Catcher in the Rye.vp - Salem Press

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sion which can reconcile him to his world. He can then stop trying on caps—the desperate and futile gestures of adolescent self-discovery. It is through the innocent Phoebe, at the end, that Holden initially moves toward this redemption. As she is running to meet him at the museum, he sees her because she is wearing his red duck-hunting cap—his “people-shooting” rather than duck-shooting cap. He had given her the cap after he had decided to leave New York, vaguely to hitchhike to the West. Phoebe, he discovers, has packed her suitcase and now asks if she can flee with him. Salinger describes Holden’s sudden reaction: “I almost fell over when she said that. I swear to God I did. I got sort of dizzy and I thought I was going to pass out or something again” (185). For the first time in the novel, he has begun to realize that the idea of wholesale retreat from human associations must be re-examined. He discovers that he does not want to save this young innocent from the phoniness and obscenity of New York City. Disappointed and angry, Phoebe hurls the cap at Holden. He puts the cap not on his head but into his pocket. Phoebe then walks ahead of him to the zoo, where Holden is able briefly to observe the animals all safe and well-fed in winter. Next they arrive at the carrousel. Holden’s mind now fixes on the significance of the carrousel. First, the carrousel comforts Holden because he discovers here a permanent and secure spot in New York, specifically because in the fixed center comes the same old song year after year. His earlier preoccupation with change and death is still active. And it becomes more highly charged as Phoebe climbs up onto the carrousel and it begins to whirl. He sees the innocent children in danger of falling from the circling carrousel as they reach for the stationary gold ring. But the moment suddenly becomes also, for Holden, the instant of revelation. He reflects, 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. (190) 300 Critical Insights
Then between rides, Phoebe comes over to Holden, gives him a kiss, it starts to rain, she puts his cap back on his head and then returns to take her chances on the turning carrousel again. As Holden watches, standing in the downpour with his cap on, he is suddenly overwhelmed with happiness: My hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way, but I got soaked anyway. I didn’t care, though. I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. (191) The novel proper closes on this scene. The carrousel has suggested to Holden the dangers and insecurities in life which children must risk as they grow up and reach for their fixed star. The ride has its perils, but all children must risk them. One cannot make life stand still in an eternal moment of childhood innocence. The carrousel, with all of its dangers, however, still has a fixed center—an unchanging music in the midst of external movement, a still point in the turning world. 3 In this confronting of reality, Holden has begun to lose his delusional obsession to be a catcher in the rye. There can be no protector to break the fall from innocence into adolescence and maturity. Holden also declines the gesture of wearing his red hunting cap backwards while forestalling his own progress into maturity. When Phoebe has placed the cap on Holden’s head, he does not swing it around to the back. Nor does he retreat for cover from the rain which falls here almost as a baptismal downpour at Holden’s moment of illumination. And he realizes that the cap, his pseudo-identity and gesture of escape from life, provides, at best, only a partial protection from the unexpected drenching. But the ending is not quite so pat. Holden’s ordeal is not yet over. Earlier, the reader has seen the merging of manic and depressive states in the unstable young hero. Without knowing why, during a moment of depression, Holden will suddenly begin “horsing around.” After the brutal physical assault by Maurice, the pimp elevator-operator at the Edmont Hotel, Holden’s spirit is momentarily shattered; then suddenly, he goes Symbolic Resolution in The Catcher in the Rye 301
Page 1 and 2: Symbolic Resolution in The Catcher
Page 3: tional equipment for his entry into
Page 7 and 8: Perhaps if we look at what Salinger
Page 9: Notes 1. The sociologically oriente

Catcher in the Rye.vp - Salem Press

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