After Holden Caulfield returns to his native New York and rents a room in a sleazy hotel, he makes a date with Sally Hayes. Before this date, Holden finds himself wandering the streets of the naked city. He is feeling depressed and finds himself on Broadway trying to purchase a record for his sister.
After making this purchase, Holden notices a poor family walking in front of him. This unit is composed of a father, mother, and "little kid." Holden notices the child who is walking in a straight line in the street and humming a tune to himself. Holden approaches him to determine the tune he is singing. This tune is "If a Body Catch a Body Coming Through the Rye."Holden finds it amusing that the child is strutting quite literally on Broadway and is so care-free. He notices cars screeching and honking all over the place, and yet the child proceeds. The child's happy disposition seems to encourage Holden's on vitality. It gripped Holden that the child was singing with "a pretty little voice...just for the hell of it" and brightened him up. A deeper interpretation of this scene would dictate that the child represents Holden's own personality and life. Holden is defiantly singing his own tune just for the hell of it and like the child, seems to have no regard for his own well-being. At this point, Holden may see a side in himself that is care-free and this lightens his depression.
"There's far more to the censorship issue than a ban on sex and four-letter words. I sometimes think that those of us who need to be the most clearheaded about these matters are planting the very trees that obscure our view of the forest," says Dorothy Briley. According to Briley, a vast amount more is needed than simply vulgar language and suggestive material to censor a novel. But this is the very reason why J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye is frequently being banned from high schools. To the teenage readers, who are at the transition from childhood to adulthood, the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, who has not quite reached the brink of manhood, becomes the reader's hero. The adolescent mind that Salinger portrays so accurately in his novel is one with which most teenagers and readers, at one time or another could identify. The Catcher in the Rye also contains universal themes that, for teenagers about to shift into adulthood, help young adults better understand the world and other people. Although it does contain abusive language and sexual connotations, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger should not be censored in high schools because it provides insightful information and relevance to the life of young adults through its realistic situations and themes of acceptance and materialism.
The reader can relate to the realistic situations, such as the scene at the Lunts play, present in the novel. Salinger portrays "real life while he "She saw some jerk she knew on the other side of the lobby. Some guy in one of those very dark gray flannel suits and one of those checkered vests. Strictly Ivy League. Big Deal...The worst part was, the jerk had one of those very phony, Ivy League voices, one of those very tired, snobby voices" (127, 128).
The theme of materialism also gives insight to the average teenage reader. Salinger uses clever mockery to illustrate to the reader how inane teenagers act over materialistic objects. This is particularly evident when Holden elaborates about suitcases:
The thing is, it's really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs - if yours are really good ones and theirs aren't. You think if they're intelligent and all, the other person, and have a good sense of humor, that they don't give a damn whose suitcases are better, but they do. They really do. It's one of the reasons why I roomed with a stupid bastard like Stradlater. At least his suitcases were as good as mine" (109).
Apparent in this quote, Salinger purposefully makes Holden appear foolish, ridiculing teenagers' materialistic nature. Salinger makes a connection to teenagers through the protagonist's materialism. Deliberately forcing the teenager to examine his or her own shallowness, Salinger illustrates how Holden and his roommate eventually separate, not because they did not like each other, but because one had inferior suitcases. Not only does the adolescent reader think Holden is asinine and absurd, but the reader also observes the callow and silly need for materialistic items within himself or herself. The theme of materialism in The Catcher in the Rye allows teenagers to witness how senseless their need for materialism is, which necessary concept is for adolescents who are making the transition to adulthood.
Another necessary idea that Salinger presents in the novel is the theme of acceptance. Holden frequently examines his role in society, finding that he is often isolated from adolescents his own age and even, at times, made to feel inadequate. Holden distances himself from his friends and family because of such feelings. In the end, Holden realizes that he does need people to whom he can relate. At the close of the novel, Holden says, "About all I know is, I sort of miss everybody I told about. Even old Stradlater and Ackley, for instance. I think I even miss that goddam Maurice. It's funny. Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everything" (217), letting his emotions of inadequacy and need for acceptance escape. Many teenagers can identify with Holden's feelings, and it is these very sentiments that may lead some teens to a life of solitude and agonizing unhappiness. On the other hand, many young adults fear isolation and loneliness so much that it forces them to conform to society's ideas and perceptions. It is in this way that Holden truly becomes the reader's hero.
Through his actions and reactions to society and others, Holden demonstrates to the reader the theme of acceptance, illustrated throughout the novel. Holden speaks his mind, which the average teenage reader values highly, but it often forces him to be cut off from society. When Holden conforms to society, he feels an outer air of acceptance from his peers. PLACE SALLY QUOTE HERE. When Holden speaks his mind, he feels isolated and awkward. PLACE QUOTE WHEN HE TELLS SALLY HIS DREAMS HERE. It is through the eyes of the protagonist that the reader can see the downfalls and benefits to going against and conforming to society's will. The universal theme of acceptance in J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye encourages teenagers to really consider society's creeds and to think as an individual, yet it still explains to the reader the need for friendship and family in life. Both of these concepts are essential to the reader's development into adulthood.
In JD Salingers' Catcher in the Rye, a troubled teenager named Holden Caufield struggles with the fact that everyone has to grow up. The book gets its title from Holden's constant concern with the loss of innocence. He did not want children to grow up because he felt that adults are corrupt. This is seen when Holden tries to erase naughty words from the walls of an elementary school where his younger sister Phoebe attended. "While I was sitting down, 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 little kids would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty 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. I wanted to kill whoever'd written it. I figured it was some perverty bum that'd sneaked in the school late at night to take a leak or something and then wrote it on the wall. I kept picturing myself catching him at it, and how I'd smash his head on the stone steps till he was good and goddam dead and bloody." (201) His deep concern with impeccability caused him to create stereotypes of a hooligan that would try to corrupt the children of an elementary school. Holden believed that children were innocent because they viewed the world and society without any bias. When Phoebe asked him to name something that he would like to be when he grew up, the only thing he would have liked to be was a "catcher in the rye." He invented an illusion for himself of a strange fantasy. He stated that he would like to follow a poem by Robert Burns: "If a body catch a body comin' through the rye." He kept "picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around- nobody big, I mean- except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That¡¦s all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be." (173) Holden wants to stop children from "falling" into losing their innocence and becoming an adult, and he takes pleasure in the attempted thwarting of maturation.
In the beginning of Catcher in the Rye, his initial character is one of a child. Throughout the book, he takes steps and the forces of change take a toll on his childish ways. In the end, he seems to be changed into a man. Holden is definitely extremely immature in the beginning of the book. He characterizes almost every person he meets as a "phony". He feels that he is surrounded by hypocrites in a school filled with fakery. Principal Thurmer, the principal of Holden's high school, Pencey, was the leader of the whole charade. During a teacher/parent day, Principal Thurmer would only say hello to the wealthy parents of students. He would not associate himself with those that were not financially stable, because he was a phony.
Holden also maintains a lack of responsibility throughout the whole book. He was the equipment manager of the fencing team at Pencey, but he lost the equipment on the subway. He also failed out of two schools for lack of effort and absences from classes. Holden also had a daydream about two children who never grew up, whose main in a perfect world forever. This daydream is a result of his younger brother Allie's death. Allie represents the unchangeable youth of which Holden must let go if he ever expects to maintain sanity. Holden has a fixation on childhood, which shows itself in many forms. His glorification of children, inordinate admiration of Phoebe, idealization of his dead younger brother, and the joy he gets from reminiscing about his own childhood all contribute to his obsession with innocence and youth.
Throughout the middle of the book, forces of change unfold on Holden. While waiting for an old friend of his, he had the sudden urge to go into a museum that he had visited while still a child in school in order to bring back memories of his childhood. However, when he finally reached the museum, he decided not to. "Then a funny thing happened. When I got to the museum, all of a sudden I wouldn't have gone inside for a million bucks. It just didn't appeal to me..." (122) This shows that Holden is becoming an adult. He did not want to enter the museum because he realized that he was too old to take part in such an activity. When he takes Phoebe to a carousel later in the book, he decided not to ride on it, or even stand on it during a rain storm, because he felt "too old" to get on. Holden also had another one of his childish fantasies for his future. He wanted to go and be a deaf mute somewhere in the west, so he wouldn't have to deal with all the phonies and hypocrites of every day life. Phoebe told him that she wanted to go along with him, but he denies her of this because of his growing responsibility and metamorphosis as an adult. He told her, "I'm not going away anywhere. I changed my mind." (207)
At the end of the book, Holden seems to be much more mature. His key step was when he did not ride with Phoebe on the carrousel. Holden only watched his sister ride along. In the center of the carousel, there was a gold ring. The children riding on the carousel would reach for the gold ring in order to win a prize. "All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she'd 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."(211) This carousel symbolizes life, and the constant journey of childhood into adulthood. Children would sometimes fall when striving to reach the gold ring in the center of life, or their complete success or adulthood. Holden would have yelled out to the children that it was dangerous to try to achieve this goal, but he realized in this anagnoresis that the children should go along the path of life by themselves.
Throughout the book, Holden tried to save all children from growing up and losing their innocence. When he realized that he could not achieve this goal, he had a nervous breakdown and could not deal with it. However, it is an inevitable fact that everyone has to grow up.