Catcher In The Rye: Real Life Lessons
             The Catcher in The Rye, by J.D. Salinger has been on the required reading list in high schools across the nation since shortly after its publication in 1951. Though it has been criticized off and on by various critiques as being shallow, without plot and to fast it has held its placed in the English Departments for half a century. Part of what makes it a must read for any teenager is the ability to identify with the changes the main character, Holden, goes through. As teens begin to emerge from puberty and rush toward adulthood they inevitably begin to face life's ironies as well as their own weaknesses among those ironies.
             Holden helps them see those life responsibilities and lessons they are learning through the eyes of a peer. Regardless of the era the book was penned in, and regardless of the changes our world has seen, the painful rebirth every teen passes through in the final phases of childhood is a road Holden helps them navigate.
             One of the most important changes that Holden deals with in the Catcher in The Rye is the realization that there is really no such thing as unconditional acceptance from anyone. Holden has always had a problem with authority figures. From the beginning of the book he makes it clear that he is not the type of teenager that goes with the program and complies with the rules. He has been kicked out of three boarding schools and still does not feel he should change the way he reacts to structure and confinement. Holden is aware that he has a reputation for being a rebel that borders on troublemaker. He discounts such opinions of his character believing the opinion holders to be beneath him, or at least unable to understand the reality of who he is. However, he has a 10-year-old sister Phoebe who he has always been close too. When he sneaks to his house to visit her while "on the run" he anticipates the unconditional acceptance that he...