Baron Ross
TH 300
22 August 2007
Holden Caulfield, A Man of Faith
At first glance, Holden Caulfield does not seem a man of faith. He is a terrible student and has just gotten expelled from his current preparatory school because of his grades, or lack their of. Caulfield is a reckless young man and does not heed to the warnings, and advice that both of his teachers have given him. Instead of listening to his compatriots and what they have to say, Holden does the exact opposite. He begins to behave worse and starts falling faster toward his inevitable demise. Unfortunately, school is not the worst of Holden’s problems, in fact he begins to behave worse once he leaves school and is out in the publics eye. Caulfield is an avid drinker, as well as a smoker and is constantly going to clubs and bars in order to get his fix of alcohol. He even goes as far as to flirt with one his fellow students mothers in order to get her to go to the bar with him. Besides all of these terrible things he is also a pathological liar. Caulfield lies not because he has to, but mostly because he thinks it is funny to see the persons reaction to what he has to say. Yet the biggest sin Holden committed was hiring a prostitute to have sex with, something that a faithful person would never imagine of doing.
However, in many aspects, Holden’s good deeds outweigh his bad ones. His habits of smoking and drinking are more so an act of his independence, rather than an act of spite towards God. Holden does pray to Jesus once or twice in the story. He also has a long and deep conversation about Romeo and Juliet with two nuns. Eventually he gives them a ten dollar donation, a significant amount for one person to give in the past, and later on regrets that he couldn’t give them any more. Caulfield also has decent morals. Although he bought a prostitute for one night, he did not have sex with her, only a simple conversation. After hiring the prostitute, Holden realizes that what he was doing was immoral, sinful, and most importantly illegal. Before hiring the prostitute Holden used to stay up in his hotel room, and watch the true perverts from across the hotel window do sinful acts. Nothing Holden did was anywhere near comparable to his neighbors from the hotel who often committed adultery and hired prostitutes for themselves. The final and most important reason why Holden is faithful is that besides all the bad things Holden does he still cares for little kids, namely his sister Phoebe. This is why he considers himself to be the catcher in the rye. Caulfield does not want the kids he sees around him making the same mistakes he did. Furthermore, he doesn’t want the kids to fall to their demise as he is currently undergoing. Phoebe looks up to Holden as a role model which is something she shouldn’t do. Holden sees this and immediately puts a stop to this even though it may hurt a little as a short term affect.
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