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Symbolism in The Catcher in the Rye: Falling and Catching as Related to Innocence

This analytical essay takes a look at motifs of falling and catching in J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. The student argues that because this imagery is associated with the main themes of the book--innocence, loss of innocence--as expressed through Holden's preoccupation with youth and adulthood, Salinger shapes much of the narrative around these symbols, from Holden's fantasy about the children and the cliff, to the fate of James Castle, and even in dialogue (e.g., Mr. Antolini).
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This essay received a B by one of Kibin's paper graders. Click here to see what was done well and what needs improvement.

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This essay received a B by one of Kibin's paper graders. Click here to see what was done well and what needs improvement.

More essays like this:

literary analysis
Not sure what I'd do without @Kibin
- Alfredo Alvarez, student @ Miami University
Exactly what I needed.
- Jenna Kraig, student @ UCLA
Wow. Most helpful essay resource ever!
- Chris Stochs, student @ UC Berkeley

View other essays like this one:

Bridget's feedback:

"Your essay demonstrates detailed engagement with the text and its symbols, showing your work in close-reading the novel and working to understand how theme, device, and story work together at multiple levels. Because you are handling several different levels of textual analysis, you will want to make sure your claims and argumentation are consistently clear and solid at both the level of logic and clarity of writing. As an example of the former, you write about Holden's brother, "whereas other people would presumably find his profession to be perplexing," but the reader isn't sure what this means. Make sure to fill in these small gaps so the reader can follow the course of each claim.

The writing itself has a good sense of flow, pacing, and sentence variety, creating a dynamic reading experience. You also show good control of the mechanics, so the work at this level can focus on revising for efficiency, further clarity, and style. For example, the first sentence of the James Castle paragraph is quite long with many clauses. While your syntax, structure, and punctuation are all mechanically sound, from a style and readability point of view, the sentence is rather cluttered, with each point (Holden's introduction of Castle, Salinger's use of Castle, description of who Castle is and what he did) fighting for the reader's attention. See if you can revise the sentence into two sentences or a more direct expression of the paragraph's topic; besides helping your reader out, this can be a good exercise in identifying purpose and experimenting with phrasing."

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