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What Makes Holden Misunderstood

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When one is misunderstood, they may feel unseen or even hurt. In J.D Salinger's Catcher in the Rye the main character Holden is misunderstood by many readers across the world and Misunderstands other people in his world . Sallinger created Holden to have many similar characteristics as himself, a person who is also misunderstood and at times judged by others. Holden is mostly viewed as an immature, hypocritical, and cynical teen in 1949. However, Under each of those characteristics he is a grieving young adult who is coping from the loss of his brother, the loss of his innocence and the loss of affection and true care from his parents. The loss of Allie links directly to Holden's loss of innocence. “…the night he [Allie] died…I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it…I hardly didn’t even know I was doing it, and you didn’t know Allie” (Salinger 39). Salinger uses Holden …show more content…

In this Chapter Holden visits his former teacher, Mr.Antolini at his apartment to stay the night. In the middle of the night Holden is awakened by Antolini essentially petting him and admiring him as he sleeps. Holden describes the occurrence in first person which truly alters Antolini’s intentions as the reader is only being informed of what Holden states and how exactly he states it. Holden makes the occurrence out to be a type of inappropriate gesture from Antolini and even accuses Antolini of being a pervert by stating “When something perverty like that happens, I start sweating like a bastard”. Both Holden and readers misunderstood Antolini's actions. The gesture should be seen as a parental type gesture of Antolini sharing care and consideration. Holden is caught off guard from that type of parental figure’s affection as he and his parents are not close and he has been away from a true parental figure for some

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