holden caulfield

The 16-year-old protagonist of author J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Holden is naive and at the same time resentful of the adult world. One of his most striking qualities is his powerful revulsion for all things "phony". At six feet, two-and-a-half inches, he is tall for his age and already has some gray hair - though he himself admits that he acts more like a 13-year-old than an adult. Holden has become an icon for teenage rebellion and angst, and now stands among the most important characters of 20th-century American literature. …more