The Catcher in the Rye

Falling off a cliff is like being a child who is moving from a state of innocence to one of experience. The drop is sudden, with little warning and the fall is a time of fear and regret. The worst part of life comes at the bottom; a dark, hopeless nightmare. Luckily, the only way to go from there is up, towards a bright future. Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, is an exception. He caught himself during the fall, close enough to the bottom to be partially experienced. Instead of trying to climb up, though, Holden lives his life near the bottom, in a permanent state of agony. He tells his sister Phoebe that his dream job is to catch children who are about to fall over the cliff, because he doesn’t want them to end up like him.

Staying innocent is a rare disease that Holden suffers from. He is old enough to be experienced, but because he is wise, he rejects the idea, knowing what pain he’ll have to go through to get there. Everyone one is to him a phony and some part of Holden understands that phoniness is a side-effect of experience. Seeing this, he cannot accept becoming more mature; more phony. He decides to stay in a state of innocence, endangering his sanity. In the end, his refusal to mature, his refusal to become a phony, causes him to go steadily insane.

With maturity comes new emotions, and because Holden refuses to mature, he sees these emotions in everyone else as phony. Because of his lack of emotions, he feels isolated and he believes everyone will be like him if they become experienced. He wants to be the catcher in the rye so he can save everyone from being like him.