920 salinger, J. D.
At the end of the novel, Holden takes Phoebe to
the zoo and watches her go for a ride on the carou-
sel. He notices the children trying to grab for a gold
ring and finally comes to realize that just as he can’t
rub out all the “fuck you” signs in the world, he must
allow children to reach for the ring even though
they might fall off their horses. In essence, though
he wants to be the “catcher in the rye,” preserving
the innocence of youth, he must allow people to
experience life: “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.” Finally, Holden
comes to realize that, metaphorically, children are
going to “fall off their horses,” but it is a necessary
part of the maturation process.
One of the central questions the reader must
ask about The Catcher in the Rye is whether or not
Holden Caulfield has “changed” or developed as a
result of his experiences. There is some evidence
to suggest that he has not changed, as he declares
that one psychoanalyst at the hospital keeps ask-
ing if he is going to apply himself. Holden replies
that he does not know, and cannot know if he is
going to do something until he does it. “I swear
it’s a stupid question,” he muses. But Holden’s
admission to the reader that one has to allow kids
to “reach for the ring” despite a possible fall indi-
cates, perhaps, that he is starting to come to terms
with the ephemeral and dynamic nature of human
existence.
Jeff Pettineo
ISoLatIon in The Catcher in the Rye
Although Holden Caulfield meets or tells stories
about at least a score of people, and although some-
times he initially takes an interest in others, even
if it is only a physical interest in the case of many
girls, he almost always parts company in acrimoni-
ous fashion. The fleeting nature of his interactions
is responsible for much of his loneliness, though
many times his isolation is also self-imposed, as
he knowingly attempts to irritate others by leading
them on or denouncing them as inferior in some
way. He desperately longs for human companion-
ship, but due to his lack of maturity or frustration
with human duplicity and “phoniness,” he tends to
be excessively critical of—and therefore irritated
by—nearly everyone he meets.
Initially, Holden is cut off from his own class-
mates, as he has just been expelled from school for
failing four subjects. He is also ostracized by the
fencing team during a bus ride because he left the
team’s equipment at the train station. Moreover, he
feels isolated to such a degree that he fears he is
going to “disappear” out of existence. When he goes
to see his history teacher, Mr. Spencer, for example,
Holden relates that “I felt like I was sort of disap-
pearing. It was that kind of a crazy afternoon . . .
and you felt like you were disappearing every time
you crossed a road.” Later, when he pretends to call
out to his deceased brother Allie, pleading for Allie
to save him from disappearing whenever he crosses
a block—“Every time I’d get to the end of the block
I’d make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I’d
say to him, ‘Allie, don’t let me disappear. Allie, don’t
let me disappear. Allie, don’t let me disappear. Please,
Allie.’ And then when I’d reach the other side of the
street without disappearing, I’d thank him.”
Later in the novel, Holden entertains ideas of
living like a recluse. He imagines he could go “out
West,” where he would live in anonymity—“where
nobody’d know me and I’d get a job . . . I thought
what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those
deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn’t have to have any
goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody.
If anybody wanted to tell me something, they’d have
to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to
me. They’d get bored as hell doing that after a while,
and then I’d be through with having conversations
for the rest of my life.” Holden perhaps imagines
that his only solution to the phony and cruel aspects
of human behavior is to cut himself off from human
contact completely, an idea on which he intends to
follow through, and he even writes a goodbye let-
ter that he delivers to Phoebe at school. He finally
abandons his plan when Phoebe comes to meet him
at the museum with a packed suitcase, pleading for
Holden to allow her to come along. He abandons his
plan when he realizes his trip would hurt Phoebe,
perhaps his only conduit to stability and happiness
in the novel.
Although Holden identifies many of the novel’s
characters as “phonies,” and although it appears