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The book Catcher in the Rye is an immensely diversified book in the sense that there are multiple aspects being involved. Everything from hate to love, compulsiveness to Holden’s feelings towards his paradoxical and complex state of mind. And that’s actually one of many recognizable things that you could notice by reading this piece of work. Depending on which chapter you are in you slowly but progressively start to understand Holdens complex state of mind, but the problem is that you can’t really precisely pinpoint one specific mental state that Holden’s constantly maintains throughout the story besides possessing a sense of confusingness and being a rebel against at the times social norms and significantly the adult world.
However Holden’s mental state and negative traits unfortunately does not dissipate throughout his journey it actually just amplifies. One of the reasons why these negative traits and emotional breakdowns amplifies and gets worse is because all of these gruesome events happening in his life, starting from him being kicked out of Pencey, Stradlater being intimate with Jane as well as his brother Allie passing away which I think is one the most important downspiral events. Because it is evidently obvious that Holden still after his brothers death grieves him in his own peculiar way as well as being spiritually damaged which is seen on multiple instances for example, in the early parts of the book where Holden describes a scene where he shatters all the windows in his garage with his bare fists, a reception to his brother passing away. Even towards the end of the novel the absence of his brother still haunts him as well as being a lifeline of some sort where he walks over the street and asks Allie in what is seen to be his subconsciousness: “Don’t let me disappear” and thanking him after actually crossing it.
Now this vigorous connection between him and his brother combined with his unique way of reasoning contributes to why Holden may possess some unambiguous negative attributes, for instance, his fractiousness which for me was one of the most irritable things about Holden’s persona. Where he constantly criticizes everything and everyone for behaving in certain ways that does not fit his mentality. And what’s the biggest issue I see with Holden’s character is that he is extremely parochial. Well what do I mean by that? If you take a glance at the “rules” that Holden has so close to his heart they certainly does not match all of his outgoing behaviour in the book. Just an example of that is when Holden starts criticizing theaters and people who attend the shows but he still visits the shows himself, or on another occasion when he talked about “necking” and that you really should feel a sense of compassion and love in order to actually do it which that rule he also broke. The funny thing is that Holden himself recognizes that he breaks his own so called rules, but still criticizes other people, which according to me is a bit hypocritical.
Speaking of Holden criticizing others and being subjectively judgmental in the novel, Holden actually systematically categorize a substantial amount of people whom he calls “phony” which may not coexist with your typical image of someone being phony. In Holden’s perspective, every individual who dwell on the social fabrics, meaning being typical and following structures, weather it is specific dress codes or behavioral traits is basically phony. And what may exasperate Holden the most about “phony” people predominantly being adults is that they oftentimes are aware themselves of being phony, but that they sort of have to play along to fit into a category and to eventually maintain/conduct their common adult lives. An obvious example of that according to himself is his brother D.B who after his successful writing stories and after moving to Hollywood have transfigured into a “prostitute”.
Don’t get me wrong after highlighting many of Holden’s negative traits it is just as important to mention a lot of his positive character traits as well because he certainly possess many even though you already may have altered a negative perception of him. One of those positive character traits I would like to articulate about is Holden’s kindness, where he sometimes is kind and respectful to people who he necessarily is not obligated to be kind to. A solid example of that could be when he sympathetically helped the children in the art museum to find where the mummies were even though he was not obligated to do so. And that’s not the only positive trait that is ostensibly discernible with Holden. I would personally say that his generosity was one of those character traits that was easier to recognize because it was one of those qualities about him that frequently appeared on multiple instances. One being his interaction with the nuns at the cafe where he gave them a lot of money even though, according to himself he was running low on “dough”.
You could parallelly see that Holden constantly have the ambition to support susceptible individuals in his environment and that’s frankly the main reason why he wants to be “The Catcher in The Rye” which inner of itself is strongly integrated with his main ideology. In
chapter 22 we actually get to know that he wants to be the catcher in the rye after his intense conversation with his sister. When talking to his sister Holden says that he wants to be the person who catches the children who may fall off the cliff or who may be directed in the wrong path, Simply “The Catcher in The Rye”. Which obviously is a metaphor which, additionally as I mentioned is deeply integrated with Holdens main ideology. Now the word rye is really profound in this sentence because it suggests that if there are small children playing in a rye field depending on how small they are, they can’t really see what’s coming in front of them because of the rye in front of their eyes, which holden sees as unclarity and misguidance and by falling off the cliff you as a child have lost your innocence and will just like him become a victim of the adult world, life and most importantly phoniness. At the end of his conversation with his sister indicates that his aim to be the catcher in the rye is minimal to none by him constantly suggesting that his goal is preposterous.
This perception of the world leads him to behave and interact differently with different individuals because you can evidently pinpoint that he certainly does not interact the same way with all the characters in the novel. If you, for instance review his interaction/relationship with his roommate Stradlater from Pencey you could clearly see that all of his character traits as well as his main ideology is meditative into their interaction. From the early parts of the novel, we get to know that Holden actually like many aspects of Stradlater but the interaction between Stradlater and Holden reveals Holdens concerns about intimacy which in this particular case is crucial for him because by reading we also get to know that according to Holden Stradlater is a hotshot which is equivalent of being phony which combined with Stradlater being sexually active obviously incensed Holden to a point where the situation progressively escalated to a physical fight after Holden gets clarified about Jane and Stradlater “repricitical action”. All because of his ideology and how he views the value of a woman as well as intimacy.
And that is not the only example where Holdens mentality and ideological rules affect an interaction and relationship. In later parts where Holden interacts with the two nuns their conversation goes by smoothly and successfully and after them getting to know each other you could really fathom the compassion from both sides were Holden as I mentioned eventually donates a big sum of money as well as asks them if they want him to purchase anything for them. The only reason we can observe such a dramatic shift in how Holden interacts with people is due to his thought processing where the nuns does not fit into the category of phoniness people were as Stradlater does which together with his actions leads to Holden’s offensive encounter.
Consequently, it is the presence of this behavioral diversity combined with his perpetual approach of events happening around him, that also leads Holden to ask himself and perhaps mother nature questions that in his subconscious mind somehow is an answer to his mysteries and unanswered questions regarding himself as well as life in general. One of those questions that Holden asks repeatedly is the so called duck question where he asks multiple cab drivers about where the ducks are during winter time when the lagoon is absolutely frozen. Now this question says a lot about Holden’s persona where you could say that the ducks resemble his own life and his direction in life in some sense because we know that Holden throughout the story struggles with coping with the reality and what to do in the future which is similar in some ways to the ducks. Therefore he desperately tries to find out how the ducks conduct themselves during this arduous period of the year so that their actions may be applicable to his situation and most importantly to battle his ideological warfare and his struggles.
You could also view the ducks in a “conservative” manner where the ducks are a metaphor that also reminds Holden how New York and therefore his past life where before Pencey which he obviously misses and may act like the only comfort zone for him and that resembles his past life the best, as he even aren’t comfortable being with his parents because of all the events that have happened. This parallel presents certain qualities of Holden’s persona. One evidently being his struggle to adaptation and a sense of loss in direction which is caused by his state of mind, the ducks also demonstrate that Holden often times desires to find an escape route to many of his obstacles which the ducks clearly does for him and ostensibly fulfills that “gap” for him.
Finally towards the end of the book it is important to mention that you could interpret if he have actually managed to fulfill these “mental gaps” or not in multiple ways. In the beginning of the book we get to know that Holden because of his mental state is put in some sort of mental facility and at the end of the book there is actually a glimpse of hope where Holden recognizes that he won’t be able to keep up with his state of mind in the long term and sort of have to give it up. Now the ending and what state of mind that Holden possesses at the end of the book could inexorably be interpreted in other ways as well but this interpretation of the scene seems the most logical approach in understanding.
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