Character analysis

 

 Holden Caulfield  

 He is the protagonist and narrator of the novel. Holden is a 17 year-old junior who has just been expelled from his school, Pencey Prep. Although he is intelligent and sensitive, Holden narrates in a cynical and jaded voice. He finds the hypocrisy and ugliness of the world around him almost unbearable, and through his cynicism he tries to protect himself from the pain and disappointment of the adult world. He doesn't want to see his real world, his reality. However, the criticisms that Holden aims at people around him are also aimed at himself. He is uncomfortable with his own weaknesses, and at times displays as much phoniness, meanness, and superficiality as anyone else in the book. As the novel opens, Holden stands poised on the cliff separating childhood from adulthood. His inability to successfully negotiate the chasm leaves him on the verge of emotional collapse.

Holden resents the adult world and resists entry into it, but he has little choice. Society and his own body are telling him that it is time for him to change. He is attracted to the trappings of adulthood: booze, cigarettes, the idea of sex, and a kind of independence. But he despises the compromises, loss of innocence, absence of integrity, and loss of authenticity in the grown-up world. He seems best at the rites of passage (smoking and drinking) that are themselves artificial if not self-destructive. Despite his limited experience, his attitude toward women is actually admirable and mature. He stops making sexual advances when a girl says "No", because he really doesn't want. He has trouble being very intimate unless he knows the girl well and likes her a lot. In his confusion, he sees this  as a weakness that may even call for psychotherapy. His interactions with the prostitute Sunny are comic as well as touching, partly because they are both adolescents trying to be adults, but in that moment Holdan just wanted to talk. 

Almost at the end of the book Holden is literally about to crash. He feels that he will disappear or fall into an abyss when he steps off a curb to cross a street. Sometimes when this happens, he calls on his dead brother, Allie, for help. Part of Holden's collapse is due to his inability to come to terms with death. Thoughts of Allie lying in his grave in the cemetery in the rain, surrounded by dead bodies and tombstones, haunt Holden. He wants time itself to stop. He wants beautiful moments to last forever, using as his model the displays in glass at the Museum of Natural History, in which the same people are shown doing the same things year after year. (Never mind that even museum displays change.) Holden's fears and desires are understandable, but his solution (avoiding reality) is impossible. Life is change, but he doesn't want to accept it. In part that is why he loves kids, because they are innocent, because they don´t change. He wants to keep that innocence. When he sees the bad word at Phoebe´s school he was so angry, with that word the child´s innocence is going, so he erased that word. He can erase one word, he can deal with it, but what happens when he goes to the real world? He cant erase all the bad words from the world. When he says that he want to be the "Catcher in the rye", maybe he can save all the kids there, but what happens with the rest of the kids, he is not "the catcher of the world". Holdan has to learn that change is part of life. 

Phoebe Caulfield 

She is Holdan´s little sister. She is 10 years old, and one of the most important characteristics of her is that she is redhead. (The redheads are the best :) ). 

According to Holden she is the smartest kid ever, also best dancer ever, and the most sympathetic listener ever, and the funniest little sister ever.

She is like Holdan´s best friend. She is the only person in the world that understands Holdan.

You can talk to her and she will listen to you.

Holdan loves her because she is a child, her mind hasn´t been corrupted by the society yet. She is so innocent, that is what Holdan loves.

Phoebe is always searching for the Holdan´s good, if he needs money she can help him, if you need to keep a secret she can keep it, if Holdan needs to be saved she can save him.

Phoebe saved Holdan from getting deeper, from making the worst decision in his life. When she went to the museum with a suitcase she made a change in Holdan´s mind. Maybe she really wanted to go with his brother, to protect him, or maybe she planned all and she knew that Holdan would change his mind in the moment when he sees the suitcase.

She is my favorite character form the book, because I identified with her, firstly because I am redhead and secondly because I am the youngest in my family too and I have two older brothers, I am the only girl. When I was Reading the relation between Phoebe and Holdan it reminded me the relation with my brothers.

Allie Caulfield 

Allie was Holdan´s little brother. I said "was" because he is death. He died of leukemia, but even so he is essential in the book. He was 10 years old when he died and Holdan was 13 years old.
He was also redhead.
Holdan and Allie had a really strong connection.
His baseball glove is very important because Holdan it reminded Holdan his little brother. Allie putted his mark on that glove, he wrote poems with green ink.
 He did that so he would have something to read when he was in the baseball field and the game was boring. Holden kept with the glove, it was something very sentimental for him. That is why he get so angry when Stradlater didn´t understand or appreciate the essay that Holden wrote about the glove. 

Allie represents a lot of things to Holdan, like hope and the gifted innocence of childhood, which is tenuous and sometimes short-lived. Holden clearly loved his brother. Sometimes he just wanted to talk to him, to talk about his life and his problems. Even Allie wasn’t there Holdan felt that he was listening to him. 

D.B Caulfield

 He is his older brother. He represents of all the genuine artist who sells out. Holden feels that D.B. was a truly "terrific" short-story writer before going to Hollywood to write scripts, drive Jaguars, date gorgeous women, and make money. "The Secret Goldfish," a story about a kid who buys a goldfish with his own money and won't let anyone else look at it, is Holden's favorite short story written by his brother. Holdan hates movies because he thinks that they are “phony”

 Holdan feels that his brother has prostituted himself by becoming a screenwriter.  

An important thing of D.B, he was in the war, but unfortunately he got traumatized after that, well no one like wars.  

Jane Gallagher

She is Holdan´s crush. He really likes her.  His relationship with Jane, was really complicated. They hold hands, they sit close to each other, Jane puts her hand on the back of his neck … cute, but not exactly the most exciting thing for Holdan.

He met her because they were neighbors.

Holden actually tells us that Jane is fond of all athletic sports, that she’s muckle-mouthed, that she’s always reading, and she read very good books.

 Holdan can´t reach out to Jane despite his feelings, this is a big reminder of his passivity and indecision. When he finds out she's downstairs waiting for Stradlater, he says over and over that he'll go down to say hello, but never does. He repeatedly contemplates calling her once he's in New York, but can't bring himself to go through with it. And then, when he finally does pick up the phone, she's not there.

Holdan felt good when he was with Jane, he really enjoyed the time they passed together.

Stradlater

 Stradlater is Holdan´s roomie. He is super “dreamy” because he's an athlete, he's handsome, he's got a nice body, he's always walking around in a towel to show off that body, and he's a "goddam stupid moron"

But there's one thing Stradlater is good at: sex. When Holdan knows that he was going to hang out with Jane he was so worried, because Jane was his crush and he didn´t want to imagine what did Stradlater was going to do with her.

I hated Stradlater, because he is a jerk, he treats women horrible and he doesn’t have feelings. When Holdan wrote his essay Stradlater note even said “Thank you” and he didn’t appreciate all the emotions that Holdan putted in that essay.

I really hate that type of guys.

Ackley

 Ackley is dirty, pimply, and all-around unhygienic. He's annoying. He'll come into your room and pick up your personal stuff and put it back in the wrong place. He'll cut his toenails all over your floor. And he thinks being two years older than Holden makes him superior. Is the type of guy that you would hate just for being with him two minutes.

Holden really doesn't like this guy, but he spends time talking with him, because despite his cynicism and judgment, Holden is actually a compassionate guy. He invites Ackley to the movies because no one else would hang out with Ackley for the night. And also, Holdan is so lonely he hangs out with Ackley, even though he can't stand the guy. After Stradlater punches Holden in the nose, he goes into Ackley's room looking for company and conversation for the night. He was like his “Plan B”, once he had a fight with Stradlater he goes with Ackley, its a little convincing.

Conclusion 

 Throughout this work we learned a lot about the 50´s. What did they heard, how did they dress, how did they talk. We also analyzed the book,  and we realized that this book was and is so famous because of the content, because it was the first book that talked about the teenagers and their problems. 
We diagnose Holdan some "mental diseases" like depression, but "to every action there is a reaction" and we know that all these problems have different causes, for me the main cause  of all these is  Allie´s death, although it has been some time, a death can traumatize anyone.
Another thing that we did, we studied some of the main characters of the book, the importance that they have and the relation between them and Holdan. 
After all these I would like to recommend this fascinating book. As my teacher says, you can love the book, you can hate the book or you can love to hate the book. I loved this book. Thank you!

Sources:

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/c/the-catcher-in-the-rye/character-analysis/holden-caulfield

http://www.shmoop.com/catcher-in-the-rye/db-caulfield.html
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/catcher/characters.html
http://www.shmoop.com/catcher-in-the-rye/phoebe-caulfield.html
http://www.shmoop.com/catcher-in-the-rye/jane-gallagher.html
http://www.shmoop.com/catcher-in-the-rye/stradlater.html