FREE ESSAY ON THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

The Catcher in the Rye
"I swear to God I'm crazy. I admit it." It is very easy to automatically assume that
Holden Caulfield is crazy. It's even a logical assumption since Caulfield himself admits
to being crazy twice throughout the course of the book. However, calling Holden Caulfield
crazy is almost the same as calling the majority of the human race crazy also. Holden
Caulfield is just an adolescent trying to prevent himself from turning into what he
despises the most, a phony. Most of Caulfield's actions and thoughts are the same as of
many people, the difference being that Holden acts upon those thoughts and has them down
in writing.
Holden Caulfield is a teenager growing up in New York in the 1950s. He has been expelled
from school for poor achievement and "was flunking four subjects and not applying myself
and all."(Salinger, 4) He decides to leave school a few days than what he is supposed to
in an attempt to deal with his current situation. "Besides, I sort of needed a little
vacation. My nerves were shot. They really were." Caulfield goes to New York to take a
vacation before having to face his parents' unmistakable wrath. During this time, he
experiences a nervous breakdown that was characterized by his sudden unexplained
depressions. "What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide." "I felt so
lonesome, all of a sudden." Before his eventual nervous collapse he experienced impulsive
spending and generally odd, bizarre behavior. "All I had was three singles and five
quarters and a nickel left - boy, I spent a fortune since I left Pencey. Then what I did,
I went down near the lagoon and I sort of skipped the quarters and the nickel across it,
where it wasn't frozen." "About halfway to the bathroom, I sort of started pretending I
had a bullet in my guts." 
During Caulfield's psychological battle, life continues around him. His condition of
being ignored eventually arises the thought the thought of whether society chooses to
ignore the emptiness that can be shown in humans. "..but people never notice. People
never notice anything." As Caulfield's condition deteriorates, he declares the world is
full of phonies and that people are out there for their own gain. He is aware that most
people are phonies but is not as critical of them towards the end. One aspect of Holden's
personality is his criticism toward the phony things in society. 
Holden considers the movies and anything having to do with it phony, including theatre
productions. "I don't like any shows very much, if you want to know the truth. They're
not as bad as movies, but they're certainly nothing to rave about. In the first place, I
hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do. Some of the good ones
do, in a very slight way, but not in a way that's fun to watch. And if any actor's good,
you can always tell he knows he's good, and that spoils it...If an actor acts it out, I
hardly listen. I keep worrying about whether he's going to do something phony every
minute." He finds the theater phony because instead of demonstrating reality as it is,
the emphasis is placed on polishing into this massacre of made up events. Holden feels
anger towards his brother because "he's out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute." He
considered that D.B. was selling himself to Hollywood, which is why he called D.B. a
prostitute. He considers the movies phony and hates them so much that "... I don't think
I could ever do it with somebody that sits in a stupid movie all day long" when Sunny the
prostitute was in his room. When he dances with Bernice Crabs/Krebs, he considers her a
moron partially because she was on the lookout for actors at the bar because she had seen
an actor the previous night. Also, it depressed him that they were planning on waking up
early the next day to see the first show at Radio City Music Hall. 
Holden's criticism towards the phony things in society is the most important part of his
personality because it shows that for him it is very important to be real and honest and
not phony. Another aspect of Holden's personality is his perception that laws or rules
are child's play for the strong and a difficult struggle for the weak. His understanding
is that rules were meant to serve for the strong and since he considers himself part of
the weak people, he ignores them completely. Holden's favorite author besides his brother
is Ring Lardner. There is one story that "kills" him that shows his understanding of
laws. "...this one story about a traffic cop that falls in love with this very cute girl
that's always speeding. Only, he's married, the cop, so he can't marry her or anything.
Then this girl gets killed, because she's always speeding. That story just about killed
me." There are two types of laws being broken here. The policeman fell in love with
another woman while he was married which is the breaking of a social law. Then the girl
was always speeding so she broke traffic laws. Holden enjoys this story so much because
there was no direct punishment for the breaking of the social law. The girl died because
of speeding but nothing happened to the policeman who also broke a rule or law. 
Holden also sees that rules are applied to life depending on who you are and that life
really isn't a game. His history teacher, Mr. Spencer tells him, "Life is a game, boy.
Life is a game that one plays according to the rules." He tells his teacher that he
agrees but his thoughts are really, "Game, my ass. Some game, if you get on the side
where all the hotshots are, then it's a game, all right- I'll admit that. But if you get
on the other side, where there aren't any hotshots, then what a game about it? Nothing.
No game." Caulfield considers himself to be on the side without game, rules, and
hotshots. But there is a contradiction with this aspect of Holden's personality. He
doesn't accept the rules set before him by phony adults. He believes that rules are only
for the strong, yet he makes rules for himself although he never keeps them. "I'm always
setting myself rules about sex and I immediately break them." The final aspect of 
Holden Caulfield's personality is his respect for others. He can't stand people who don't
respect or listen to what others have to say. He also thinks it is important to listen to
people and respect their privacy. This is shown when he is willing to stop in the middle
of a sexual act at the request of the girl which is something that not a lot of teenagers
would do. Holden's respect for others is also evident in the respect he shows towards the
nuns. "They didn't seem to know what the hell to do with their suitcases, so I gave them
a hand." Holden has very different attitudes towards groups of people. His attitude
towards teachers is ambivalent because they are a representation of the laws that he
chooses to break. Yet, he respects certain teachers, Mr. Antolini and Mr. Spencer for
example. Holden's attitude towards his friends is that they are unfit for him. 
His friends are negative and selfish people like Stradlater and Ackley. Although those
two are opposites, at the core they are the same. They are both selfish, hurt others, and
obey laws. His attitude towards his parents is a good one. He wants to please them and
doesn't want to disappoint them. "She's very nervous. That's another reason why I hated
like hell for her to know I got the ax again." Towards Phoebe, Holden has a special
sentiment. To him, she represents purity, childhood, and what he wants to stay as. He
ignores that Phoebe like the movies, participates in school plays, and criticizes him.
This is probably because to him Phoebe isn't phony so he is willing to accept criticism
and rules from her. 
Holden has a poor attitude towards life resulting from his low self-esteem. He tries to
run away from reality and life. Life is as a game with rules, he breaks the rules and
abandons the game. Holden is trying to hold on to his childhood, which represents the
opposite of being phony. He is running away from reality. Holden is respectful towards
others, but he doesn't understand them. This causes him to want to separate himself from
what he can't grasp. The two people who he trusts and respects completely happen to be
children. Allie, his deceased brother is someone who he respects very much. A reason for
this is probably because Holden knows that Allie won't change and won't be affected by
society. Through his death, he was able to maintain his purity and childhood. The second
person who he trusts is Phoebe. To him, Phoebe probably symbolizes himself as a younger
child, which is why he wants her to maintain her childhood. 
Holden Caulfield rejects the phonies who he doesn't understand. Stradlater doesn't
appreciate the memories that are so special to Holden, like the baseball glove and that
Jane kept her kings in the back row. "For Chrissake, Holden. This is about a goddam
baseball glove." When Stradlater returns from the date with Jane, Holden asks him if he
asked Jane if she still kept the kings in the back row. Stradlater's response was, "No, I
didn't ask her. What the hell ya think we did all night - play checkers, for Chrissake?
...I didn't even answer him. God, how I hated him." Holden associates skill with
arrogance. This is shown when Holden considers Ernie the piano player phony because he
plays too well. 
Towards the end, Holden is left with a cluster of memories. This happens mostly when Mr.
Antolini a person who he trusted, turns out to be a phony when he tries to fondle Holden.
But this incident with Mr. Antolini also shows that Holden has grown. Instead of
immediately condemning Mr. Antolini to being a phony, he tries to avoid making
conclusions about what happened. "I mean I wondered if just maybe I was wrong about
thinking he was making a flitty pass at me. I wondered if maybe he just like to pat guys
on the head when they're asleep. I mean how can you tell about that stuff for sure? You
can't."
Holden sees himself as being a catcher in the rye. Some time in the future he wants to be
the only grown-up with "all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye
and all." He'll stand on the edge of a cliff and catch anybody who starts to fall off the
edge of the cliff. Which means he will catch any child who will be falling out of his/her
childhood and falling into adulthood where he/she will become a phony. He got this image
from his misinterpretation of a line from the Robert Burns poem, "if a body catch a body
comin' through the rye." When Holden first heard the little boy singing the song, he no
longer felt as depressed as he was. "He was just singing for the hell of it, you could
tell. The cars zoomed by, brakes screeched all over the place, his parents paid no
attention to him, and he kept on walking next to the curb and singing.." Seeing this
probably made him feel better because he saw that the boy wasn't allowing things around
him to influence him. He was just happy singing his song and didn't care about his
surroundings. He was just looking at where he was walking, looking at the straight line
that he was walking in. 
This book by J.D. Salinger is a great display of sense. It shows true emotion, which is
not recently expressed by everyone in certain senses. Holden is different. Holden feels a
certain way ( very opinionated) and he will tell you in any fashion. This act is normally
missed by common society. We seem to fold it all in until we explode. I am personally
envious of Holden's ability to speak out and say what is on his mind.