Catcher in the Rye Essay

Catching a True Role The symbol of the carousel and adolescence used by J.D. Salinger in the Catcher in the Rye develop Holden’s character into a young man. Holden Caulfield is an adolescent that refuses to grow up. He begins his life in the book as a confused young man in search of saving humanity. Through the realizations Holden has, he is able to recognize his true role in life. Holden understands that he is not able to stop every child from taking risks, that allowing them to take risks is part of growing up. Holden’s character changes drastically during the course of the book. Holden grew up viewing adults as phonies. “Phoniness” is Holden’s way to describe the superficiality, hypocrisy, pretension, and shallowness that he encounters in the world around him (Seng 14). To him, children are still pure, and he tries to preserve that in them. At his old school, Pencey Prep, Holden strongly disliked the teachers because he believes that they were unjust and treated him unfairly. “Pencey was full of crooks. Quite a few guys came from these wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has -- I 'm not kidding” (Salinger 2). In his mind, everyone is appearance obsessed, a secret slob, or a suck up (Irving 118). Holden finds any semblance of a normal adult life to be “phony.” He does not want to grow up and be like them; he does not want to get a job or a house or go to an office, and he certainly does not want to do what those “bastards” do. Holden deals with the thought of phonies in interesting ways. If Holden calls everyone a phony, he can feel better if they reject him. For example it was not his fault that the girls in the Lavender room did not want to be with him, they were just phonies who could not understand him. It is his defense mechanism. One way to understand his abnormality is to look at his childhood. The events in his childhood were not pleasant, sometimes too traumatic for little

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