The Catcher in the Rye – An Autobiography of J. D. Salinger
...s that “as a matter of fact, my father was a Catholic once. He quit, though, when he married my mother” (Salinger 112). Salinger attended Manhattan’s McBurney School, a private institution that Pencey Prep had a fencing tournament against in the beginning of the novel, but failed out after a few months. His father then sent him to Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania, where his grades drastically increased (French 22). It was this transition from his early days of flunking to his academic success, where Salinger drew the line between Holden and D. B. Holden is an exaggerated version of Salinger’s younger, immature self in actuality. Holden not only flunked out of one private school, but all three that he ever attended. Salinger concludes The Catcher in the Rye with Holden finally ending up in a mental institution, portraying life as it would have been had he not matured into a character more like D. B. Caulfield. Even though Holden failed out of school every chance he could get, he always managed to do very well in English. Salinger used this younger version of himself to illustrate that he was always a proficient writer. Similarly, D. B. became an established writer: “He’s got a lot of dough, now. He didn’t use to. He used to be just a regular writer, when he was home” (Salinger 1). Salinger and D. B. also share almost identical tales of war. During World War II, Salinger enlisted in the United States Army, in which he served in Europe and became a staff sergeant. His participation in the liberation of France and the Normandy campaign earned him five battle stars (Hamilton 12). Correspondingly, “…D. B. was in the Army for four goddam years. He was in the war, too – he landed on D-Day and all – but I really think he hated the Army worse than the war…I remember when he used to come home on furlough and all, all he did was lie on his bed, practically. He hardly ever even came in the living room. Later, when he went overseas and was in the war and all, he didn’t get wounded or anything and he didn’t have to shoot anybody. All he had to do was drive some cowboy general around all day in a command car” (Salinger 140). It’s as if Salinger is bluntly giving the reader a brief synopsis of his war experience in third person. The Catcher in the Rye is written in first person with Holden Caulfield as narrator. Salinger could have easily chosen third person, but he didn’t. He wrote in first person so that Holden’s opinions and stories were all conveyed to the reader just as they would be if the author were standing in front of you talking about his life. Furthermore, he wrote in first person because he was, in a sense, the characters. In the story, it is apparent that Holden Caulfield is also a failure when it comes to women; this is not just written to prove the theme that Holden does not want to grow up. Salinger managed to subtly incorporate his own frustration with women. When Salinger was eighteen, “he fell in love with Oona O’Neill, wrote her letters almost daily, and was later shocked when she married Charles Chaplin, who was much older than she” (J. D. Salinger). Salinger vents through the novel during the scene when Holden is waiting at the Biltmore for Sally Hayes, and he watches all of the school girls pass by: “In a way, it was sort of depressing, too, because you kept wondering what the hell would happen to all of them. When they got out of school and college, I mean. You figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys…Guys that never read books. Guys that are very boring – But I have to be careful about that. I mean about calling certain guys bores. I don’t understand boring guys. I really don’t” (Salinger 123). From reading that passage, it is apparent that J. D. Salinger is jealous that he lost the girl he loved to 1920’s silent movie star Charlie Chapman, who would appear to be the kind of “dopey guy” that “never reads books.” Apart from Holden and his brother D. B., tiny pieces of Salinger’s life could be seen in the asp...