Holden Caulfield, from his alienated standpoint, focuses on the ills of his society: profane graffiti, violence, betrayal and molestation by his once-trusted mentors, constant belittlement by those he attempts to connect with, especially women, and even pressuring thoughts of his own demise. Holden’s perception of his surroundings are jaded by his recent acceptance of the inevitability of growing up and losing childhood innocence.
In an initial reading of The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger portrays Holden as isolated in a world of phonies, crooks, and worst of all, those who bring a rude awakening of the real world to innocent children. Salinger heightens the realism of the brutal awakening and exposure to the real world, through Holden’s seemingly never ending recollections of the city, from the sanitarium. Through retelling the story from a later point of view, Holden becomes an embodiment of the acceptance of society and inevitable maturing, for young struggling readers, despite his attempts to become the catcher in rye.
In the adult world full of phonies, Holden unwittingly defines himself through his behaviors as a nonconformist. He strives to remain untouched by the ways of world, yet he himself constantly reaches out to communicate and allow himself to become a part of society. Before Holden makes it to the city he stops to give a heartfelt goodbye to his old teacher and mentor, Mr. Spencer. Mr. Spencer discredits him for his terrible work ethic and what he believes as Holden blaming him for his non-passing grade in the class. Spencer takes the opportunity to lecture Holden on the reality that life is a game with rules that are to be followed, however Holden is already disengaged and “shooting the bull” Holden gives the response, “Game my ass… If you get on the side where all the hotshots are…where there aren’t any hotshots, then what’s a game about it”(Salinger 5).
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This response highlights Holden’s disdain of society because only the hotshots have the upper hand, he himself is an outsider and begrudgingly unbeknownst to himself, a phony. Holden refuses to play the game that is life, unless it is by his rules, allowing him to live in blissful ignorance. Despite his attempts to remain distant, “Holden’s own core reaches down into the very civilization he hopes to leave behind”(Bungert). Holden subconsciously demonstrates the phony and perverted qualities he loathes of his surroundings, making himself an outsider and a nonconformist to society yet unknowingly intertwined through his hypocritical nature.
Throughout the novel, Holden Caulfield suffers through his own lonely and hypocritical bildungsroman. Holden constantly fantasizes of his ideal life in which he lives alone in the woods or as a “deaf-mute.” Within these fantasies he clings to the idea of his surroundings remaining static, as they were when he was naive of evils of the world. While Holden himself is taking on the negative qualities from his surroundings, he relies on his younger sister, Phoebe, seeing her as a symbol of innocence. Phoebe draws him back to his younger memories and provides him with a sense of fulfillment and hope. When Holden asks one of Phoebe’s friends where his younger sister might be, the girl responds that Phoebe’s class often goes to the museum, Holden gets to thinking of the museum that was once his safe haven. “ The best thing though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move… Nobody’d be different. The only thing that’d be different would be you” (Salinger 157).
Holden sees the museum as a frozen oasis of his childhood memories and innocence, the museum is a symbol of his preservation. J.D. Salinger presents the nature of the museum artifacts as static, yet allows Holden to see himself as dynamic, this reinforces Holden’s knowledge that he must grow up and in turn, become imprinted by society, “Holden is occasionally able to step out of his own shoes and look at himself front the perspective of an outsider”(Alsen). J. D. Salinger creates Holden with as much detail and inner complications as any other person; this allows Holden to seldom become self aware in his narrative. As Holden continues, he realizes, with Phoebe’s enlightenment, that he will be unable to preserve children in a static state of innocence because the loss of innocence is inevitable with the introduction of the real world, just as he has endured. Holden being able to step out of his own shoes and see this change, allows Salinger to comfort the reader through Holden.
Phoebe is Holden’s only sense of comfort, she is his anchor, and despite her young and innocent light in Holden’s eyes, Phoebe enlightens him on the nature of the adult world. When Holden sneaks into the family home to see her, Phoebe immediately realizes he has been kicked out and interrupts his pessimistic list of dislikes, to ask him what he does enjoy. In response, Holden can not think of anything except Allie, this brings Holden to share with Phoebe his dream of being the catcher in the rye. As they go through the Robert Burns poem, the inspiration for Holden’s dreams, Phoebe corrects his false theories, “ You know that song ‘if a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’?… ‘It’s if a body meet a body coming through the rye’!”(Salinger 409).
Phoebe enlightens Holden to the realistic nature of the world and in his misinterpretation of the poem he in fact, misinterprets the world, “Phoebe who brings Caulfield out of this ideal world to meet the real world and see his misunderstandings…The protection he is so eager to provide turns out to be unnecessary to them”(Wei). Phoebe, even as the primary reason behind Holden’s dream of becoming the catcher in the rye, teaches him that even if he failed to protect his own childhood innocence, he can not protect other children because growing up is inevitable. Growing up and falling off the cliff of innocence will happen regardless or not if he is watching in the rye.
Holden Caulfield provides the embodiment of the struggles of growing up. He is reluctant to step into the real world, and continuously procrastinates his acceptance of growing up, through his observant nature. J.D. Salinger creates Holden as one who is awestruck and put off by the gruesome adult world, instead Holden focuses his energy on what he sees visually throughout this new world; the most recurring of all being his curiosity about the ducks, “By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over?”(Salinger 60). This quote and the fascination Holden conveys through its words, symbolize Holden’s difficulty with the inevitable changes he faces.
The idea of the ducks flying South for the winter, showcases that despite his ability to continue running, “He fears for the ducks when the lagoon freezes over, for he is a duck himself with no place to go”(Heiserman and Miller Jr.). Holden continues to revel at the disappearance of the ducks because they represent the ideal nature of adapting to their surroundings naturally. J.D. Salinger utilizes the ducks disappearance as a sign that Holden is slowly adapting and adapting to the characteristics of his surroundings, like one of the ducks, whether he chooses to or not.
From a young age Holden has been plagued by the death of his younger brother Allie, robbing him of his youthful innocence. Later on Holden, shares his eyewitness account of the aftermath of the boy who defenstrates himself at Pencey Prep as a result of bullying and how after Mr. Antolini covers the boys body with his new coat.
As Holden’s narrative continues he is plagued by his own suicidal thoughts, however he is held back by the fear that there would not be an adult to cover his body. Holden fears that no adult would take the time from their corruption filled to cover his body so that the children will not see it, and therefore lose their innocence. However, Holden still retains somewhat of his own childhood naivety surrounding his own demise and that of Allies; in that he has not come to the capability to face death head on, rather looking at it as disappearing, “I had this feeling that I’d never get to the other side…I thought I’d just go down, down, down… I’d make believe I was talking to Allie. I’d say to him, ‘Allie, don’t let me disappear”(Salinger 198).
Holden wants to remove himself entirely from this society he feels he will never belong to, but he fears that if he follows through their would be no one to shield innocent children from his body. At this point Holden realizes the overall gravity of death in a child sized sense yet, “Holden is deeply wounded by the realization that the world continues to turn despite’s Allie’s death”(Michelle). The realization that even the death of a prominent figure, that of his younger brother, merely stops his youthful innocence. Death alone has no rule over the adult world and in a greater sense that life goes on and no one will remain truly innocent throughout their entire life.
Throughout The Catcher and the Rye, Salinger portrays the painful concept of growing up and in doing so, depicts how difficult that process can truly be. Salinger provides the conflicted readers with Holden Caulfield, a character from a traumatic childhood with the hero mentality that he has to save other children from the pain he endured. Through Holden, J.D. Salinger offers the reader a physical likeness to Peter Pan. Salinger portrays the need to protect children’s innocence to the real world and the suffering that goes along with it, by saving them from going over the cliff of adolescence. More so, in the terms of Peter Pan, Holden strives to get the children to Neverland, meaning that they never land at the base of the cliff and grow up in the corrupted adult world; instead they are preserved in a unending state of youthful innocence. Salinger depicts a Bildungsroman, however not in the happy-go-lucky type ending but the realistic, hard to swallow world humankind has created.
