Catcher In The Rye Symbolism
Adolescence can be an exciting and new experience. But for some, it becomes a difficult period of no escape. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is a novel about adolescence and the struggle of personal growth, told from the eyes of a cloudy and cynical teenager named Holden Caulfield. A narrow and simple-minded narrative point of view demonstrates the lack of connection a character has to the setting. Symbolism in The Catcher in the Rye exhibits the difficulties of personal growth. Ambiguous character growth testifies to the difficulty of personal growth. The Catcher in the Rye exemplifies the lesson that personal growth is a very demanding process, through the literary elements of narrative point of view, symbolism and character development.
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During a talk at his house with his little sister Phoebe, Holden creates powerful imagery to explain what he would like to be. “It is “If a body meet a body coming through the rye.” I didn’t know it then, though. “I always thought it was ‘If a body catch a body,’.... “I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.””(Salinger 173). Holden's talk of being a catcher in the rye evokes a vision of him wearing his hunting hat in a field of overgrown rye. Holden talks about catching children from falling off of a cliff. The cliff stands for adulthood, and as the catcher, Holden saves the innocence of children. The symbol of the catcher, and depicts his loneliness, because he is caught in the middle of two distinctly opposite sides of the spectrum of life and maturity, and he can not decide if he wants to stay in the rye fields of childhood or the pit of wisdom. Furthermore, Holden gets the lyrics wrong, and Phoebe tells him that the lyrics were not “catch a body”, but rather “meet a body”. This implies that the song was actually about casual sex, or the loss of innocence. The true meaning of the song is a reminder that Holden's goals are were not even meant to be. The hunting hat has relevance to Holden being stuck between two opposite sides of maturity in and of itself. Near the end of Holden's story, he watches Phoebe
During a talk at his house with his little sister Phoebe, Holden creates powerful imagery to explain what he would like to be. “It is “If a body meet a body coming through the rye.” I didn’t know it then, though. “I always thought it was ‘If a body catch a body,’.... “I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.””(Salinger 173). Holden's talk of being a catcher in the rye evokes a vision of him wearing his hunting hat in a field of overgrown rye. Holden talks about catching children from falling off of a cliff. The cliff stands for adulthood, and as the catcher, Holden saves the innocence of children. The symbol of the catcher, and depicts his loneliness, because he is caught in the middle of two distinctly opposite sides of the spectrum of life and maturity, and he can not decide if he wants to stay in the rye fields of childhood or the pit of wisdom. Furthermore, Holden gets the lyrics wrong, and Phoebe tells him that the lyrics were not “catch a body”, but rather “meet a body”. This implies that the song was actually about casual sex, or the loss of innocence. The true meaning of the song is a reminder that Holden's goals are were not even meant to be. The hunting hat has relevance to Holden being stuck between two opposite sides of maturity in and of itself. Near the end of Holden's story, he watches Phoebe