"The hero-narrator of this novel is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he...

Critical essays discuss the language, symbolism, and psychological structure of the classic novel of Holden Caulfield's search for identity.

Examines the background and themes of "Catcher in the Rye," discusses the novel's censorship, and examines the character of Holden Caulfield