Holden Caulfield in "The Catcher in the Rye"

The Catcher in the Rye has many, many characters in it. The most important character, who also happens to be the narrator, is Holden Caulfield. Holden Caulfield begins his story by explaining that he is only going to tell a small portion of his life. He is at a boarding school, where he flunked out, and he decides to leave early. He takes all of his savings, packs his belongings and leaves in the middle of the night. He takes a cab into town, finds a hotel and starts wandering around. He has a great many adventures, and ends his story before he explains what decision he will make about going home or going elsewhere. Holden enjoyed getting drunk, even though he was extraordinarily young. He was only able to get drinks because he was very tall, and many people did not check IDs. Holden was not a very responsible boy. He did not enjoy doing what he was told, and many times he did not. He found school extremely boring, and since he was not interested, he did not apply himself. He only had five classes, and he failed our of four. He did not fail out of English, because he had already had all of that material elsewhere. He paid attention somewhat, but he did not do his homework and he did not try hard on his test. If Holden had applied himself to his schoolwork, it seems like he would have done very well. It appears that he was an intelligent boy, or at least could have become one very quickly. Holden was also pretty street smart, but at times he could be very stupid. He was a reckless teenage boy that did not always know what was too far. Holden Caulfield could have been an extremely intelligent boy, had he applied himself, but let his teenage masculine hormones take control of him and his actions. Holden has much to learn as he gets older.