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Salinger’s The Story of Holden and the Catcher in the Rye

Updated September 22, 2022
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Salinger’s The Story of Holden and the Catcher in the Rye essay

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The theme that the world has an outward appearance that seems fair and perfect but really theyre as holden put it phonies Thig just playing and when they fall off the cliff they discover the world. He wants to protect them and keep them pure will.

All through the story Salinger used Holden as the catcher on the rye to protect or try to protect the innocents of kids. The biggest and most memorial of this protection is when he went to Phoebe elementary school to talk to her before he had to leave. Anyway he saw the word fuck you on the hall walls and “it drove him dam near crazy.” He couldn’t stand the idea that Phoebe or her friend had seen that on the wall. If they saw it they would wonder and eventually “some dirty kid would tell them” and they would know the cruel world thus falling in the rye. As his duty as the catcher in the rye Holden tried to erase the first one that was on the walls, but later said “it’s hopeless anyway.

If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn’t rub out even half the fuck you signs in the world. Its impossible.” Now I think the word tragedy goes right there. If the job that Holden is set out to do is inevitable then it’s a tragedy. Salinger illustrates a full blown tragedy with a 15 year old boy; it sounds a lot like the classic we read last year Romeo and Juliet. A young boy, even the same age, is placed in a no win situation.

The next one I just thought about is the time Holden got a snow ball off the window cell. This has nothing to go with protecting but it is about purity. Holden got some show from off the window pan and he “started to throw it” but after looking out at the scene he decides not to. He said he stared it throw it at a car and fire hydrogen but they looked “too nice and white.” Holden is consumed with finding and protecting purity, and when he found something pure he didn”t want to disturb it. But it’s strange how he used the words “nice and white,” I know that the snow was white but is there something more there.

White is often associated with pure and even holiness. He may be comparing it to a holy site; because he does ask Ackley about joining later in the book. You never know. Theme number three is going to be a discussing about Salinger and his symbolism. Salinger is a master of the subtle symbolism. He lays his symbols so subtle that most of the time they’re not even found or addressed even by a commentary over the book.

I really enjoyed reading and rereading this book to find embedding symbols. I think that’s what made it so good. A very important character that is referred to all throgh the story by Holden is Allie. Allie is Holder’s younger brother who died of leukemia when he was just thirteen. Holden loved his brother more than anything and when he died he punched out all the windows in the garage. He said that “my hand still hurts me once in a while.” This is symbolic of the love he had and still has for his little brother; he even quotes latter that “you don’t stop loving someone because they die” proving that he still cares for him.

He may even think he had something to do with his death or he caused it. Sometimes little kids think stuff like that. Holden also says that ” I can’t make a real fist any more-not a tight one.” If his fist represents his love for his brother or his heart than maybe he can’t love again. When he meet up with Sally he said he felt like marring her than he discards it by saying “I don’t even like her much.” Holden is afraid to love again because of the way his heart and fist was broken by Allie. Another symbol is his own sister Phoebe. First you must understand that Phoebe came from the Greek word meaning Sun.

Holden is lost in the world and feels that everything is “phony.” Phoebe is his symbol of hope in the world. All Holden needs is hope. Just as the sun comes out and shines it’s beautiful color and truth to the world to nurrshish and feed the plant; so did Phoebe come with her innocent hands saving Holden from the world. “The first thing I did when I got off at Penn station, I went into this phone booth.” Holden first started to call his brother but then he thought of his sitter Phoebe, then he whet on about her and how she wouldn’t mind being woke up. All through the book he will think about call and eventually sneak home just to see her. This shows he sees her as his only light in this world of phonies hint the name Phoebe Greek for sun.

I read a very interesting point in a book review about The Catcher in the Rye that explains the Holden behavior all through the book. In short it said his activities “describes a developing nervous breakdown.” And if you think of the symptoms you would a agree. Unexplained depression, show countless time in the story as “I felt depressed as hell.” And the why that Salinger keep using the world depressed, not bad or mellow but depressed he may have been hinting at it. Impulsive spending, that is obvious through the fact he only had “3 dollars and some change” after just 2 days in New York. Erratic behavior, example is Holden just jumping up and put Stradlater in a “half Nelson.” All of this is prior to his eventual nervous collapse. This book has been a joy to read.

Holden was very funny at times especially when he called Sally to ask her about “trim a tree” for Christmas. Salinger is ether a great writer or he just lucked up this good of a story. Sometimes I wonder if the author of books always think as deep as the reader. I mean do authors read a commentary over a book they wrote and say, hmm I didn’t think of that.

Writers like Edgar Allen are obvious that they have a deeper meaning. But with Salinger it’s hard to tell if this is a simple story of a boy rebelling or is it a great big metaphor for the world and how we are. Now if you ask him I,m sure he would say “oh that’s what meant exactly,” and he might as well have meant that; but who is to say.

Salinger’s The Story of Holden and the Catcher in the Rye essay

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