Would Holden Benefit From Alt Culture? (Semi-)Serious Speculation over a Bizarre Question.
EDIT 2: I made more The Catcher in the Rye... things... on my other blog. Venn Diagram Crossover with DNA (2007), a play I studied and performed in my previous school before I transferred. EDIT: In retrorespect, I should probably apologize to Mr. Mitchell for doing this topic despite my relative ignorance of counterculture. In The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J. D. Salinger, the protagonist Holden Caulfield spends much of the book in a state of alienation from his surrounding culture, and believing, as teenagers are wont to do, that he is the only person to ever feel this way (something Mr Antolini specifically calls him out on when trying to convince him to put effort into his studies). This alienation from the mainstream is a defining feature of alt cultures such as punk, goth, and emo. I don’t know so much about goth culture, but I know a smattering about punks and emos, so they will be the main focus of this post. Having considered the matter, I pers...