The Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher in the Rye
Jerome David (J.D.) Salinger was born on New Years Day 1919, in New York City. Born into a wealthy family Salinger grew up in a fashionable neighborhood in Manhattan. He attended a number of colleges, but did not graduate from any. However, he always excelled in his creative writing classes. Salinger joined the army and fought in Europe. While fighting he kept on writing, and upon his return to the United States he published many of his writings, and his only full-length novel, The Catcher in the Rye. Other novels by J.D. Salinger include Franny and Zooey, Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters and Seymour, An Introduction, Nine Stories, I’m Crazy, and many more.
The setting of the novel starts out at the private boys school Pencey Prep, which to Holden is a very discomforting place to live. To Holden, this school represents “phoniness”, and brings up nothing but “phony”, cruel people. He feels as if the school is misleading, and over-exaggerates the...