Protagonist in Catcher in the Rye

The protagonist of Catcher in the Rye goes by the name of Holden Caulfield.  At the time of the story, Holden is sixteen, but the story is told by his seventeen year old self.  Holden has been expelled from school once again and decides he needs a vacation so he takes something of a less than relaxing trip to New York, New York.  On his journey Holden explores the falseness and hypocrisy of adulthood.  Because he is aware of the lies and deceit of adulthood and growing up, Holden is very cynical and aggressively bitter toward most events.  His cynicism and bitterness cause him to find almost everything depressing.  In an example of this Holden goes dancing at a night club and even finds that depressing.  As for the question of does Holden represent an abstract idea of sorts, no.  It could maybe be argued that Holden stands for the ability to see truth.  He sees some truths more than others, but his cynicism causes him to be so jaded that he does not see some actions for what they really are.  I say this because he has the ability to tell that people are fake when they get older, but sometimes he believes people to be more fake than they actually are.  This is because he is right that people are phony, but he questions people's motives a tad too much, like in chapter seventeen when he accuses Sally for only going to the ice rink to show off her "cute ass".  Holden is simply a tad too cynical to represent the ability to see truths.  However, I believe Holden is a good representative for the exaggeration of adolescent beliefs.  Holden behaves like a very angry teenager.  He is judgmental, cynical of others, frequently depressed, and he just doesn't know what to do with himself most of the time.  Holden is an exaggerated case of this because everyone feels at least a few of these emotions during their adolescent years, just not necessarily all of them at the same time like Holden does.

Salinger, J. D. Catcher in the Rye. New York, NY: Little, Brown, 1991. Print.