Wednesday's lesson notes

The Catcher in the Rye

p.156 – ‘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. I know it’s crazy.”

- In this metaphor the field of rye clearly represents childhood and childhood innocence. The grain, rye is young and growing, and the children are playing in this field. At the bottom of the cliff is adulthood. In this metaphor then, adolescence is clearly the fall and this would explain Holden’s feelings about his life at the time.

- By wanting to be the catcher in the rye, Holden wants to protect the children and save them from both the fall (adolescence) and the landing at the bottom (adulthood).

How does Holden see the stages of life?

Childhood:

-          Holden sees childhood as a good time, a time of innocence, a time in which he wants children to stay.

Adolescence:

-          Holden sees adolescence as a time of significant change, a time in between where you don’t know where you really belong. Sometimes Holden acts like a child and acknowledges this. Sometimes he seems to try to mimic adult behavior.  Is the novel suggesting that this is the epitome of adolescence and that being a teenager is about not knowing where your place is. Holden is confused and fears change. We see this in his attitude to the museum (page…). We also see this on p178 when he says, “Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I’d never get to the other side of the street.”

What is Holden’s attitude to sex?

-          He is ambivalent about sex: he wants to engage in sexual behaviour and calls a prostitute for this purpose, but his idealism gets the better of him. Holden actually has a very strong moral sense. He can’t go through with this because he needs to have an emotional engagement with the person he is having sex with.  Perhaps he is also aware that if he loses his virginity he crosses the line into adulthood and in fact this is something that he is fearful of. When he hears that Stradlater is going on a date with Jane, Holden is very concerned about Jane. He wants to be the ‘catcher’ and stop her from falling into the grasps of adulthood by engaging in sexual behaviour. He seems to see Stradlater as predatory in his behaviour towards women and that is something that Holden is concerned about. Jane is also a part of Holden’s childhood and perhaps he doesn’t want to see her ‘disappear’.

What his Holden’s attitude towards adulthood?

-          Holden wants to protect children from adulthood: his stereotype of adults is that they are ‘phonies’. He sees it as a time not as safe as childhood and therefore as more vulnerable, though he knows that he cannot prevent growth and change. All children are eventually going to grow up or die, hence why he might be so frightened of change and progression through life. He does not like the alternatives and what he sees in adults.

Let’s have a look at Holden at the end of the novel

-p.190-191: “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab 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.” Holden seems to be contradicting his attitude to growth and suggesting that children should be allowed to freedom choice and risk-taking.

“I got pretty soaking wet, especially my neck and my pants. My hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way, but I got soaked anyway. I didn’t care, though. I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around.”