Holden's Dilemma

J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye is far beyond a novel simply revolving around the extended and anguished cries of a wise-guy adolescent whose main trouble is that he does not want to grow up. Instead, the climate of ideas surrounding the novel is dense.Symbolism is one of Salinger's dominant stylistic techniques in this novel. The image of ducks in the Central Park is one of Salinger's signs, that Holden's ineptitude is estranged from both his society and nature so that he does not have a place to rest. Holden is also the lunatic in the tombs, keeping hurting himself as he masochistically puts himself in one situation after another that can only lead to pain and revulsion. Like the lunatic, he is possessed by many demons, such as the demon of fate and death, the demon of emptiness and meaningless. The casting forth of these evil spirits is what his story ultimately comes down to. Phoebe and Allie symbolize innocence to Holden, but they are more than that. In the image of the Catcher, Holden is talking about the fall from the innocence of childhood into the obscenity and phoniness of adulthood. In his anger at the phoniness of Pencey Prep, he wants a world populated by sweet children. His conception is an over-dramatized vision of himself as a "savior," nobly sacrificing himself for the sake of preserving what he takes to be the innocent and the good.At the center of Holden's difficulties is the dangerous symbolism of childhood and its innocence. Infantile sexuality was once considered one of the most shocking aspects of Freudian thought. Only through coming to terms with the fallen nature of the world through his own fall in the bathroom can Holden achieve release. When he goes to the zoo with Phoebe, he has left his idea of being the catcher in the rye behind. And suddenly Holden is surrounded by symbols that suggest rebirth, blessing, and hopefulness. It is raining, it is Christmas, and in the carousel's circular movement he obtains a true and vital vision of eternity to replace his old lunatic's love for the mummies' tomb. Holden is thus not, as many of Salinger's critics have maintained, a tragic figure, a victim of modern society. He is not mentally defeated at the end, and he has surprisingly come to terms with the world in which he must live. It is Salinger's use of language that is one of the most distinctive qualities of The Catcher in the Rye, and analysis of that language is essential to an appreciation of just what Salinger accomplishes artistically in the novel. If we look at the language in isolation, it is crude, profane, and obscene. But if we look at the language and its relationship to the overall effect of the novel, another conclusion emerges. Holden's swearing is habitual and so unconsciously ritualistic that it contributes to, rather than diminishes, the theme of innocence that runs through the novel. Holden's way of talking is, it must be realized, a device. Salinger is not directly interested in merely depicting the way a boy like Holden would actually speak. He is a writer concerned with messages, with stressing moral points and suggesting ways to move from despair to illumination.The Catcher in the Rye, in many ways, embodies the general intellectual interests of the 1950s. There was, for instance, considerable interest in anthropology and psychology in the decade. The Catcher in the Rye should be seen as one of many books published in the postwar era that serve as significant cultural criticism of conformity in a mass society. According to David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd, since about 1920, the productive process has been taken over by machines own by giant corporations. In such an "other-directed" society without an "inner direction" to implant in children, the movement from childhood to adulthood is seldom a smooth one because there is a built-in dissonance, which can help explain why a character like Holden Caulfield emerges. He is uncomfortable in his twentieth-century social setting and the demands it places on him, and it is his desire to return to the older, "inner-directed" world. Holden's suspicion of and final rejection of "other-directed" society can also be seen no better than in his sarcasm concerning movies in the novel. In his suspicions of movies and other forms of other-directed mass media, Holden is a rebel against what he takes to be a life-threatening phoniness in his society.