He thinks that the world is a terrible place and that he alone is the one who can see and point this out, yet he himself adds to the negative in the world, for example by playing that needless lie to the woman on the train. The adult world is a cruel place in his eyes, ironic, seeing that he adds to it’s cruelty, picking fights and excessively lying. This belief goes to such an extent that Holden’s deepest desire is to be the ‘Catcher in the Rye’, to stand at the border between childhood and the death that is adult hood and catch the children before they fall to their deaths -that is, step into the complex and phony world of adulthood. Holden thinks of the world as black and white, childhood, with his sister being the epitome, being the ideal and adulthood being fake, complex and ‘phony’. Even his older brother does not hold the same spot in his mind. He cannot take, and even hates, everything in the world except for Phoebe.
Normally a mean and even cruel boy, Holden is unusually kind and sympathetic to children, especially his sister. Holden tried to stick to a state of childhood, viewed by him as ideal. Holden, suspended in limbo between child and adult hood, couldn’t comprehend the complexity of the adult world so he unknowingly let it affect his every decision in the entire book. I found that The Catcher in the Rye first and foremost was about change and growing up. Spoilers below, only read if you’ve read the book.
I posted a quick review of it already (see the post before this one) so now I just want to write about it. Ok so The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger.
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