The Catcher in The Rye

Section: Book Reports

He also tells that every time one visits the museum, he is changed in some way, but the figures in the exhibits always stay the same. He wants to be able to preserve some things in the glass: "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). Holden wants the innocence of children to be frozen behind that glass. When he visits Phoebe's school to give her a note, Holden notices two instances of graffiti on the walls. He succeeds in rubbing one of them off cannot rub off the other. It depresses Holden to think that someday this kind of graffiti will spoil his sister Phoebe and all of her companions. Up to this point, keeping young children from his plight is Holden's sole motive. He soon realizes that this is impossible. Holden sees that becoming the Catcher in the Rye is an unattainable ideal. When he meets Phoebe during her lunch break at school, he has made up his mind to leave and hitchhike out west. Phoebe knows this and asks if she can come along. This overwhelms Holden, and he decides not to leave. Instead, he decides to take her to the zoo and to the carousel. Phoebe gets on the carousel and finds her favorite horse. When the carousel starts Holden notices Phoebe trying to grab for the golden ring. He knows this is dangerous but must let Phoebe do it: "All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she'd fall off the goddam horse, but I didn't say anything or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them," (211). He understands that sometimes children must learn things the hard way. As he sees Phoebe riding the carousel he begins to cry. He sees perfection in that moment, and he knows that she will soon change as the world influences her. Holden finally realizes that he will not be able to protect his sister or anyone from falling into the adult world. Holden transforms from a dreamy idealist into a down-to-earth existentialist. When he understands that his dream is far from possible, he has to start over. Throughout his story he talks about people being phonies, which suggests that he has some ideal to which he compares people. He tells his psychiatrist that he does not know what will happen in the future: "A lot of people, especially this one psychoanalyst guy they have here, keeps asking me if I'm going to apply myself when I go back to school next September. It's such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it?" (213). Holden now knows that he must live life by the moment and not with quixotic ideals.

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