Isolation and Maturity in The Catcher in the Rye Essay

J.D. Salingers The Catcher in the Rye revolves around the experiences of a Mr. Holden Caulfield and his struggle with isolation and maturity. Holden expresses his desire to become the Catcher in the Rye, a manifestation of Holdens inability to cope with the natural direction his life is taking, and which can be paralleled to the themes of alienation, maturation, and his concept of phoniness.

Due to Holdens difficulty in relating to other people, he has become emotionally isolated, only remembering fondly his experiences with his late brother, Allie, and relating to his younger sister, Phoebe. This causes Holden to want to preserve their perceived innocence, being one of the only things that he currently has close contact with. He cements his alienated state with his clearly isolated People never notice anything (Salinger 28), and proves that he is not as mentally competent or righteous as he claims.

Holdens psychological state leads to ill management of his quickly approaching adulthood. Not only must he deal with intellectual and emotional isolation that has resulted from his insistence on defending innocence, but he must handle his conflicting urge to grow up; an urge that he appears to reject and welcome at the same time: Sex is something I really don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away. Last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it - the same night, as a matter of fact (Salinger 143). Holden does not want his siblings or any other child to cope with what he has been made to cope with, and so resolves to protect them from falling off of the great cliff into frightening maturity.

Phonies are something that Holden Caulfield could appear to live without. While his observations of adult life are somewhat accurate, they are flawed, and indicative of both loneliness and repression. He overreacts slightly to his schools guest speaker, He told us we ought to think of Jesus as our buddy and all. He said he talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving in his car. That killed me. I can just see the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs (Salinger 36). Holden equates youth with integrity and goodness, and adulthood with dishonesty and evil. By keeping children in his field of rye forever, Holden feels he can keep them from evil forever. This is despite the fact that the very poem Holden takes to describe his ideal job is actually a question of whether or not his hated casual sex is acceptable.

Holden Caulfield eventually comes to terms with his instability and unrealistic career aspirations. The catcher in the rye was once his escape from all things he could not understand, and a far-off dream from which he could not escape. By keeping children from the natural progression of their development, Holden was denying himself the necessary acceptance of his own growth, and has since come to accept this fact.