Understanding of Holden in The Catcher in the Rye

1. Introduction Jerome David Salinger is one of the most famous and influential American writers after World War II. Though his literary output is fairly small, his authentic writing about disillusioned, alienated American youth won him a significant position in modern American lit- erature. His novel The Catcher in the Rye is a story of a sixteen-year old boy who runs away from his mid- dle-class private school and spends four days roaming around New York, searching for truth and goodne…