The Catcher in the Rye 919Perhaps Mr. Antolini, one of Holden’s former
teachers, understands his dilemma the best. Mr.
Antolini attempts to explain that Holden is search-
ing for something that human behavior simply
cannot provide—purity or consistency or compas-
sion. Antolini claims that he is heading for a “fall,”
because people who share a similar outlook to that
of Holden are “men who, at some time or other in
their lives, were looking for something their envi-
ronment couldn’t supply them with.” In addition,
Mr. Antolini comments that Holden is almost too
preoccupied with the cruel side of human nature,
and the way to come to terms with that part of
human existence is to approach it in a scholarly
manner, by writing and thinking about it and pass-
ing on what one has learned to others:
“Among other things, you’ll find that you’re
not the first person who was ever confused
and frightened and even sickened by human
behavior. You’re by no means alone on that
score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know.
Many, many men have been just as troubled
morally and spiritually as you are right now.
Happily, some of them kept records of their
troubles. You’ll learn from them—if you want
to. Just as someday, if you have something to
offer, someone will learn from you too.”Although Holden is dismayed by the phoniness and
cruelty of human existence, he is also responsible
for much cruelty on his own part, as his inability to
deal with cruelty and phoniness spurs him to react,
at times, irrationally and even violently. In the end,
the person Holden manages to torture the most is
himself.
Jeff Pettineo
Innocence and experIence in
The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye is often categorized as a bil-
dungsroman, or coming of age novel, and its title
is directly related to Holden Caulfield’s longing
to preserve the childlike innocence of those about
whom he cares. Holden explains that he would be
the “catcher in the rye,” saving children from falling
off of a cliff—a title he invents after he overhears
a child singing parts of the Robert Burns poem
“Coming Thro’ the Rye,” though Holden replaces
the verb come with catch. He explains his vision of
preserving innocence to Phoebe:Anyway, I keep picturing these little kids
playing some game in this big field of rye and
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. What I have to do, I have to catch every-
body if they start to go over the cliff—I mean
if they’re running and they don’t look where
they’re going I have to come out from some-
where and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day.
I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.Thus, Holden wishes to be the one who pre-
serves the innocence of youth, even though it is
Phoebe, his young sister, who “saves” him from his
fall. Holden is confused, angered, and frightened
by the adult world, a world obsessed with status,
wealth, and sex, yet he is fascinated by children,
delighting in the wild imaginations of his siblings,
especially regarding the poems his deceased brother,
Allie, wrote on his baseball glove and the stories
his sister Phoebe writes in her notebook. Holden’s
wish to prevent children from falling, facing danger,
or encountering the complex world of adulthood
is also exemplified by his disgust at seeing the
word fuck scrawled on the wall of Phoebe’s school.
He is worried that the kids will find out what the
word means and then become preoccupied with
sex themselves: “I thought how Phoebe and all
the other kids would see it, and how they’d won-
der what the hell it meant, and then finally some
dirty kid would tell them . . . and how they’d all
think about it and maybe even worry about it for
a couple of days.” When at the museum, Holden
sees another “fuck you” inscription, and he muses
that even on his tombstone, one would probably
see a “fuck you” written under his life dates. As a
teenager, he is also trying to understand human
sex and sexuality, stimulated and excited by the
prospect of sexual contact but also terrified by the
“unknown,” confessing at one point that he is a
virgin.