Pound for pound, The Catcher in the Rye would win the American novella category and rank highly among all the novels I have read to date.
First-person narrator Holden Caulfield is America's first literary teenager, opening the door for a new genre, the teenage confessional. Like East of Eden, Ordinary People, The Outsiders and Rebel Without a Cause, The Catcher in the Rye authentically portrays the struggles of teenage boys in a certain place and time. The quality of the writing is exceptional. While first-person point of view can be a challenge for young readers, the authenticity of the narrator's voice and the book's compactness make it more accessible. A lot happens in four days trapped inside Holden's head.
The Catcher in the Rye can be seen as a young adult novel or an adult novel about the teenager within us all, a lament on the necessary loss of innocence on the way to adulthood. You can't read it as an adult without getting personality insights than were impossible as a teen because teens are by definition living within the transitional state exemplified in Holden. They can't see it as transitional because it's the only reality they know, the fog they are living within.
Caterpillar, pupa and butterfly are different states of being. The vast majority of teens are emerging from pupae-ville, just starting to sample the sights and smells of the world. For them, death--James Castle's mangled body--is an abstract notion, something in a video or book or some stage or screen rendition of Romeo and Juliet. The average teen has never been in the presence of a lifeless body and smelled death's pungent vapors--well, maybe a frog in biology class--let alone lost a beloved sibling.
Only an adult can look back on their teenage years with perspective, yet academia keeps throwing The Catcher in the Rye at teenagers because of what it says about the challenges of growing up.
The Catcher in the Rye depicts an upper-middle-class male in an urban setting going through a crisis. He's overwhelmed by the pressures of becoming an adult, but too much has been thrown at him at once. He hasn't gotten over the death of his beloved younger brother, Allie, when he witnesses the suicide of a dormitory mate, James Castle. He's been traumatized and can't function. How much can a guy take?
He's looking for answers and can't seem to get them, like Conrad Jarret in Ordinary People and Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. All three boys struggled with the death of people they cared about.
And the one person Holden respects and looks to for help, Mr. Antolini, he mistakes for a pervert, a threat. It's too much; so Holden withdraws. He wants to go live in a cabin in the woods, which is a metaphor for "Time-out! I need a break!" Phoebe rescues him with unconditional love. She accepts him no matter what. If she'd been a brat,the message would have been entirely different.
Holden goes from being antagonistic and callous to highly empathetic. He wants to protect children from the brutal realities of adulthood. But the trip has been too exhausting and he ends up in a rest home.
Cal, in East of Eden is similar to Holden--acting out, raging, doing strange things. But all four of these books/films are about males. The world of teenage girls is different; so all the guy stuff (fighting, jealousy, possessiveness, etc.) may not come across for the female reader.
I reread the book at age 67 and discovered that Holden could be suffering from PTSD stemming from the death of his brother and from witnessing the suicide of dorm-mate James Castle, who bailed out of a dorm window wearing the sweater Holden had loaned him. The symptoms Holden was exhibiting: depression, poor concentration, attention deficit, crying, uncontrollable rage, lack of motivation, self-isolation, sleeplessness, etc., are typical of PTSD.
To me The Catcher in the Rye is partially about a kid struggling against the downward spiral of mental illness. Without professional help he was doomed to submerge, and did. Holden was barely "holdin' on."
There's a lot of cultural and psychological meat in there: a) how boys interact with each other when living in close quarters, b) particularly when two have or are dating the same girl (Jane Gallagher)and one feels protective or possessive of her, c) how a sensitive boy might behave because of a deep emotional wound and d) how that boy might become neurotically protective toward his younger sister and toward children in general because of c).
Most teenagers aren't mature enough to comprehend the psychological ramifications of what I've just described unless they've been prepared for it by a mature adult who does comprehend. And there are many adults who can't.
Most adults have psychological defenses that don't allow even them to comprehend what I've just described. It's either too abstract, too complicated or too scary. I suspect this is the main reason the book is so controversial. Most people don't get it unless someone points the way.
A greater sense of Holden Caulfield through JD Salinger can be found in the film Finding Forester, which is purported to be based on Salinger's life. The reclusiveness of Forester appears rooted in the trauma of losing his beloved brother in a car crash.
In World War II, Salinger was at Utah Beach at Normandy and at bloody major campaigns like the Battle of the Bulge, where Allied troops were decimated. He was among the first Allied troops to liberate a German concentration camp. He was hospitalized for battle fatigue; he understood first-hand the effects of trauma.
In a 1953 interview with a high-school newspaper, Salinger said that the novel was "sort of" autobiographical: "My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book ...it was a great relief telling people about it."
Salinger, when writing The Catcher in the Rye wouldn't have had a clue about PTSD, as it wasn't even in the diagnostic manual (DSM) for psychologists until decades later. He was just writing what he felt, blasting his feelings onto paper and letting the chips fall.
Many people see Salinger as a sort of literary genius because he sold 70 million copies of one book. I'm not saying he wasn't talented and educated; he had plenty of both going for him. I'm saying he leveraged his talent on top of some inner need to get this desperate crisis part of his life onto paper and out of his head.
A great segment of the literary world has quite understandably interpreted Holden's PTSD symptoms as mere teenage angst, but this is a gross oversimplification. It is his masterfully presented array of extreme symptoms that is largely responsible for the success of the book.
It's too complicated, or too sensitive, for English teachers to talk about mental illness; so they focus on the simple and more obvious interpretation. Such teachers are missing a phenomenal opportunity to reach kids who are in crisis or know someone who is. We'd have fewer cases of teenagers going postal if The Catcher in the Rye were used for exploring mental illness.
One point of the book is the redemptive power of unconditional love, revealed and brilliantly illustrated in the climax scene at the carousel.
Even at Phoebe's tender age, she knew how to get her point across. On the way to the carousel she digs in her heels, throws a fit, making Holden promise not to run away. Because of the depth of her devotion, Holden realizes she's doing it because she loves him, wants him to be safe and come home and return to school.
This revelation makes him so happy he begins to cry. He shows his love for Phoebe by fussing over her, making sure she gets a good seat, watching over her as the tears stream down his face in the rain. Teenage guys are supposed to be tough, but he's "practically bawling." And as if that weren't enough, Salinger practically spells it out with those two songs ("Oh Marie" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes".)
Holden wanted Sally Hayes to run away with him, but all she wanted was someone to trim the Christmas tree, skate and go to the theater with. All Jane Gallagher wanted was someone to play golf and checkers and hold hands with in a movie. The raw fierceness of Phoebe's simple, innocent devotion redeemed Holden by showing him that among all the "phoniness" and flaws of mankind there is a niche of happiness if we open our eyes hearts to the possibility.
There was no one in Holden's life--not parents, not friends, not teachers, to let Holden know he was loved--except Phoebe. She proved her love by standing her ground to keep him safe. Phoebe represents family, clan or tribe. People are social creatures, like most higher forms of the animal kingdom capable of love. Love is a bonding emotion with survival implications.
If a writer has to STATE the obvious, it ruins it for the reader, cheats the reader of that glorious "Ah-ha" moment of discovery, or worse, insults the reader's intelligence. But by not spelling it out, he/she runs the risk that some readers won't get it. Herein lies the artistry--the use of symbol (ducks, fish), metaphor (pond), mood setting (rain).
Salinger strikes a balance between showing and telling, with the knowledge that some readers will get it and others will walk away shaking their heads, or come up with interpretations that he had not intended. We tend to find what we are capable of seeing, or need to.
Nature symbols are used sparingly but effectively. Ducks flying south and the "part frozen, and part not frozen" pond can symbolize Holden's transitional state--neither boy nor man. The fish symbolize nature, a reminder that a natural process ("Mother Nature") is taking place. The seasons come and go; we live; we die; we get sick; we get well; we get hurt; we heal. Are the Central Park ducks there to remind us that to survive and thrive we must stick together? You decide.
A final word on the so-called "Peter Pan" interpretation of Holden. I find little support in the text for the position that Holden was resisting growing up.
The passage often cited as evidence for the Peter Pan perception concerns the naked-breasted squaw diorama at the museum. Holden: The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. . . . You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, . . . and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you.
In an article in the October 14, 2014, The New York Times Sunday Review of Books, author Mendelshon says, "The all-too-evident regret in that last sentence is striking — one of the novel’s many markers of Holden’s problem, which is a refusal to grow up." What regret? There is nothing in the text that conveys regret. Mendelshon may be projecting from his own history or it could be academic influence, some popular professor's interpretation that caught on because it was easy to relate to.
Practically everyone, Youtube star John Green included, parses out this naked-breasted squaw passage and Holden's liberal use of the word "phony" as evidence Holden doesn't want to grow up, while overlooking a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Holden smokes, drinks, lies about his age, critiques theater and music performances, frequents museums, hires a prostitute, repeatedly seeks out adult conversation with peer-level engagement, acts protectively toward children. How many examples are needed to prove Holden is experimenting with adulthood? Criticizing adults as phony means he's evaluating adult behavior, not resisting. This is engagement, not avoidance.
Note further that Holden never seeks advice from his parents, or even thinks about it. Not consulting parents shows independence of mind, the embrace of maturity, not dependency or disengagement from the responsibilities of adulthood. Holden expresses compassionate concern about his mother, indicating that she hasn't been the same since Allie died. Compassion toward a grieving parent is adult thinking.
It shouldn't escape notice that Holden was also eagerly embracing the dessert of adulthood--sex, smoking, booze, nightclub music, dancing, flirting, dating, literature and the dramatic arts--while agonizing over the spinach of social hypocrisy and rationalization.
So, how DO we interpret Holden's comment about the bare-breasted Native American?
The key is in that last sentence, underlined above: "The only thing that would be different would be you." Holden is telling us he is aware that he is changing. This level of intuitive self-reflection is adult thinking. It also shows maturity to appreciate that "some things don't change and never should," because they are part of our cultural identity.
Nostalgic awareness is mature thinking. Mature people want to protect and preserve cultural icons.
Think of the loss and disorientation after the Twin Towers were destroyed. Icons like the Statue of Liberty are signposts reminding us of who and where we are. Holden was feeling lost. In his agitated state he desperately needed that bare-breasted squaw to be right where she had always been. That's all he was getting at with his comment. You Peter Pan theorists, give the kid a break and stop projecting your own history onto him.
Holden pondered and wrote down the Wilhelm Stekel quote Mr. Antollini gave him: "The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." This is another sign he was putting a lot of serious and strenuous thought into growing up.
There are teenagers and even some adults, who resist growing up because their parents don't want to let go. They've been infantalized, encouraging dependency. Holden shows no evidence of having been infantalized. Quite the contrary, sending a kid to a military-style prep school could be evidence that Holden was too independent and possibly hard to control.
Many readers are perplexed by the book, for it is way over the heads of many, even some who teach literature. The book must be read slowly and thoughtfully in order to absorb its meaning.
The Catcher in the Rye even gets into the very meaning of life in the Steckel quote cited by Antolini: "The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." You can shrug your shoulders and flip the page or you can sit and ponder what it means, which could take days.
Many readers, teens in particular, resist The Catcher in the Rye because of the book's capacity to trigger self-reflection. It resonates with their own transition from juvenile to adult, a vital period for personality development, when boys and girls become men and women and are confronted with one another's sexuality and the struggle to think and "be" independent from their parents.
Check out the date rape scene in Ed Bankey's car when Holden overhears Stradlater abusing a girl in the back seat. You can't just blast through that scene without stopping to ponder your own early dating experiences.
The evidence on the page shows that Holden was not resisting adulthood; he was aggressively embracing it. Holden was no Peter Pan.
The book is a masterpiece of art and insight. Who will ever get into the head of a teenage boy so deeply, so thoroughly and with such an authentic and authoritative voice?
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