In many novels in J.D. Salinger's library of books, there is a recurring theme of the
loss of innocence of children, the falling and the confusions of childhood, and many
other ideas that apply to the ideas of adolescence and the life of the average teenager
growing up. Many of his themes occur in a short period of time in a child's life that
affects him/her in a very profound and significant way. The idea of love is also a major
theme that arises in many of his characters and that indicates the character of the
individual. He uses love in the context of being a device that is used to protect and to
care for people who need protecting and caring. In the novel, Catcher in the Rye, by J.
D. Salinger, love is used by a character, Holden Caulfield, who struggles desperately to
find a certain somebody or anyone to allocate his love to, but realizes finally, that
this love is not necessarily expressed through saving "the children in the rye" from the
time of trial, but actually caring for them and being their friends, during the time of
trial.
The quest of finding the true love of people is an ongoing dilemma in the lives of many
people all throughout the world. The constant need for love is overwhelming, and the
tragedy of this great world is the fact that some people do not find the proper love that
they deserve. Holden Caulfield is a perfect example of the striving to acquire a love
sought all throughout his life. According to this quote, "He is simply expressing an
innocence incapable of genuine hatred. Holden does not suffer from the inability to love,
but does despair of finding a place to bestow his love" (Heiserman and Miller 30), Holden
Caulfield has the need for allocating his cornucopia of love for people. His quest is
very simple. He wants to do good. As compared to tragic heroes in the past,
"Holden seeks Virtue second to Love. He wants to be good. When the little
children are playing in the rye-field on the cliff top, Holden wants to be the one
who catches them before they fall off the cliff. He is not driven toward honor or
courage. He is not driven toward the love of woman. Holden is driven toward love of
his fellowman...." (Heiserman and Miller 25).
In other words, he is not a tragic hero, but rather a misfortuned hero that struggles to
find a person to give his love to. There is nothing tragic about his life.
Holden also seeks circularity in his life. According to this quote,
"I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and
around. I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the
truth. I don't know why. It was just that she looked so damn nice, the way she kept
going around and around, in her blue coat and all. God, I wish you could've been
there" (Salinger 213),
Holden revels in the virtues of softness of the edges, a roundness that can't hurt
anyone. He finds a comfort in the circular motions of the carousel.
"All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I
was sort of afraid she might fall off the goddam horse, but I didn't say anything or
do anything. 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" (Salinger 211).
This illustrates the pure innocence of children, and the gold rings portray a sort of
round goal that children seek and reach for. This quote is later on in the story and the
true symbolism is realized toward the end of the novel.
Holden also seeks the truth from people in general, reaching for the one theme left in
the world, innocence. One kind of bitter truth he does not seek is phoniness. In this, he
means the people losing innocence or people who already lost innocence, or has "fallen
from the cliff". He is led to believe from his early years that adulthood is a form of
fake maturity. That is why he seeks to find adolescents, to catch them from falling into
the kind of fake maturity that they are destined for. He seeks children, free of
impurities. At Phoebe's school,
"....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 kids would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant, and
then finally some dirt kid would tell them-all cockeyed, naturally-what it meant,
and how they'd all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of
days" (Salinger 201).
He realizes then, that innocence is a very hard part of one's soul to save. This
eventually leads him to his final realizations.
Holden has a few aspects and thoughts that help him to appease him slightly of the
thirst for love. "In childhood he had what he is now seeking- non-phoniness, truth,
innocence. He can find it now only in Phoebe and in his dead brother Allie's baseball
mitt, in a red hunting cap and the tender little nuns" (Heiserman and Miller 26). Phoebe
is a hope that Holden holds in his heart. Her childish innocence gives him a true and
pure outlook that lets him feel secure in her presence. Also, the memories of his long
dead brother, Allie, remain in his mind, giving him comfort in the thoughts of the
totally innocent nature of his little brother who was so wrongly murdered by the unfair
deadliness of cancer. The only material remaining to remind Holden of him, apparently, is
a baseball mitt. He cherishes this glove and even makes a whole composition on it. It is
the only true memory of his brother. A red hunting cap is very symbolic in Holden's life
in the novel. According to this quote, "I got pretty soaking wet, especially my neck and
my pants. My hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way, but I got
soaked anyway. I didn't care, though" (Salinger 213), it is his only protection from the
weather. It is symbolic of a constant in his constantly changing life. It is something
definite that cannot be stripped of him. The tender nuns who Holden encounters are
symbolic of true naivete and helplessness. They always appear to be outside, collecting
money. They are the quintessence of love, being sent forth by God to love, and chosen to
guide the stray and to help the hopeless. These various aspects of Holden's life give him
a comfort immeasurable to him. They somehow give him a reason to live, literally.
Holden's quest of finding a pure and innocent adolescence to give his love drives him to
dreaming of being a "catcher in the rye". This dream is of saving children who are
falling off a cliff of a rye field. This symbolizes the need for Holden to care for
children and to save them from the loss of innocence. In his narratives, Holden reveals
many individuals who need catching, and many that have already fallen. He went to the
house of an old teacher, Mr. Spencer,
"....But I just couldn't hang around there any longer, the way we were on
opposite sides of the pole, and the way he kept missing the bed whenever he chucked
something at it, and his sad old bathrobe with his chest showing, and that grippy
smell of Vicks Nose Drops all over the place" (Salinger 15),
and he was sickened by his appearance. The depressing ambiance of the room, along with
the sheer rotting-outlook of the room just plain disgusts Holden. This is the first
realization of the fact that adulthood made Mr. Spencer the way he is today. Holden
wonders how it would be different for these various people if someone had loved them
through their innocence. These thoughts eventually lead him to the yearning to be a
catcher in the rye.
Another child that has fallen, and still is falling is a neighbor of Holden's, Old
Robert Ackley. He has horrible hygiene and an annoying curiosity, in that
"He started walking around the room, very slow and all, the way he
always did, picking up your personal stuff off your desk and chiffonier.
He always picked up our personal stuff and looked at it. Boy, could that
get on your nerves sometimes" (Salinger 20).
This is the first symbolism of an elder having supremacy over him. It is just another
depressing sight of adulthood. Holden believes that if there had been someone to catch
such stray children from the rye, their lives would be somewhat different.
Another character in Holden's life that has fallen from the cliff, Ward Stradlater, is
his own roommate. Stradlater is an older individual than Holden and is more mature in
certain aspects. Holden constantly describes him as "sexy". "I kept thinking of Jane, and
about Stradlater having a date with her and all. It made me so nervous I nearly went
crazy. I already told you what a sexy bastard Stradlater was" (Salinger 34). This
illustrates the sexual maturity of Stradlater. Later, Holden tries to experience his own
heightening of sexual maturity with a prostitute, but he realizes that he is not ready
for it. He is not ready to fall off of that specific cliff just yet. Stradlater is also a
very conceited individual. In a conversation, Holden addresses a thought of Jane,
"'....If she'd known (about Stradlater's "sexiness"), she probably would've signed out
for nine thirty in the morning.' 'Goddam right,' Stradlater said. You couldn't rile him
too easily. He was too conceited." (Salinger 34). This is still another example of an
adult's egotism and a possible success if he was caught at an earlier age.
There is, finally, another example that personifies the sheer existence of a troubled
soul, who has fallen way past a cliff, but into the deep, engulfing abyss!! This
character is Old Maurice, a pimp, ready to con anyone, manipulate anyone, and do any
impure act possible to anyone. Holden, with his ignorant foolishness, accepts a con for
him to sleep with one of Old Maurice's prostitutes. Later, Holden realizes that he is
being conned out of an extra five dollars. When he argues about the money, Old Maurice,
with his own sense of superiority beats up on poor, innocent, little Holden. Holden
retaliates,
"I was so damn mad and nervous and all. 'You're a dirty moron,'
I said. 'You're a stupid chiseling moron, and in about two years you'll
be one of those scraggy guys that come up to you on the street and ask
for a dime for coffee" (Salinger 103).
This is when Old Maurice's ego starts to bleed and he beats up on Holden much more. Old
Maurice is the quintessence of a bully, having fallen off a cliff at an early age,
probably having been beaten at home, having lost his innocence too early, and many other
phony adult symptoms. Holden realizes that Old Maurice is not too different from
Stradlater, who also beat him senseless in another meeting. These are examples of a lack
of love through their adolescent years.
Finally, there is one aspect in Holden's life that pushes him over the cliff of
realization, giving him a new light of seeing the many contours of his life. This theme
was suggested in an earlier passage in Phoebe's school, Holden's old school, where there
is a certain profanity that is unacceptible to younger children. Holden tries
desperately to rub off the word, and eventually succeeds in doing so. However, this
leads him to an insignificant realization of the futility of trying to rub off all the
curses in the world, or "catching children in the rye". Later, at a museum, he
experiences a double dose of disgusting nausea. "That's the whole trouble. You can't
ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there
is but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'Fuck
You' right under your nose" (Salinger 203). He catches a glimpse of this phrase carved
into a monument inside the museum. The museum that he depends on to be sacred and always
pure, turns out to have such a horrid word!! Also, the word is carved into the stone,
so it is actually impossible for Holden to actually rub it out. This scene, with Holden
nearly fainting and nauseated, is the turning point of Holden's life, bringing an end to
the dream of being the "catcher in the rye". It gives him a sharp and bitter realization
that everyone in the world can not be caught, and it is futile to try to catch a child
from the cliff of adult maturity.
Holden Caulfield is a very concerned and caring individual, thrust into a world of
"phoniness" and "adult immaturity". This world gives him a pressure so great that he
does not know how to react to the various aspects of his life. He feels an overwhelming
urge to love people, seek others' love, and to care for people that do not have the love
that he has. This leads to his dream of being a "catcher in the rye". However, as his
life progresses, many occurences drive him to a state of confusion and mental turmoil.
He does not know how to handle the radical changes in his life. The harsh realizations
in theses few days of his life give him a new perspective in his once secure world. He
realizes that caring, not catching, is needed in the preservation of innocence. Catching
some children in the rye merely saves a select number of individuals, for a little period
of time. It is Holden's realization that children are destined to fall from innocence
and it is futile for him to try to change it otherwise.
|