Catcher in the Rye: Hero

There is no exact hero in Catcher in the Rye.  It is more of a story of a boy who is trying to deal with his life but is having trouble associating with others.  This story is not like the many other stories like Superman where there is a distinct villain.  The only enemy in this book is in Holden’s mind which causes him to often reflect on his childhood and make it hard for him to enjoy his life and look forward to the future.  Since the conflict is internal and does not affect anyone else in the story, you might think that he is a rogue hero for saving his own day but no one else’s.  The only problem is that Holden never defeats this “enemy”, at least not during the story he told us in the book.  So again it would seem that there is no definite hero in this book.  He may have gone to see a psychoanalyst at the end of the story, but he does not seem any better off then from where he was at in the beginning of the book. 

            Although the main conflict has not been solved, in his head Holden was playing the role of a traditional hero by saving children’s innocence.  As I have mentioned in an earlier blog post, when Holden saw the words “Fuc* you” (Salinger 108), he became angry that someone would write such a thing on the walls of his sister’s school so he tried to erase it and by doing so save Phoebe and the other kids from wondering what it means.  This depresses him that his sister would have to be surrounded by situations like this and he says, “If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the "Fuc* you" signs in the world. It's impossible…I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say "Holden Caulfield" on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say "Fuc* you." I'm positive, in fact.” (Salinger 110).  Anyway, Holden is looking out for his sister and other children, so in a sense I guess he could be called a hero.  An abstract idea that describes him would be goodness.

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, 1951. Print.