Growing Up Through The Eyes of Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye Book Analysis)

In J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel titled The Catcher in the Rye, a troubled 16-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield struggles with the idea of leaving his childhood behind. Holden states numerous times throughout the novel that he is disdainful of the “phoniness” of the adult world, and yet he shows through his actions that at least a part of him wants to fit his imminent role as an adult. The way that Holden copes with this tug of war within himself is to act as a protector of innocence to children that he interacts with, a catcher in the rye. The motif of Holden’s internal struggle between childhood and adulthood manifests itself through his desire to protect the innocence of childhood of those he interacts with. 

In the novel, Holden attempts to make it clear for the reader that he is disdainful of the adult world. He remarks rather often that he thinks that all adults, or at least most, are illegitimate in their interactions. Or as Holden puts it, phony. At the end of the second chapter, after he has left Mr. Spencer’s house, Holden says, “I’d never yell ‘Good luck!’ at somebody. It sounds terrible, when you really think about it.” (Salinger 19). Holden has this thought after he hears Mr. Spencer bid him good luck as he leaves. Bidding someone good luck is a positive, or at the very least harmless, thing to do. That Holden would think of it as terrible indicates that he does not want to believe that anything Mr. Spencer says to him is positive. Holden is so entrenched in his belief that all adults have something to hide, some hidden meaning behind their words, that he cannot accept that a teacher whom he enjoyed working with and talking to simply wants what is best for him and truly wishes him good luck. In addition, the noncommittal tone that is created by the addition of “when you think about it,” site page number for quote further shows that Holden is choosing to take offense at Mr. Spencer’s remark. That he needs to make the conscious decision to take offense shows the internal struggle that is plaguing Holden. He is torn in between the adult world and the child world. 

Despite being terrified of the adult world, throughout the book Holden tries many times to enter it. Be it by smoking over two packs of cigarettes throughout the novel, or drinking enough that he “could hardly see straight” (Salinger 166), Holden is nearly always trying to emulate adult behavior. The best example of this is when Holden cannot bring himself to sleep with Sunny, the prostitute that he ordered. After she arrives, Holden tells her he does not want to do it. Then he tells the reader, “The trouble was, I just didn’t want to do it. I felt more depressed than sexy, if you want to know the truth. She was depressing.” (Salinger 107). Only about half an hour earlier, Holden replied the affirmative when asked if he wanted to meet a prostitute, but now that she is here in front of him he is unable to follow through with it, and the whole concept depresses him. In some ways, this shows Holden’s maturity, had he been less mature he may have let his emotions rule his brain and gone through with it. However, it also shows very clearly how Holden is trying to occupy both the adult world and the child world. He is trying to be in the world of adults when he orders the prostitute because that is something that in his mind adults do. However, when he must follow through with it, he is uncomfortable in the situation and decides not to do the deed. This shows that Holden is still trying to retain the innocence of childhood, as he does not want to ruin it by having sex. 

Holden deals with this problem of having one foot in both worlds by trying to shield small children from the worst of the adult world. He feels that his exposure to the adult world has tainted him in some way that he does not want children, especially his sister Phoebe, to feel. When talking to Phoebe about his dreams he begins describing a scene that he has derived from the poem Comin’ thro the rye by Robert Burns. He envisions a vast field of rye where children are playing a game, but there is a cliff where there is a chance that they may fall. Holden tells Phoebe, “I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all,” (Salinger 191). Holden is saying, through his convoluted metaphor and symbolism, that he wants to keep children from losing their innocence and becoming “phony” adults. In Holden’s metaphor, the field where the children are playing is childhood, along with the innocence that comes along with it. The cliff here symbolizes adulthood and the corresponding loss of innocence that all people must experience, and the children falling down the cliff represents growing up. Holden wanting to be the “catcher in the rye” shows definitively that he wants to protect the innocence of children, because, within his metaphor, Holden is catching children on the precipice of falling into adulthood.