Stereotypes In Catcher In The Rye

Lethargic, apathetic, callous, or careless; each of these words can describe the teenager stereotype. Other words that can describe the stereotype also include rebellious, troublemakers, loud, or obnoxious. These words do not apply to all teenagers all the time; yet, many of these words can apply to all teenagers at some small point in their lives, whether teenagers like it or not. These words can apply to J. D. Salinger's character Holden Caufield. In Salinger's The Cather in the Rye, Holden takes a trip to New York where he has a mental breakdown after flunking out of school. Salinger employs an unreliable narrator makes the novel The Catcher in the Rye more realistic and relatable, revealing the thoughts teens have about life and the outside

world that coincide with the stereotypical teenager.
Holden is apathetic, as are many people in their teenage years at one point or another. He always seems to find a way to hurt people's feelings, such as the feelings of his friend Sally. Readers may never be sure, but Holden’s unreliable thoughts lead readers to believe that Holden made kind gestures, even though he did not seem to enjoy his date. It finally becomes clear after Sally meets an acquaintance that Holden was not enjoying the date, going as far as saying "I sort of hated old Sally by the time we got in the cab" (Salinger 128). Holden goes on to tell Sally "You give me a royal pain in the ass", completely ruining her day with such a hurtful comment (Salinger 133). Despite Holden’s unreliable thoughts, the message was clear that Holden didn’t enjoy the date, thus making the situation realistic and relatable in some extended ways. The result of Holden's actions showed readers that teenagers, although they don't go to such extremes, do not always enjoy being in the company of everyone and will not hesitate to express this dislike at one point or another. Even though many people do this exact same thing at other ages, teenagers are the ones who are most often going to encounter remarks like "You give me a royal pain in the ass" from peers and friends alike on a day to day basis (Salinger 133). Most adults manage to say such things in kinder terms and young children usually don't have such problems. This only makes the story realistic throughout time as the same factor holds true back then as it has for all these years the book has been out, teenagers face this problem more often.
Throughout the book, Holden is so obnoxious, he annoys many readers.

Countless readers at the end of the book see Holden as many adults see teenagers, obnoxious. There are many times in which Holden is obnoxious, but nowhere is there a better example than when Holden keeps asking about the ducks. Everytime Holden takes a cab, he ends up asking the cab driver where ducks go when the lake in Central Park freezes over. If a reader isn't looking for symbolism and is just reading the book for the story, this is just as obnoxious as it is for the cab drivers in New York because Holden never explains his motive behind the question. Even then, the symbolism is heavy enough for the average reader to pick up on it, and Holden’s unreliability works to connect the question to the motive. As readers go through the experience with him learning that the question is symbolic of his situation, Holden reveals that he still doesn’t understand what he should do even though he has an answer to his question. Holden asks the second cab driver he has until he gets an answer. This is similar in real life to how teenagers annoy adults since they, at one point or another, appear obnoxious to an adult. This can often time be in the case of teacher and student. It is hard for teachers to not find students obnoxious when many of the students complain about teachers being too harsh when the student doesn't put effort into their work. Many students who do this only think of themselves and not of what the

real situation is, annoying their teachers. This is also evident in students who have a hard time with writer's block and parents who want the essay done more than twelve hours before it is due to. Here, both sides can be as obnoxious for justifiable reasons, but teenagers being the most guilty party. Parents who want the homework done within a reasonable time do fail to recognize a problem a student may have, but, the student frustrated with the parent usually fails to recognize the fact that they will not have the luxury of taking such extended time to figure out the problems and that they will need to learn to fix these problems sooner for their own good. This causes temporary rifts between parents and students as homework loads increase, and again, students fail to see the other side, annoying parents beyond the point of comparison.
Unfortunately, quite common in both the book and the real world, callous, or insensitive remarks make many appearances.

Holden himself is a callous person since he doesn't hold much regard for others throughout the story, just about what he will do. When Holden is drunk and tries calling Sally late at night, her grandmother answers the phone. When told to call back later, he tells the grandmother to wake Sally. He doesn't seem to care what time it is and tell the grandmother "Wake 'er up! Wake 'er up, hey. Attaboy" (Salinger 150). This showed Holden’s lack of respect for the need of sleep. Readers cannot be sure, due to Holden’s unreliability, but it revealed that Holden does not care for others at all due to his constant assumption that everyone is a phony of one kind or another or otherwise corny. This can is a callous act since many people would dislike someone calling them a phony. This also works for when Holden becomes frustrated with Stradlater, where although readers have no accurate account of what happened, but know that Holden picks a fight with Stradlater because Stradlater doesn’t give Holden information. Holden does his best to show try to set up Stradlater to seem like a self-important person, but since readers can’t trust Holden’s views of a person, readers have to make their own assumptions. Holden is able to make many people assume one thing about a person through his unreliable narration, usually making readers dislike a person through calling them

phonies. Relating to real life, many people talk about teachers, they don’t like, setting others up to not like the teacher just by what they said. This is a callous act through which the second student displays a disregard to any kind attempts by the teacher based off of student one’s remarks. Student one is also callous through making harsh comments about the teacher to another student who hasn’t had the chance to make their own opinions, thus disregarding both other parties opportunities for student one’s own personal relief. This also works for teenagers talking about other teenagers. One teenager has a dislike for another, and tells the friends, causing the whole group and possible more extensions to dislike the one victim. Such a callous act can cause problems in a teenager's social life because the one other had no regard to the other’s feelings, future, or situation. Situations like this cause readers to dislike Stradlater at first before they realize that Holden is giving them an opinionated view.
Salinger's employment of an unreliable narrator to make the novel The Catcher in the Rye more realistic and relatable, reveals the thoughts teens have about life and the outside world that work to coincide with the thoughts of a stereotypical teenager. The unreliable narrator and protagonist, Holden, meets the criteria of being a stereotypical teenager throughout the novel. The novel is such a high rated book because people feel like someone finally understands what happens in their head and in their life because Holden reveals himself to be the stereotypical teenager through his unreliable narration. The work put into The Catcher in the Rye to connect with the views of everyday teenagers who meet the teenager stereotype pays off to make the novel relatable and realistic.