“The Catcher in the Rye” - J.D. Salinger

    The Catcher in the Rye could not really be written by J.D. Salinger. As someone who was once sixteen and seventeen like the main character, the language, reasoning, and emotions were far too accurate to have been penned by someone who didn’t experience those events! I submit to you that “J.D. Salinger” is just Holden Caulfield’s pen name. But in seriousness, regardless of who transformed these fictitious events into words, this was a phenomenal read. In the process of reading, I also realized just how few people have actually read it. Many asked what I was reading, and upon hearing the famous title, followed up with, “Oh! What’s it about?” To which I would have to respond that I didn’t know. I found I needed to be significantly into the book to be able to tell what it’s about. My first time reading this in my junior year of high school (for fun, mind you), I was waiting the entire time to get to some big event that would totally revolutionize the entire world. But it never came. The world revolutionized by each seemingly minor event was the worldview of a kid, and normally for the worse. In what could be described as a cautionary tale, The Catcher in the Rye unveils that hypocrisy, lies, and materialism lead to a sad life. 

    First, let’s tackle a question I have been wrestling with: what’s with this title? We hear a kid singing about catching and about rye earlier on (I forgot to jot down the reference page), yet I see this as an irrelevant nod to the title put there solely to make us think we will learn why it’s called this. The big reference to the title comes on Page 173, where we learn that Holden’s dream job is not to own a big company, not to be a sports star, but to be a tall guy in a field of rye where thousands of kids that can’t see above the crop are playing, and to catch them if they get too close to falling off the edge. A literal catcher in the rye. Why is this his choice, and why does Salinger think it’s good enough to be the title? At his core, Holden is a caring person. The more he talks to a stranger, the more we can see him feel bad if he’s lied to them in their conversation. He pities the prostitute he calls for and grows to be quite fond of Mrs. Morrow from their brief conversation. His love of Phoebe is seldom called into question, and he gives her the only thing that’s been his rock and comfort: his red hunting hat. So, seeing how much Holden really cares for others, should it surprise us that the kid’s ideal job is to look after and protect those who can’t look after and protect themselves? After all, he did see James Castle jump to his death from bullying, potentially preventable had someone been there to protect him. We’ve got this kid telling us his story, who has seen people who need protection not get it, along with probably feeling the need for some as his living environment is always new and, since he is still relatively young, likely scary. It makes complete sense that he would want to protect these little kids who can’t see imminent danger staring them in the eyes. As for why this is the title, Holden seems like the type of kid to hate everything and everyone. He judges people based on very small, irrelevant aspects of themselves and never removes the plank from his eye before reaching for others’ specks. He comes off as irresponsible, running off into the city to live it up and squander money. He’ll go to places with things he knows he won’t like for reasons that don’t seem to be much deeper than to relish in dislike, as we saw from the Wicker Bar in Chapter 19. He’s rather oblivious to obvious things, like when he claims on Page 117 that actors do too many phony things when they’re acting. Which is pretty much the entire job description. In short, Holden Caulfield is bitter, irresponsible, immature, and somewhat dumb…on the surface. But in highlighting his main dream to help others, Salinger calls to mind that this kid is way more than he seems on the surface. The title The Catcher in the Rye reminds us of Holden’s complexity and youth. It reveals how this guy, who seems to be against everything, is still learning who he is and what the world is and that we shouldn’t judge him based on what he’s currently going through since he is a confused and scared person. 

    We’ve touched on who this Holden Caulfield is on a very deep and emotional level. So, where is he in life right now? And who is he as a person? Holden Caulfield, seventeen when retelling the story, sixteen when living it, is a troublemaker from New York who has been bouncing around schools. The story opens with him at his current school, Pence Prep. He has recently been kicked out of there for failing all of his classes other than English, which he is both talented at and enjoys. He refuses to apply himself, and as a result has been in and out of (if memory serves me correctly) five schools, six after Pencey. For the majority of the story he is without a consistent place to lay his head. He’s living big in New York, going to bars, meeting with friends, and even ordering a prostitute. His life is very materialistic at this time and he exists solely to please himself, leading him to misery and in an unsuccessful hunt for pleasure. He seeks to be happy by affording his carefree lifestyle, yet states at the end of Chapter 15 that, “[money] always ends up making you blue…” (P.113). His materialism doesn’t lead him to the joy that he seeks relentlessly. 

    There are two main things that Holden seems to want from life that money will serve him no use in obtaining: a quiet life up in the woods with his wife, and for that wife to be his childhood friend, Jane Gallagher. These two things are what he often retreats into his mind to fantasize about. Yet they are the sort of goal that is only good dreaming about as he never phones Jane and makes no real steps to move into the woods. So what, then, is his unknown goal? If we read between the lines, what does Holden really want? It is very possible that he wants comfort and peace from this new raging world that he has discovered, where hiding in the forest will allow him to never need to confront people he doesn’t want to and truths about the world we can’t avoid. Especially if he decides to adopt the persona of a deaf-mute filling up cars at a gas station, a thought he did consider more than once. In this world that he has jumped headfirst into and found to be cruel and unforgiving, how could he not want to leave all the chaos behind forever? As for Jane, if he really did want her in his life, he would have called her rather than claimed repeatedly that he wasn’t in “the mood” to do it. It strikes me as more likely that he needs a sense of familiarity in his life right about now. Something he knows and can rely on. That might explain why he finds so much comfort and joy when he is at home. It is a comfortable setting where he would feel safe and at ease, the same feeling being with someone who he has known could potentially bring about. 

    One last small thing about Holden. He is the biggest hypocrite in the history of literature. If you can see nothing else about him, you can see this. He constantly holds others up to a mirror he refuses to gaze into. He refers to this as being “phony,” when people present one persona but are actually another. Unfortunately for you reading this, I took considerable care to write down a good amount of instances where I noticed that. A very prominent example of this is how well-versed and talented he is at lying. He seems to almost take pride in it. In one big case, he happens across the mother of someone he knows from school, Ernest Morrow. He lies like a madman to Mrs. Morrow, with nearly everything he says being a formulated fib. Another example of his phoniness was quite humorous to me. Holden claims to be an atheist, and then literally the next paragraph describes himself wanting to pray (which I’m all for). He sometimes seems disgusted by sex, other times infatuated. He has claimed to feel judged by Catholics for not being a Catholic, yet has admitted to judging others based on appearance to see whether or not he likes them. He tries constantly to get alcohol despite only being sixteen. Holden constantly expresses hatred for movies but keeps going back to them, even talking about one for a page-and-a-half (P.138-139). Lastly, he tends not to like people who dance with little kids, a claim he makes while dancing with his kid-sister. All that, it’s no wonder Salinger would want to remind us in the title that he’s confused yet good! Holden Caulfield is the biggest phony he’s ever met. 

    Yet in his flaws, there is hope. He is repeatedly grounded by the thought of the familiar—Phoebe, family, home. In his darkest of times, a return home and visit to Phoebe does wonderful things to his mentality. What and who he loves is his source of happiness. This entire story stood out to me as a parallel to the story of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15:11-32. That’s a parable told by Jesus in the Bible where a young man requests his inheritance from his father, abandons his life to go live it big in the city, squanders all that he has, lives a horrible life where “He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, because no one gave him anything” (Luke 15:16, NIV), and eventually humbly returns to his father where he is lovingly welcomed back despite his mistakes. The Catcher in the Rye stands out to me as what the Prodigal Son did when he went to live in the city. And, what’s more, the idea of going home to where he knows he has a loving home is of great comfort to him. Holden is the Prodigal Son, whose idea to embrace life wildly backfired on him and thrusted him into a miserable situation. And as the reader can see, home is necessary for his joy. 

In conclusion, Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye has withstood the test of time for a good reason. Holden is a relatable character who is rough on the outside but maintains positive child-like qualities internally. The book accurately captures the struggles of confused youth and clues us in to the idea that lies, hypocrisy, and materialism cannot lead to happiness. While crass at places and highly worldly all throughout, the cautionary tale of Holden Caulfield should serve as a reminder to all that happiness is not a feat that is tackled through dishonesty and loneliness, but rather with positive community and remembering who you are. A large idea at Taylor University—my college, that is—is that life is not meant to be lived alone. When it is, we can see the depravity and sorrow connected to tackling life by yourself.