The Catcher in the Rye {blog four}

To our unfortunate disproval, Holden still is complaining about how things make him mad and upset him because they aren’t the way he likes them to be. His next adventure is to a movie theater after making plans to meet up with an old friend named Carl Luce. While at the movie theater he remembers the time when he and Allie would go to see the same shows, and it still sounds like he cannot let go of his brother, as if maybe if he keeps bringing him up he will magically come back. Holden’s mind then travels to the army and he says that he cannot ever be a part of the army for what his brother D.B told him. I think that again Holden is scared of change in this situation, because ultimately he would have to change his entire life, no more fancy school, no more lounging around and talking about others, and no more support from his parents (financially speaking).

Holden meets up with his friend Carl Luce and talks to him about everything that involves sex. To this Carl guy he seems immature to be asking all these inappropriate questions and quickly gets annoyed so he leaves. Even though this book is a coming of age story, it comes later in the novel than sooner and this just proves my point.

He finally decides to go home to get more money after trying to drink himself to death. Holden sneaks into his house to meet Phoebe because his parents are still unaware of the fact that their son had just been kicked out of Pencey Prep a week earlier. Phoebe is sleeping when Holden arrives home and this is a very important part of the book because of what Holden says about it, “It’s funny. You take adults, they look lousy while they sleep and they have their mouths way open, but kids don’t. Kids look alright. They can even have spit all over their pillow and they still look alright.” (p.159) This just shows that Holden is scared of that transition to adulthood and that children are so innocent and have nothing in the world to worry about. I think that the main reason that Holden is always so upset and mad is that children are supposed to be worry free and with Allie, that wasn’t the case. He is mad that Allie’s life was cut short before he could become an adult and face the reality of actual life.

Once Holden wakes up his sister, they make small talk but something is really bothering him and Phoebe can sense it. They talk about school and Holden begins to rant about all the things that he hates, and that just pisses off his sister because she doesn’t understand what he can like if he is constantly talking about all these things that he dislikes. His mind wanders and these are his next words, “You know whtat I’d like to be? I mean if I had my goddam choice?... I thought it was ‘if a body catch a body’, anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye an all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around-nobody big, I mean- except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. …I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d be the catcher in the rye and all.”

With that quote in mind we can finish up the meaning behind this whole story. Like I said Holden is scared of things that could happen that he doesn’t like and that is why he wants to be “the catcher in the rye”, because he can prevent death, evil and simply bad things from happening. That way he can disallow other people from feeling the same pain that he felt when Allie died. That is what I think of the whole thing.