The Catcher in the Rye: What techniques does the author use to engage the audience and make the story effective? Give examples to support your analysis (mystery, humor, symbolism, suspense, etc.).

The book itself moves pretty slowly, and the events that happen are very random and have no real connection. It’s just about Holden wandering around in New York for three days, trying to burn some time before he has to go home. Though this book was mainly just a description of what Holden did during that time, I really enjoyed it. No, it wasn’t really all that mysterious, and it wasn’t suspenseful, but I still didn’t want to put it down. Salinger uses a different technique to engage readers, and it’s his main tool and the reason I continued reading this book and enjoying it. Salinger uses humor. He makes people laugh, and I don’t care what anyone says, Holden Caulfield says some pretty hilarious stuff. Like, for example, in my last post I talked about how people like the story because Holden wasn’t afraid to admit his flaws. One of the things he says is “I laughed. And I have one of these very loud, stupid laughs. I mean, if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I’d probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up.” (Salinger pg. 134) That seriously made me laugh out loud, because I’m the exact same way. Holden says hilarious stuff throughout the book, and has a very humorous outlook on everything. Though the story is not exactly a happy one, Salinger animates Holden very well, and that’s why readers tend to like this story. Something that really made me laugh was when Holden was describing his roommate Stradlater. He talks about him being so self-absorbed and comments, saying, “The reason he fixed himself up to look good was because he was madly in love with himself. He thought he was the handsomest guy in the Western Hemisphere.” (Salinger pg. 27) It’s so funny because Holden doesn’t beat around the bush. He’s very frank, and it’s funny how he doesn’t really care at all. I think that Salinger planned on using humor because people like to laugh, and if someone picks up a book that humorous, they want to keep reading it.

                Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, 1951. Print.