individual who values honesty and sincerity. He is unimpressed with people that aren’t real with who they are. This trait that Holden possesses shows that although he is immature, he still maintains a certain level of realism. Holden also shows a strong love for his little sister. He is protective of her, erasing bad words from the walls of her school and in a museum, so that she doesn’t learn from the graffiti. His fondness for children can be inferred when he tells her that, at some time in the future, he wants to be the only grown-up with "all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all." He'll stand on the edge of a cliff and catch anybody who starts to fall off the edge. He got this image from his misinterpretation of a line from the Robert Burns poem, " if a body catch a body comin' through the rye." When situations are described, in person or in a book, they are influenced by the one who describes them, and by his or her perceptions and experiences. Through Holden's expressions of his thoughts and feelings, the reader sees a youth, sensitive to his surroundings, who chooses to deal with life in unique ways. Holden is candid, spontaneous, analytical, thoughtful, and sensitive, as evidenced by his narration. Like most adolescents, feelings about people and relationships are often on his mind. Unfortunately, in Holden's case, he seems to expect the worst, believing that the result of getting close to people is pain. Pain when others reject you or pain when they leave you, such as when a friend walks off or a beloved brother dies. It would not have been possible to feel Holden's feelings or understand his thoughts nearly as well had the book been written in third person....
