Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield is the teenage narrator of J.D.
Salinger's novel *The Catcher in the Rye* (1951).
The name has become shorthand for adolescent alienation and disillusionment—a young person who sees the adult world as phony and corrupt: He's going through his Holden Caulfield phase, calling everything fake.
The character is often invoked when discussing youthful cynicism or the painful transition from innocence to experience.
- ryeHardy cereal crop
- SalingerMid-century American novelist
- coming of ageReaching adult status
- PhoebeFeminine name meaning radiant
- prep schoolPrivate pre-college institution
expelled · New York · adolescence · angst · carousel · little kids · ducks · Central Park · boarding school · innocence · lost innocence · cynical · alienated · teenager · narrator · depression · museum · childhood
- literary charactersSherlock Holmes, Scout Finch, Elizabeth Bennet, Macbeth, Huck Finn
- fictional narratorsNick Carraway, Ishmael, Scout Finch, Stevens, Jane Eyre
- Literary Madnessmadness, insanity, hysteria, melancholia, psychosis
- sons in literatureprodigal son, Hamlet, Telemachus, Oedipus, Edmund
- boy heroesHarry Potter, Peter Pan, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Huckleberry Finn
- Teen HeroesHarry Potter, Hermione Granger, Katniss Everdeen, Percy Jackson, Buffy Summers
Holden CaulfieldPatrick Bateman
Tom Buchanan · Gatsby · Jay Gatsby · phony · Willy Loman
Holden CaulfieldAtticus Finch
hold, held, holder, holding, holdings, holds, field, fields, fielded