Post 3 - Point of View

Question: What advantages has the chosen point of view? Does it furnish any clues as to the purpose of the story?

The Catcher in the Rye is an exceptional example of the first-person narrative style. It is written from the perspective of Holden Caulfield, a rebellious teenager. By choosing to write from the boy’s perspective, Salinger has managed to capitalize on many advantages that come along with the first-person form. The most prominent benefit is that at adds a distinct personal quality to the tale. A reader gets to discover the narrator’s personality in depth, and can therefore form opinions regarding the character. This tends to captivate the reader much quicker than the third-person method, and allows the reader to fully immerse them self in the life of the protagonist. Distinct to The Catcher in the Rye’s point of view is that it permits for the full exploitation of Holden’s emotions. We can understand fully all of Holden’s thoughts, which makes it much easier to identify with the complex individual. Holden has very forceful opinions, and therefore takes a clearly defined stance on issues such as conformity, phoniness, growing up, deceit, alienation, sexuality, life and death. This angst persona makes it easy for students and adults alike to identify with Holden’s interior struggle, and genuinely care about the fate of our now beloved character. The well developed point of view provides many clues as to the purpose of the story. It allows a reader to completely understand the mental anguish that adolescents suffer during the child-to-adult transition, and ultimately, helps teenagers understand themselves, teachers understand their students, and parents understand their children. From the first-person style alone, one would believe that the purpose of the novel is to justify and explain the anxiety felt by teenagers towards becoming a young adult.