"The Cather in the Rye" Holden Caulfield: Hero or anti-hero?

Okay.  So we have our main character, Holden Caulfield.  He is an interesting young fellow.  He doesn't possess the traits of any typical hero.  He is not astonishingly strong, mentally or physically, he is not exceedingly brave, he doesn't excel at anything amazing, he hasn't a pretty girls to show off to the world, really all he has is an interesting story that he is determined to tell to us whether we like it or not.  What does our little protagonist have you ask?  A bad case of depression, hypocriticalness, cynicism, and the ability to just be blatantly rude at anytime.  Charming, right?  He's pretty convincing in the role as an anti-hero.  WAIT!  I'm not being kind to him at all.  Let me rephrase.  So he is a bit depressing and really only sees the negative side of any situation and such but he still has some redeeming qualities.  One being he cares.  He cared about his little brother, Allie, before he lost him to leukemia.  He still does care about Allie, even talking to him while walking down the street because he is afraid of losing him completely.  He cares about his little sister Phoebe.  He thinks that she is the greatest girl in the world.  He cares about Jane Gallagher.  There aren't that many things that we see that he does care about, but the few things that he does care about he really truly and deeply does care about them.  This is one of the big things that makes me classify him as a hero, not an anti-hero.  On the outside he is most definitely rough and hard to see through, but once you get to the inside of this miss-shapen doughnut, you see there is a delightful surprise cream filling!  Interesting analogy, I know, but it works!  Another thing that makes me see him as a hero as apposed to an anti-hero is how relatable he is.  He struggles with a problem most people tussle with at some time in their life:  being accepted.  He's not really sure how to do it, and I'm not sure he even knows that he wants to do it, but he tried time and time again to connect with people and to have their affirmation.  We all do this.  No one can deny wanting to be accepted by someone at sometime in their life.  Holden struggles with this and we can relate to that quite easily which makes him likable, and we always want to like our hero.  My opinion: hero.  



Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown and, 1991. Print.