Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger uses symbols to give meaning to Holden’s journey through New York City and explain the inner turmoil that drives his mental collapse. For example, Salinger uses the Holden’s preoccupation with the ducks to exemplify his resistance to adapting, especially to his imminent adulthood. Throughout the novel, he asks several people throughout the book where the ducks in Central Park go during the winter. None of them are sure, and this increases Holden’s feeling of panic. He wants reassurance that he will be able to transition without becoming superficial like many of the adults he sees around him, and that he will be okay in the end. However, he is incapable of admitting his need so few people attempt to help him. Upon leaving Pencey Prep, he finds that he had no real connection to the world. Due to this, he reaches out to anyone he can think of, except the people who can help.
Holden’s questions about the ducks are posed to two cab drivers. The first has no answer, whereas the second provides more insight into why Holden wants to know at all. The first cab driver was annoyed and asked “What’re you trying to do Bud?... Kid me? (60). The cab driver doesn’t really understand what or why he’s asking. All this does for Holden is confirm the uncertainty of his future and further embed his foreboding about growing into an adult.
Conversely, the second cab driver completely understands the underlying meaning of Holden’s question and has much the same fear. Holden asks the same question. “Well you know the ducks that swim around in it (the lagoon)?...Do you happen to know where they go in the wintertime, by any chance?” Horwitz the Cab Driver responds with surprising emotion.. “How the hell s...
... middle of paper ...
...re, Holden sits down and begin to envisage his death. He thinks about how it would affect his family, and that is the only thing he is holding on to. “Anyway, I kept worrying that I was getting pneumonia, with all of those hunks of ice in my hair, and that I was going to die. I felt sorry as hell for my mother and father.” As a result of Salinger’s use of the ducks as a motif, Holden’s meltdown is comprehensible. Finally, the reader sees Holden forced to acknowledge that he has to become an adult, just as the ducks cannot stay in the pond during the winter. His mental breakdown is in part caused by his realization that he cannot be a fish, suspended in time until everything is better.. He at this point is forced to acknowledge that he is not suspended in time, but is progressing, little as he likes it. This moment by the pond is almost the cornerstone of the novel.
In chapter 2 of The Catcher in the Rye Holden ponders while conversing with his teacher “where the ducks go when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over.” Holden views himself as one of the ducks that are forced to adapt
The novel The Catcher in the Rye follows Holden Caulfield for a weekend. The story begins in Agerstown, PA at Pencey Prep school with Holden standing on top of the Thomson Hill on his way to Mr. Spencer’s, his history teacher, to say good bye because Holden was expelled for not following rules. On his way to Spencer’s, Holden “felt like [he] was sort of disappearing”. (Salinger 5) The sense of symbolism with the word “disappearing” is that he feels alone and almost invisible. When Mr. Spencer starts to read Holden’s failed paper, Holden starts to daydream about “wondering where ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over” (13) in Central Park in New York. The symbolic significance in this comment is that Holden is frozen in adolescence.
Holden is a pessimistic, remote, and miserable character and he expresses this attitude through dialogue, tone, and diction. Throughout the book he has remained to be a liar, a failure, a loner, and lastly, a suicidal guy who feels like he has no purpose in life. Perhaps Salinger expressed his perceptions and emotions of his teen years in this book and it was a form of conveying his deep inner feelings of his childhood. Readers can see this clearly shown in The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger.
One crucial conversation is with the taxi driver regarding the ducks in Central Park. The conversation seems trivial, of no real significance. However, for Holden it has great importance. His concern about where do the ducks go in the winter seems to deal with the question that young people have about what their direction is in life. The cab driver, Horwitz, responds to an irritating question from Holden: “If you was a fish, Mother Nature’d take care of you, wouldn’t she? Right? You don’t think them fish just die when it gets to be winter, do ya? (Salinger 83) The answer is clear to Holden. Everything will survive the winter, no matter if it’s a duck or a fish. However, this does not give Holden a guarantee of protection from what he fears most-becoming a phony or more importantly, having no choice to become phony in order to
In the book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger involves many symbols and motifs that help understand more about Holden, the main character in the book, and who he is. The motif that stands out the most in the book are the ducks in central park. The ducks help us understand that Holden doesn't want to grow up, he wants to stay a little innocent child. There are more than one example of symbols that show the innocent side of Holden.
Even though “The Catcher in the Rye” was written and set in the 1950s, Salinger's story about an observative, conscious teen who is struggling to find his own identity, maintains much interest and is suitable to readers today. Many teenagers can relate to Holden Caulfield's opinionated and sentimental personality, as well as the problems he faces. These problems include sexually related rendezvouses and eagerness for independence. Holden goes against the adult world around him, which to Holden is loaded with "phonies", searching for righteousness and truth, even though several of his actions would depict him as a "phony" himself. Towards the end of the book, Holden finds it harder to deal with living in the society he is in, while dealing with his worsening depression.
Holden Caulfield alienates himself from the rest of society to hopefully escape the means of growing up shown by his dialogue and behaviour. Holden doesn’t want to grow up because he doesn’t want to have to accept the responsibilities that come with it. Holden is constantly getting kicked out of different schools, “They kicked me out… on account that… I was not applying myself and all.” (pg. 3) Not only was Holden not applying himself at school slowing down the process of him growing up, he also kept his mindset young by wondering where the ducks go in winter. “You know those ducks on that lagoon… do you happen to know where they go… when it gets frozen over?” (pg. 54) Holden has a close connection to the ducks as to him it is a change that isn’t permanent as they leave in the Winter and come back in the spring, he asks where they go to see if he can make this un-permanent connection to changes such as growing up in his own life. Holden would love to live in a world where everything is time is practically frozen and nothing ...
The transition from a teen to an adult is one of the major steps in life. This major transition can be really scary. Some people are so scared of becoming an adult, that they try to keep their inner child alive. One person in the book The Catcher in the Rye is Holden Caulfield, Holden is the main character in the novel written by J.D. Salinger. A prominent theme in his novel, The Catcher in the Rye is the painfulness of growing up. As this theme is going on through the novel, Salinger weaves in symbols that Holden happens to use and talk about throughout the novel.
At various points during the course of the novel, Holden inquires as to what happens to the ducks who are normally on a pond in Central Park, when winter comes and the water freezes. As he inquires, the answers he receives range from as farfetched answers as the idea that the ducks still remain there under the ice, just as the fish do, to uncaring answers such as a simple "What a stupid question!" remark. Despite the answer he gets, Holden is never satisfied with the reply. Holden doesn’t consciously realize that the ducks relate to him. Whether he will admit it or not, Holden is scared. He has been kicked out of numerous schools, he can’t get good grades, his parents are angry with him, and he spends his days wandering through New York City. He doesn’t know where he is going to go, reflecting his question about the ducks. Perhaps if he knew where the ducks went, he could follow their example.
One final illustration of Holden’s misconception of death is evident in Chapter 12, on pages 81-82. In this instance Holden once again poses the question of what happens to the ducks in the lake in Central Park during the winter. This driver, Horowitz, responds much more climactically than the anonymous driver in Chapter 9. , and he provides a ardent series of remarks. Horowitz changes the subject of the conversation from ducks to fish, because he can cope with them. Horowitz is also a believer of the rightness of things. His departing comment: "Listen,…if you was a fish, Mother Nature’d take care of you, wouldn’t she?
Holden cannot accept the loss of innocence as a step into the growing up process. The ones that he loves most, are those who are younger to him, they are innocent, and untouched by society’s truths. Holden says, “…I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around-nobody big. I mean – except me.
In J.D. Salinger’s controversial 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, the main character is Holden Caulfield. When the story begins Holden at age sixteen, due to his poor grades is kicked out of Pencey Prep, a boys’ school in Pennsylvania. This being the third school he has been expelled from, he is in no hurry to face his parents. Holden travels to New York for several days to cope with his disappointments. As James Lundquist explains, “Holden is so full of despair and loneliness that he is literally nauseated most of the time.” In this novel, Holden, a lonely and confused teenager, attempts to find love and direction in his life. Holden’s story is realistic because many adolescent’s face similar challenges.
“I was crying and all, I don’t know why, but I guess it was because I was feeling so damn depressed and lonesome” (53), Holden says. As humans, we have a hard time belonging in society. This is the same case for Holden Caulfield, the main character from the Catcher in the Rye. The Catcher in the rye, a novel by J.D Salinger, is about Holden, a lost boy in desperate need of help. Throughout the novel, Holden seems to be excluded by the world around him. He continually attempts to try and belong in a world in which he is isolating from. In this novel, Salinger uses symbols such as the red hunting hat, the ducks and Allie’s glove to support the theme, belonging and isolation.
Catcher in the Rye is one of the most famous books in American literature. Written by J. D. Salinger, it captures the epitome of adolescence through Salinger’s infamous anti-hero, Holden Caulfield. Holden Caulfield learns about himself and his negative tendencies, and realizes that if he does not do something to change his perspective, he may end up like his acquaintance James Castle whom he met at Elkton Hills. Holden tries to find help to mend his outlook on life through Mr. Antolini so he does not end up like James, who did not want to face the problems he created for himself. This is proven by the similarities between James Castle and Holden, Mr. Antolini’s willingness to try and help Holden, and Holden’s future being forecasted by James.
In an initial reading of Catcher in the Rye the text suggests that the novel focuses on the main character, Holden, and that the text is concerned with his ability to grow and mature; however, similarly to how Salinger portrays the ducks as changing and unnoticed, Holden is as well. The ducks are in the midst of a large change in their lives, about to migrate and move on from one part of their life to the next, Holden is trying to move on from childhood to adulthood. Amongst the confusion of change in itself, Holden and the ducks, go severely under appreciated and unnoticed by community members.