Through his conservative dress and manner, he dimly sees himself as supporting the very world that he is so hostile to. That he never does call her and that there is no specific mention of her at the end also reminds us that, although he has been saved from figurative and perhaps literal death, he is still far from being “romantically” adjusted to the real world (Wissen 92).ĭepicted as a real prophet, Holden is conservative in manner and particularly in dress but he sees these traditional values as a sign of phoniness in himself. His failure to call her is a symbolic reminder to us of two things: that he cannot reestablish contact with what he believes to be goodness and innocence and secondly, that he is experiencing a growing alienation from his world. It is significant that only after Holden feels momentarily secure at the Antolinis’ does he decide to call Jane on the telephone. That Stradlater symbolizes Holden’s romantic ideal of himself in this scene is underlined by the fact that Stradlater is wearing Holden’s jacket. Stradlater’s date with Jane so upsets Holden not just because he knows what a lady’s man Stradlater is but because he would like to approach her romantically himself but no more dares to upset their childish relationship than she to move her kings from the back row (Pearlman 233). Wissen underlines that views can fail to see the significance that Holden attaches to Jane Gallagher’s keeping her kings on the back row unless critics realize that both Holden and Jane are scared of the adult world into which they are plunging and that her behavior symbolizes her unwillingness to risk the loss of innocence and goodness by confronting life, by using instead of hoarding whatever powers she might possess. If life aims to retain or regain, youthful innocence and goodness, the drummer, with his total absorption in perfecting a relatively simple and uninteresting task, has achieved a kind of beatific state (Gluck, 56). The way Holden Caulfield sees the world is that “if you had a million years to do it in, you couldn’t rub out even half the ‘Fuck you signs in the world” (Salinger 262). His admiration for the drummer at Radio City Music Hall can only be fully understood when we recognize that to Holden he represents a kind of saintliness. After all, she contributes to the gradually encroaching vision of himself as the homeless wanderer, alienated from man and society (Pearlman 233). His attitude towards sunny is the result of adolescent greenness he cannot treat her as a prostitute because she is too close to being the apathetic image of himself she so depresses him because his pity for her amounts to self-pity. The character of Holden is unveiled through minor characters and portrayed as an ideal one. Spencer than his exam paper indicated (Gluck 56). Spencer, the Egyptians, take on a tremendous symbolic significance for him, but in the scene with the two boys outside the Natural History Museum, Holden both acts the part of the history teacher and shows us how much more he had learned from Mr. Not only does the special subject that Holden has been studying with Mr. As he is depicted in the novel, “If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though” (Salinger 34). Though he hates saying “Glad to’ve met you” to someone he is not glad to have met, he is constantly doing so. Spencer for his false laughing at the headmaster’s jokes, one of the most obvious things about Holden’s behavior is that he is conventional. Holden uses the term “boy,” nods his head, repeats himself, and is often sarcastic. He comes to the final stages of his quest by discovering whom he can and cannot act like, and the person he most acts like at the end is Mr. He thinks he admires James Castle, for instance, but he cannot act like him (Bereska 157). It reinforces the structural pattern of the novel in that it allows Holden to sort out the true from the false images of himself through confrontation with them.
#The catcher in the rye review series#
Readers view Holden not from the first person point of view, but also in a series of self-portraits. Following Wissen (92) “it is largely this technique that makes Holden the extraordinarily “round” character that he is”. Using many minor characters Salinger creates the character of his “hero” and a prophet. He is portrayed as a contrasting character of the personality that Holden appraises. Maurice symbolizes the negative features of Holden’s ideal and the fact that Holden rejects it. Holden is depicted as a prophet who idealizes the world around him and reality.