While thinking about the natural history museum, Holden of The Catcher in the Rye muses, “Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone” (122). Unfortunately for Holden, the world is not a natural history museum, unchanging, preserved in glass cases. It has to change—and so does Holden, even though he can’t stand the thought.
Holden shares a sentiment with many young people: he doesn’t want to grow up, and in many ways, he’s still a child. To him, the world is better as a child—more innocent, more sincere, and much less complicated. He even remarks to Phoebe that he wants to be “the catcher in the rye,” catching children before they fall off the “cliff” to adulthood (173). He’s at his happiest in the book when he’s sitting in the rain, watching Phoebe riding the carousel, after reassuring her that she isn’t too old for it.
This is the way in which I most connect to Holden. I, too, long for the simpler world of childhood and carousels. I’m fearful of leaving the rye and falling off that cliff into the adult world. In a few months, I’ll be living on my own, in the city, away from my family and outside the bubble of my hometown. In many ways, this will be exhilarating—but in many ways, it will also be frightening.
Neither Holden nor I can keep from growing up, though—we are not Peter Pan, and we don’t live in the natural history museum. We have to be thrust into the adult world, whether we’re ready or not. And that, I think, is the
saddest part of The Catcher in the Rye—Holden desperately wants to avoid change, but there’s no way he can.
Holden shares a sentiment with many young people: he doesn’t want to grow up, and in many ways, he’s still a child. To him, the world is better as a child—more innocent, more sincere, and much less complicated. He even remarks to Phoebe that he wants to be “the catcher in the rye,” catching children before they fall off the “cliff” to adulthood (173). He’s at his happiest in the book when he’s sitting in the rain, watching Phoebe riding the carousel, after reassuring her that she isn’t too old for it.
This is the way in which I most connect to Holden. I, too, long for the simpler world of childhood and carousels. I’m fearful of leaving the rye and falling off that cliff into the adult world. In a few months, I’ll be living on my own, in the city, away from my family and outside the bubble of my hometown. In many ways, this will be exhilarating—but in many ways, it will also be frightening.
Neither Holden nor I can keep from growing up, though—we are not Peter Pan, and we don’t live in the natural history museum. We have to be thrust into the adult world, whether we’re ready or not. And that, I think, is the
saddest part of The Catcher in the Rye—Holden desperately wants to avoid change, but there’s no way he can.
RSS Feed