Confused Practice Diction Analysis

In the excerpt from the novel Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, Salinger’s slightly vulgar, familiar diction depicts the ill-educated, juvenility of the narrator. At first, the character introduces the reader to the point of the passage. The character “[doesn’t] feel like going through all that crap” of describing his life and “what [his] lousy childhood was like” because he is a lazy youth and possibly has poor writing skills if he must rely on vulgar words. Words such as “damn near” and “crap” are straight from the vulgar lexicon of immature teenage youth, hence emphasizing the narrator’s juvenility. Then the teen bounces around topics from an autobiographical style to the purpose of his writing to randomness about his brother, “D.B” who’s “in Hollywood without describing them very well. That isn’t too far from [the narrator’s] crumby place.” The vulgarity of the familiar diction highlights the juvenility of the undereducated narrator.