"The Cather in the Rye" Question 8

"The Cather in the Rye" takes place in the late 1940's.  World War II has just happened and America is still in its recovery state.  People still aren't really sure how to act and soldiers and house wives aren't really sure how to ease themselves back into a normal life.  I think this is reflected in Holden's state.  He is depressed and over all an extremely lonely and confused young man, much like many of the people recovering from the war at that time most likely.  I'm going to flip the next question around a tad bit.  It asks what responsibilities does the author believe exists between various groups in society?  Well something to that accord.  One of the prominent relationships, or rather lack of relationships, that I noticed was between Holden and his parents.   I think this particular relationship that J.D. Salinger gives us is a representation of what a parent-child relationship should NOT be.  We will start with Holden's responsibilities, or lack or responsibility.  He is really quite a horrid child, especially to his parents.  I don't care how horrible he thinks his parents are or how little they understand him and so on.  It is a child's responsibility to respect your parents because typically they are the most significant care-givers in your life.  Holden does not do this.  His parents send him to a nice school for him to learn and prosper and doesn't care enough to put forth the effort and get anything out of what his parents are trying to do for him.  As the oldest sibling, however, he does care for his sister.  He isn't the best figure or example for her to have to follow, but he does care and love her a great deal no less.  So he does uphold some responsibility in his household.  Now onto the lack of responsibility of his parents.  As parents you must have authority and discipline.  Holden's parents appear to have neither of these.  They possibly lost it after loosing their son to leukemia and are still recovering from that or maybe they never possessed it in the first place.  Either way Holden is in a state of mind where he thinks it is acceptable to put forth minimal effort in school, to judge other people for no reason at all, and to bum around New York City for few days just cause.  I think his parents are to blame for that.  Holden also has missed having people in his life in which he can talk to and parents should always be an option.  Coming from just hearing Holden's side of the story, it doesn't appear that Holden's parents have offered that.  I think that, in this particular novel, a lot of J.D. Salinger's past teachers influenced him.  Holden visits a few of his past teachers during the novel and this makes me think the author maybe had a few of his own teachers in mind.  I'm not sure what type of person Salinger was in high school, but if he is this acclaimed of an author I doubt he was the Holden-type.  Everyone always wants to be what they are not, so maybe the author always wanted to be the rebel who went against his parents and never did what he told.  Maybe the idea of being rebellious enticed him so much he made up a character simply about that to live vicariously through.  

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