As Jordyn Flows

[This is a paper from tenth grade about J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.]

Catcher in the Rye: A Detour from Development

Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye fears change. Unlike most sixteen year olds, he does not want to grow up or focus on his future. Instead, he is eager to remain forever young by protecting his innocence. He thinks he can best protect innocence by escaping from society. Throughout the novel he attempts many times to change his surroundings. Holden wants to avoid the inevitable process of change and maturation. Thus his desire to maintain his youthful innocence inhibits his entrance into adulthood. Therefore, his fear of adulthood results in his embracing of innocence and consequently his alienation from society as a whole. 

In the novel Holden struggles with accepting change and finds comfort in things that remain the same forever. The Museum of Natural History serves as a constant for Holden because though he is a different age every time he visits, the museum remains the same. It provides Holden with a sense of security because it is one thing he can rely on to be immutable. It is symbolic of his childhood, which is something he cherishes dearly. Holden decides not to enter the building because if he does not visit it at an older age then he will not conform to the inevitable process of change:

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish…Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. (121)

Clearly, Holden knows that he is always changing and growing up. He finds security in the fact that aging does not occur in the Museum of Natural History. His tone is firm in knowing that he is completely right. Vivid details from Holden’s recollection of the museum inform the reader that he has been there many times. Holden likes many aspects of the museum but the “best thing” about it was that it never changed. His number one reason for liking the museum shows that he feels strongly about not wanting to mature. He fanaticizes that in his own paradise,  “certain things they should stay the way they are.”

Holden dislikes what adulthood offers because he finds comfort in what his childhood represents: innocence. He likes that children are pure, especially his sister Phoebe. He finds it in her intentions, dreams, and individualism. These all are traits Holden believes adults lack and he is afraid he will lose them when he matures. He finds that children’s behavior is innocent regardless of how they act. This is evident when Holden analyzes children sleeping. “Its funny. You take adults, they look lousy when they’re asleep…but kids don’t. Kids look all right. They can even have spit all over the pillow and they still look all right.” (159). Holden’s comparison between the way children and adults look while they sleep represents his opinion of children and adults in general. He claims that kids “can even have spit all over the pillow and they still look all right.” Holden thinks this because he believes children always possess innocence. However, in adulthood innocence no longer exists, and therefore he thinks adults “look lousy when they’re asleep.”

Many times throughout the novel Holden attempts to escape the society he feels is corrupt. After leaving Pencey, Holden became extremely lonely. In need of companionship, he decides to call up his former fling Sally to go on a date. Holden only seems to like Sally because he finds her attractive; however, this does not stop him from asking her to run away with him. He pitches his idea to her; “How would you like to get the hell out of here…Tomorrow morning we could drive up to Massachusetts and Vermont. Its beautiful as hell up there.” (132). Sally refuses, claiming that they are too young and that his suggestion is ridiculous. Holden disagrees and becomes infuriated with her when she turns him down because she stops his plan. Sally and Holden disagree because Sally embraces the idea of becoming an adult while Holden rejects it. He thinks that running away will let him keep his innocence. 

Holden’s self-imposed alienation is brought to his attention when he seeks help from Mr. Antolini. Mr. Antolini makes an accurate analysis of his former student. He suggests that his internal problems and his inability to explore adulthood will affect him:  

This fall I think you’re riding for- it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangements designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with or they thought their own environment couldn’t supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started. (187) 

“Horrible” and “Special” imply that Mr. Antolini’s warning should be taken seriously.  In addition, he also suggests that once he falls, he will continue to fall, “he just keeps falling and falling.”

Mr. Antolini thinks that Holden is pessimistic. Holden’s conflict is that he wants life to be different than it is.  He compares Holden to other men that are, “looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with”. Mr. Antolini is also accurate in his accusation that Holden has given up and assumes that in adulthood and its complexity, there is no good. Therefore, this negative opinion of adulthood shapes his fear of growing up. Since Holden has a pessimistic perspective this causes him to extricate himself from society.

Eventually, Holden begins to realize that he can’t protect children’s innocence as well as his own. He becomes disgusted when he finds profanity written on a wall inside Phoebe’s elementary school. He explains what he saw:

 I saw something that drove me crazy.Somebody’d written, “Fuck you” on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they’d wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them—all cockeyed, naturally—what it meant, and how they’d all think about it and may even worry about it for a couple of days. I kept wanting to kill whoever’d written it. (201)

Holden is disturbed by the “fuck you” written on the wall because he knows that children will be exposed to profanity. He is unable to stop society and its corruption from reaching children. Though he erases it he knows that protecting innocence is impossible

Finally, towards the end of the novel Holden has a revelation. He learns all children must learn from their own lessons and mistakes. He comes to terms with the nature of change when he sees Phoebe, a representation of innocence and youth, beginning to mature. Phoebe and Holden decide to go to a carousel. She asks her older brother to go on with him but he declines. This is symbolic because it shows that Holden recognizes that he is ready to leave his childhood behind and enter adulthood. Holden sits and watches Phoebe ride the carousel in a state of bliss and cries. He reflects on the steps that children take to become more independent:

All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe…The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them. (211). 

Holden’s analogy to the carousel epitomizes the stages between childhood and adulthood. The attempt to try to grab for the gold ring corresponds to experiencing things firsthand. Furthermore, Holden’s decision not to “say anything” signifies that adults should not intervene in a child’s learning experience. Holden’s new beliefs embody the correct development that every child should have in order to be prepared for adulthood. In some ways Holden hasn’t had a protector for his innocence. It could be possible that for this reason he has taken a long time to realize that he can’t always be Phoebes or his own Catcher and the Rye. 

Holden accepts that every child must grow up. Regardless of this he tries to prolong his innocence by going to a mental institution in California. Holden holds on to his childhood as long as possible but by going to the institution he will go in the opposite direction, adulthood. Though he is alienating himself physically, Holden is maturing emotionally. Holden will grow up if he begins to recognize his problems. If Holden continues to make progress in the institution than he will eventually be ready for adulthood. Holden will learn to let go of his days as a boy and this will enable him to enter his future as a man.