Alienation In Catcher In The Rye

Various settings in The Catcher in the Rye serve as markers of Holden’s alienation as well as his growth. The novel begins with Holden at his school, Pencey Prep, which he is being kicked out of because of his unsuccessful grades. Throughout the novel, Holden acts as if he is excluded from the world. One of Holden’s previous teachers, Mr. Spencer explains to Holden, “Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules” (Salinger 8). In response Holden indirectly reveals to Mr. Spencer that he feels trapped on “the other side” of life. Holden says, “Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, all right- I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t
“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, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole…. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you” (Salinger 121). The museum represents the world Holden wishes to live in. It’s the world of his “catcher in the rye” where nothing changes and is simple. “Another thing, if you touched one of the paddles or anything while you were passing, one of the guards would say to you, `don’t touch anything, children' but he always said it in a nice voice, not like a goddam cop or anything” (Salinger 120-121). “Not-touching is similarly indispensable to preserving what is valuable at the Museum of Natural History, a favorite place of Holden's” (Takeuchi).Holden likes the Natural History museum because no matter what changes in his life the museum was always the same and a safe spot he can always come back
“Holden, on a visit to the Museum of Natural History awaiting his little sister Phoebe, tries to rub off the "Fuck yous" from the walls. This place has always been Holden's favorite place where he feels stability and the state of nothing-is-going-to-change….The society around him is rapidly changing and he cannot keep up with the pace” (Sasani and Javidnejat). Once Holden can finally get the profanity off the wall he says, “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. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say “Holden Caulfield” on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say “Fuck you.” I'm positive, in fact” (Salinger 204). This reminds us growing up and getting exposed to the phoniness, filth and various “fuck yous” is a death of innocence which Holden is not prepared for. Holden has to eventually grow up and learn to live with the fact that the world just isn’t innocent. In contrast to Holden’s statement about the “fuck yous” he has an epiphany about growing up in the scene in which Phoebe is on the