A. Serious Student
October 7th, 2010
American Literature, Period 1
Paradoxically Holding On
In J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher In The Rye, Holden Caulfield is a walking paradox
who longs for interaction, yet does all he can to push people away. He labels most of the adults
and his peers as being “phonies,” leading him to instead attempt to reside in the innocent world
of children. However, this only further complicates his dire mental state and well-being.
Holden finds himself to be stuck in a world where he regards nearly every adult as a
corrupted “phony.” While at the Wicker Bar, he says “The bartender… was a big snob. He didn’t
talk to you at all hardly unless you were a big shot… If you were a big shot… then he was even
more nauseating” (142). Holden hates the idea of anyone who believes they are too important to
associate with common people and labels them as “phonies”. People such as this bartender cause
Holden to lose faith in adults and constantly point out their flaws. While watching a movie at
Radio City, Holden is sitting next to a crying lady and “The phonier it got, the more she cried.
You’d have thought she did it because she was kindhearted as hell, but… she wasn’t. She had
this kid… [that] had to go to the bathroom, but… she kept telling him to sit still and behave”
(139). Holden takes a risk by going to the movies, which he finds to be “phony” anyway, and
isn’t surprised by the “phony” behavior of the woman, including the negligence of her child. He
has a certain disposition for adults and the woman is no exception, especially when it comes to
withholding children. This parade of “phony” in the world disgusts Holden and causes him to
instead place his faith in the purity and simplicity of children.
Holden has a very paradoxical nature that alters his social interactions and physical
actions. While packing up to leave Pencey Prep, Holden “had to pack these brand new ice skates
my mother… sent me a couple of days before… and here I was getting the ax again. It made me
feel pretty sad. Almost every time somebody gives me a present it ends up making me sad.” (52).
Holden feels remorse for putting his mom through the trouble of getting him a gift just to be
kicked out of school. He notes that, paradoxically, he rarely ever feels happiness when he
receives a present, showing how his actions lead him away from his own desires. As Holden sits
in his hotel room, observing lewd activities through the window, he thinks about how “if you
don’t really like a girl, you shouldn’t horse around with her at all, and if you do like her… you
ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff… It’s really too bad that… crumby stuff is a lot of
fun sometimes… I [once] spent the whole night necking with a terrible phony” (62-63). Holden
seems to have a sense of his ideal interests, yet can’t seem to stop himself from fooling around
with “phonies”. He can’t quite get a grip on his mentality and instead finds himself wandering
into trouble. This out of Holden’s control paradoxical behavior is the reason why he keeps
pushing people away, although he longs for human interaction.
Innocence is a value that Holden clings to dearly and embodies through his younger sister
Phoebe, who has not yet fallen into the “phony” adult world. While at Phoebe’s school,
searching for her, Holden encounters “something that drove me crazy. Somebody’d written
‘Fuck you’ on the wall… I thought how Phoebe and all the other kids would see it… I kept
wanting to kill whoever’d written it. I figured it was some perverty bum” (201). Holden is
astonished to find such profanity in an elementary school and becomes very defensive over the
idea of any kid, especially Pheobe, seeing the word and assumes that a dirty adult must’ve
written it. He sees this as the adult world trying to corrupt children’s innocence, not even
thinking for a second that a child could’ve written it, and in attempt to protect that innocence he
proceeds to rub out the profanity. When Holden takes Pheobe to ride the carousel at the park, he
finds that “I felt so damn happy all of a sudden… I was damn near bawling… It was just the way
she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all.” (213). In this moment, Holden is
captivated by the simplistic child-like innocence of Phoebe riding the carousel and finally
releases some positive emotion. By not riding the carousel with her, Holden comes to terms with
the fact that he has already gone through childhood, never to return, but simply enjoys the beauty
of Phoebe still being able to practice her innocence. This value of innocence leads Holden to
want to become a “catcher in the rye”, to save children from falling over and losing their
innocence, but, paradoxically, a “catcher in the rye” is what Holden needed for himself all along.
Holden’s life revolves around paradox and it’s no wonder why his name sounds like
hold-on as he deals with the refusal to give up innocence until forced to by the natural law of the
“phony” adult world. J.D. Salinger created this work to serve somewhat as an insight into what
teenagers of his day were really getting involved with and to demonstrate what happens to the
human mind when placed under so much pressure, even though as extreme as these ideas are
expressed. Most any current-day teenager can in some way, shape or form relate to Holden’s
questioning of and curiosity of matters from innocence and change to sex and maturity, and
adults can at the very least reflect back on such ideas that they once had. This novel grants a
fascinating look into the human psyche and how, although in a generally extreme degree, the
growing mind of a teenager deals with the concept of maturing into adulthood.