Catcher In The Rye Symbolism

In the Catcher in the Rye, Salinger uses imagery and symbolism to show Holden’s movement from a naive, immature and idealistic teenager to a more experienced and mature adult. By looking at specific symbols such as; the snowball incident, meeting with Mr. Antolini, and sitting on the bench at the carousel, Holden’s journey to adulthood and attitude change is shown.
In the beginning of the novel Holden comes across a snowball fight while on his way to school. Holden attempts to be apart of the group of boys playing but once he makes a snowball he realizes he cannot throw it. He says, “I couldn’t throw it at anything because it all looked so nice and white” ( ). This explains how by throwing the snowball Holden would be going against his

obsession with keeping everything perfect. Holden is suggesting that even the simplest things, like a snowball fight, will corrupt the world around him. Once Holden is removed from his school, Pencey Prep, he goes on his journey to adulthood making a stop along the way to call on Sunny, a prostitute. When Sunny is first introduced to Holden it makes it seems as if Holden is ready to let go with his obsession of being innocent, but Holden does not follow through. Instead of proceeding with what he had called Sunny for Holden tell her he is “recovering from surgery on his clavichord”. Holden also says, “I know you’re supposed to feel pretty sexy when somebody pulls their dress over their head, but I didn’t…….” (95). Holden is showing his immaturity by turning Sunny down and proceeding to tell her he feels nothing. If Holden was ready to leave his childhood behind, he would be able to commit to Sunny and not lie to her to get himself out of the situation. Lastly, Holden shows he holds onto an unrealistic view of the world when he had the dream of being the catcher in the rye.