The Catcher in the Rye Essay: Use of Foreshadowing The use of foreshadowing in a novel can help its reader get a sense of what what will happen in the story. without revealing the events themselves. This is a powerful tool that prevents events from remaining unexplained, leaving the reader questioning the effectiveness of an outcome. The eventual collapse of Holden Caufield's character in J.D. Salinger's controversial 1945 novel "The Catcher in the Rye" was foreshadowed in the book's opening chapters. The first clue is his negative approach to life. He begins by talking about his "bad childhood" (p.1) and the first traces of profanity can be seen scattered across the page in the form of "shit", "hell" and "damn". Holden's first sign of distrust comes when he tells Ward Stradlater about his date with Jane Gallagher: "Listen. Give my regards, willya?" “Okay,” Stradlater said, but I knew he probably wouldn’t… “Ask her if she always keeps all her kings in the back row.” “Okay,” Stradlater said, but I knew he wouldn’t do it. (p.33-34) This is shown again when he does not trust Stradlater to stop his advances towards Jane in case she says no. Holden abandons his trust in people to trust her when he boards a bus with a snowball. The driver refuses to believe that Holden won't throw the snowball, so he concludes that "people never believe you." (p.37). He also always places labels on people as being "shams", which gives the reader the idea that Holden thinks other people are materialistic. Holden's attempts to protect innocence in the world are another early sign of his deteriorating condition. When Holden goes to Pheobe's school to hand in his grade, he sees swear words against the wall that he says "almost drove me crazy" (p. 201). He erases the words from the wall in an attempt to prevent the inevitable from happening, leading the reader to believe that he may experience some mental instability in the future. Eventually he realizes that he cannot erase all the profanity himself. Another example of Holden's attempt to protect her innocence is the fact that he never calls Jane, perhaps out of fear that she will erase his memories of her as an innocent child. The title of this novel introduces this theme to the reader in that Holden wants to be "the rye catcher" (p. ) so that he can catch all the children who swing too close to the edge of a cliff in their room. Perhaps the most obvious example of foreshadowing in the novel occurs when his parents are about to have him "psychoanalyzed and all" (p. 39) when he breaks all the windows in the garage. Throughout the novel, he refers to himself as "crazy" (p. 79), which gives the reader the idea that he considers himself to have some sort of mental problem. These two pieces of evidence alone present a pretty clear picture of what will happen to Holden near the end of the story. The use of foreshadowing is evident in the novel "The Catcher in the Rye". He does his job well in that he predicts the outcome of Holden's many problems and gives the reason why. Holden's eventual collapse is unsurprising to the reader due to the author's use of foreshadowing and is therefore effective..