accomplish, and how is he/she portrayed? Does the hero represent an abstract idea such as goodness, truth, courage or evil?" This is actually a hard question to answer for the book the Catcher in the Rye because the protagonist of the story is Holden Caulfield, but as a reader you are so frustrated and annoyed with him at times that it is hard to look at him as a hero especially when my favorite charcter is somebody else in the story, his younger sister Phoebe. However, i suppose that Holden Caulfield is the hero because he is the one in a battle against himself in growing up and he eventually does figure some things out for himself and straighten up his act.

Holden Caulfield does pocess a very popular trait that most heroes pocess. This trait is that I actually feel that Holden is a good person. He is a person that actually cares about people even if he never shows it. I know he cares about people, especially his younger sister Phoebe. Holden is just a complex character. Like i mentioned in the blog previous to this one. Holden tells a story about a time when he owned some suitcases that were better than the ones his roomate had. He says that he felt like trading with his roomate.(Salinger 108). He was very worried about his roomate. He was to the point where he wanted to give his suitcase away to his roomate. Thinking about his roomate in this way is just a small act of kindness. It is something that shows Holden cares about other people and that he is a kind person. Moments like these are times when a reader is both annoyed and happy with HOlden. You are just so frustrated because he keeps overthinking things and just wont let some things go, but then you are happy because you see a softer side and see he does really care about people.

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown and, 1991. Print