nsibly offensive treatment of Jane Gallagher. Again, Holden's sporadic use of "sonuvabitch" in his angriest moments alerts the reader to the serious quality of his anger. Salinger carefully crafted such speech patterns to help us identify Holden's character without lengthy descriptions of such. Here, the offending words lets the reader know when Holden is most angry and the types of situations that make him so, thereby offering further insight into his character, often through the use of a single word.Holden's regular use of curse words to describe his view of any given situation leaves the impression that his vocabulary is limited, as observed in one much younger than himself. However, Holden recognizes that he has a limited vocabulary and uncomprehendingly identifies it himself (Salzman, 1991). He makes use of cursing in an effort to add emphasis to his otherwise simplistic verbiage. For example, Holden says "That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a goddam toilet seat" (Salinger, 1951). The best reference Holden could think of was "toilet seat," a simple item readily grasped by even young children. To give this simile more emphasis, Holden, as usual, tosses in a curse word. Holden makes another toilet-like reference when he says "He started handling my paper like it was a turd or something," (Salinger, 1951) when referring to his teacher's expressions and body language while picking up some written work Holden had done. "Turd" is a word a recently potty-trained child might use instead of a prep school teen. So, Holden not only admits to having a limited vocabulary, but he has a vocabulary seemingly limited to one even younger than his age.Holden's regular use of cursing demonstates not only the depth of his emotion, but signals the reader to the fact that he is caught in the stage where childhood and approaching maturity collide. He relates poorly to instances other than those from his early youth, and tries in vain to bridge the g...
