佳作
姓  名 洪晨芳 學  校 國立中興高級中學 年  級 二 年 十一 班

 

 

The Catcher in the Rye

To be honest, I didn’t feel like continuing to read the novel after I had gone through a couple of chapters, as there were so many vulgar profanities of angsty and insufferable teens in the book. Nevertheless, as the story unfolded, I found out that it became more and more attractive and interesting; therefore, I started to dive in.

The main character, Holden Caufield, is a seventeen-year-old boy who is physically grown but mentally immature. He refuses to become a grown-up and just keeps neglecting the responsibilities he has to take at his age. Everything and everyone in the adult world is phony, corny and hypocritical. Holden is the very boy that hates the world he lives in, but has no courage to change it. He realizes that it's nearly impossible for a child to grow up in the world and remain innocent, so his greatest wish is somehow to protect all children from the danger of going over the “crazy cliff” of adulthood. For him, the passage to adulthood proves to be a crazy cliff for sure. Thus, he regards himself as a “catcher” who is to save the other kids and himself from the snobby world.

Even though Holden is right about people being phony, his hatred of phoniness is self-destruction. For example, how can he save the kids while he himself is falling into the abyss in the meantime? If I were beside him, I would shout to wake him up from his daydream, “ Holden, face the reality! Stop avoiding the responsibility you need to take!” He really attempted to change the world, but in vain. Sometimes in the novel, Holden tells lies, claims to agree with ideas he hates, just to feel less lonely or to avoid direct confrontations. To me, this makes him phony as well. Additionally, I agree with what Mr. Antolini says that this world is not just black and white, being phony doesn't make people evil, or hateful. It makes people human, something that has to be.

From Holden, I also see some characteristics many youngsters have nowadays. More and more young adults play online games all day long, and thus ask their old parents for money. How pathetic these people are! At a young age one has the most creativity and enthusiasm that ought to be brought into full play. Ironically, their precious time and talents are wasted on those meaningless online games. Maybe that’s why now young people are called “strawberry generation”, who can’t face the grown-up world, which has no more innocence and, on the contrary, is filled with greed, a thirst for fame and a stressful work load.

Once in a while, how I wish I could be a musician. Yet, I realize that there's only a slight chance that I can make a living on doing music in Taiwan. Thus, I gave up being a professional musician and keep on studying in normal school. Holden's teacher, Mr. Antolini, once said to Holden, “I think that once you have a fair idea where you want to go, your first move will be to apply yourself in school. You'll have to. You're a student—whether the idea appeals to you or not.” The quote inspires me a lot. Although I can't be a professional musician, I can still be an amateur after I get a nice job. Holden's dream is to “catch” the children out of the dangerous chasm. He can do that, of course. But the prerequisite is that he needs to face his own difficulty bravely and try to overcome it, instead of escaping continually. He ought to fulfill his own duty and then pursue his dreams later. Otherwise, he might lose everything in the end.

In the book, I see so much reflection of myself. Maybe I'm as chicken-hearted as Holden when it comes to facing the coming grown-up world. Nonetheless, I prefer to bravely embrace what I encounter in my life rather than to escape passively. The toughest stage of life, puberty, will just be the past after many many years.