The Catcher and the Rye was written in first person by a teenage boy named Holden Caufield. The novel was very unique, not that it was written in first person, but how it was written in first person. The entire novel goes through a period of a few days after Holden gets kicked out of his school. During this time period the readers hear observations about people, and a random collection of stories from Holden's past and present. There is no basic summary of the book, because there is no plot or storyline. I do believe, however, that The Catcher and the Rye has a point to it and a lesson to be learned from reading the novel.

Holden is the middle sibling and his parents aren't even mentioned a great deal in the book. Holden does seem to care for his parents, because he waits to tell them about his expulsion from school because he knows his mother is a nervous person and won't take the news very well. Holden's mom became nervous when her youngest child, Allie, passed away. Holden talks about Allie a lot and wonders what would've been different if he had spent some more time with her. He also mentions his big brother D.B a lot. He seems to think D.B was a failure, yet he isn't shaping his life from his brother's mistakes, seeing that this is the fourth school Holden has gotten kicked out of.

I don't think that Holdens' character is unintelligent or a failure. I believe that he was misguided as a child and that he needs to hit rock bottom before he can start up a new and improved life. This is the lesson of the novel. 'When you get knocked off course, keep falling off until you can't fall any farther. This way, everything bad has already happened and all of your mistakes have been made, so when you start back on the course, there is nothing left that could go wrong.'

**I think that grading should be an even balance between my actual ideas and how they are conveyed (content, development and style) and the grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary that is used in the paper (conventions). I don't think that what you have to say is important without the use of proper conventions and vice versa (a paper with blande ideas that had no effort put into it shouldn't be considered a good paper because it was written with appropriate commas and subject verb agreement.)