Max Grady
Jr. Faith
Mr. Sciuto
Classic Moral Story
11/20/04
Catcher in the Rye

I think The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is an example of a classic moral story. One of the moral’s of the story can be seen as not giving up, or not losing faith in your goals.

Holden Caulfield begins the story with his idea that he can truly be the “catcher in the rye” and save the innocent people in the world from the harshness and phoniness of society. As the novel begins, Holden believes he can protect the young of the world, such as his sister Phoebe, whom he sees to be pure and innocent, from the corruption of the adult world. This is evident when Holden begins to worry about what his roommate, Stradlater, will do to his old friend Jane on the date they are going on. Holden still views Jane to be one of the innocent in the world, and knows that she has experienced some of the corruption from the adult world already because of the family problems she had living with a “booze hound” while she was younger. Holden believes so strongly in this that he lets himself get beat up by Stradlater to prevent it. Later in his journey, Holden is again beaten up for his desire’s to prevent corruption, this time by a bell hop / elevator pimp named Maurice. Much later in Holden’s journey, he is presented with many problems with his desires. He meets with an old teacher, one of the few he liked, Mr. Antolini, and his faith is greatly shaken after a strange encounter with Mr. Antolini at night. Mr. Antolini was caught by Holden, stroking him during the night. Holden jumped to the conclusion that Mr. Antolini was a homosexual and left quickly. An event like this still did not stop Holden from his dream of being the “catcher in the rye”, even when one of his idols may have turned out to be one of the phonies, Holden stayed with his dream. The only thing that keeps him going after the encounter with Mr. Antolini is his faith in his sister Phoebe and being able to protect her from the very things that are starting to corrupt him.

Much much more can be read into this tory and a lot can be written about thie different aspects fo the story, but I thin one of the very evident and simpler morals is Holden’s faith, and how it allowed him to not give up, no matter what happened to him, even when he himself was being corrupted by the people he once looked up to.