Catcher In The Rye Maturity Analysis

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Inability to Escape the Past Causing Delay in Maturity
The resistance of maturity and adulthood is greatly expressed throughout the novel The Catcher in the Rye. J.D. Salinger describes the events of an adolescent and his inability to escape the difficulties of his past causing a delay in maturity. Both fear and trauma created during past events caused a delay or rejection in maturity. Holden is unable to move on from his past and is constantly trying to live in a memory. This causes him wanting to stay with his childhood and resist transitioning into adulthood. Holden’s fear of adulthood causes him isolate himself from society in order to preserve and protect his child innocence. Lastly, Holden’s inability step out of his immaturity leads …show more content…

Holden wants to protect the innocence of Jane in his memory. Holden’s resistance of maturity and protection of child innocence is also established when he accepts assignation with Sunny. Holden rejected having to be intimate with Sunny in order to keep both his and Sunny’s decency and continue as children and not adults. Holden was lonely and wanted to have a conversation with her, he didn’t want to get intimate with her “[he] just didn’t want to do it, [he] felt more depressed than sexy.” (96) Holden sees Sunny as a child and was depressed be the fact that she was corrupted by the world. Holden did not want to corrupt her that way society did and did not get intimate with her. Physical activity is portrayed as an activity done by adults and is also a destruction of child innocence hence, is automatically rejected by Holden. Holden is unable to perform any activity that will cause him to lose his innocence. In addition, Holden also desperately wants to preserve the purity in children. Holden eagerly wants to be the catcher in the rye. Holden tells Phoebe about his dream of catching children that are about to fall off the cliff, he says “[he] keeps picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of the rye …show more content…

Holden says “I’d just be the catcher in the rye and ah, I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.” Holden’s lack of maturity is shown by his naivety and innocent thoughts. Holden wants to preserve innocence to the extent that being the catcher in the rye is the only thing he wants to do. Holden wants to prevent children from entering adulthood in order to preserve the innocence in children; He believes it’s his job to protect children from adulthood. Holden’s hatred of adulthood and fear of change contributes greatly to Holden’s delay in adulthood. Holden’s social and relationship problems with people around him makes him unable to step out of immaturity leads him to act impulsively and feel the need to once again isolate himself. His social problems create difficulty for him to deal with the environment around him. Holden often resort to impulsive actions, hence, distancing himself from others. Holden overthinks the relationship between Stradlater and Jane which leads to acting impulsively and starting a fight. Holden wants to know what happened between them and asks Stradlater “What’d [he] do?... Give her the time in Ed Banky’s goddam car?” (43) However, Stradlater did not answer his question and

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