“The Catcher in the Rye” is the central piece of prose, written by J.D. Salinger during the war. The postwar period of 1950ies, which is described in the story, corresponds to the mood and psychological atmosphere of the novel.

Salinger chooses a novel as a form of confession, the most expressive novelistic form. Holden Caulfield, a seventeen-year-old boy, talks about what happened to him about a year ago when he was sixteen. The author introduces the protagonist at the time of acute moral crisis, when any encounter with other people is unbearable to him. This conflict with the outside world has two main reasons. First of all, after numerous warnings, Holden is expelled from a Privileged school Pencey, and now has to go home to New York and face the disappointment of his parents. Second of all, Holden failed as a captain of the school fencing team: being distracted, he left the sports equipment of his comrades on the subway, and the whole team was dismissed and had to return home with nothing. Third of all, Holden himself gives all sorts of reasons for difficult relations with his friends. He is unusually shy, vulnerable, disobliging, often just rude, keeps mocking, patronizing tone in conversations with friends. However, what depresses Holden most, is not these personal circumstances, but an overall spirit of deception and distrust between people prevailing in American society at that time. He is outraged that the modern world lacks basic human traits. Deceit and hypocrisy is everywhere.

Holden suffers from despair and hopelessness. All his attempts to make his life meaningful and informative have failed. His biggest fear is to get used to the way things are, and become just like all adults, who adapt to the deceitful environment. That is why he rebels against the fakeness around him. However, random meetings with old friends and acquaintances, as well as the conversation with his sister Phoebe, convince him to change his attitude to life. Holden learns to understand it, and his rebellion comes to a logical conclusion: instead of fleeing to the West, Holden and Phoebe remain in New York. The boy realizes that it is easier to run, than stay and defend their humanistic ideals. He does not know what will come out of it, but firmly hopes for the better. No wonder, his dream job was to catch children, playing in the Rye, if they got too close to the edge of the abyss. His sister was the first child he caught and prevented from making the same mistakes he already made.