REREADING – CATCHER IN THE RYE

First of all I would like to accept  that HOLDEN COULFIELD seems to me a very impressive character. A person who is untouched by any single evil. He is the man who knows, how this world should function.And when I first time went through the book. He came out as a hero against so called phony world.

But this was the real problem. Personally i dont think that anyone can be so perfect that he can declare that except him nothig is good. And if by any chance it happens then there is something wrong in it. I was not sure about it, but my instinct makes me uncomfortable. Somehow i was unable to accept his goodness. If i tell you the truth at first place,i coudnt find out any single mistake in his personality.I was convinced whatever he said. I was seeing the same picture which he was showing me.

When i started the analyzing it. I was mere repeating his words.So i decided to give it a re read. Without having anything in mind. I decided not to think just let the things go in my mind and lets see what will come out.

Point is, in the book HOLDEN has divided everythng in two categories ‘BLACK and WHITE. Things which seems to him right are pure White and rest are pure Black. He even dont bother to think for a single time that there could be a Grey shade too.Because thats complex thing. And he wants everythng straight.

But practical is it possible. He is only sixteen, how much has he seen ? How much he knows about the world ? How much experience he has about life ? What he knows is only his problems . What he knows is that except him no one has any problem . People don bother too rethink about their activities whether they are right or wrong.

When you are young you can think like that. There is a very famous saying ‘ You are not a man if you havent liked Marxism in your young hood and Socialism in your Adulthood.’ Life is not perfect in itself that’s the reason we suffer. Thats the reason we keep moving toward perfection.

If everything will be so perfect then whats the game ? In that case there will be no conflict, that means no fun, that mean no struggle, no fight, no tears and no joy of victory.

But Mr.HOLDEN thinks how it could be possible . Things which were so crystal clear in his childhood. Why they are changing now ? He is against any kind of change. He wants to be the one who is free from any kind of evil. Thats possible only in a world which dosent exist at least not in this solar system.

He has fear to become like others, to become someone like Stradlater or Carl Luce, but he never accepts it. Instead he covers himself by saying that they are not his kind of guys.Thats mean they are not good, thats mean they are BLACK.

I dont know why he dosent like any single thing at present. Why he dosent want to live in present ? Why he always goes in his past ? Why he always tries to prove himself right ? Why he never thinks that even he could be wrong ? Even Buddha was not sure about himself, he had gone through a bad time when every mortal thing  became useless for him. But he accepted the fact that he was missing something. He questioned each and every thing but never tried to judge anything. He accepted the fact that he needed some knowledge to understand the mystery of this world.

But here HOLDEN never accepts the fact. He keeps being judgmental about every single thing. Why you become judgmental for anything ?Because you are trying to explain something and the most interesting part is you are explaining it to yourself. You will never speak it in the public because you know people may prove you wrong. And if it happen you will again create another judgment for the person who will prove you wrong.

Here when we go with HOLDEN, most of the time he speaks too himself. He has a huge fear of rejection. He speaks almost everything to himself but never speaks about his weaknesses. How clever he is. To cover his fear of rejection he chooses to REJECT EVERYTHING before he gets rejected by this world.

In the whole book what we see is his rejection for everything and his fear to accept the fact that even he could be wrong or could become one of the others.

I dont say whatever he thinks is wrong. Things are not like that.Definitely  This world is a BIG PHONY THEATER. But it dosent mean i will reject it, it dosent mean i will run away from it. I will become a part of it but yes i will try not to be like others. You cant control others. You are not powerful enough. Then why to think for others? Why to think that how should be this world ? What will you get from it ?

Think about what you can. Think about yourself that how you are going to live your life in this world. You have very limited power and by using it the best thing what you can do is , you can control yourself. Its possible one day you will be able to inspire others. But if you will run away you are not going to do any good for anybody. You could be equal to god but being a human i want that god should be here by my side. He should be as close to me as i am.

And for all of this if i tell you the truth at the first place you have to accept the fact that yes this world is like this. You have to accept the reality. And you have to accept the fact that sooner or later you have to enter in this world only. Dont live in past.You are not only ruining your present but also the future. The knowledge what you have earned, expend it in preparing yourself for the future. Dont try to be a perfect man. Just try to be a good man.

HOLDEN has the biggest problem of not accepting the truth. It leads him toward confusion. Confusion makes him introvert. Being introvert makes him extreme judgmental. To prove his judgments, he starts living in the past. Thats makes him incapable of taking any responsibility of adult world. Then he looses his connection with the whole world. Now he is alone. He has alienated himself in the name of a idealistic world.

Two third of the book talks about this only its only after meeting with PHOEBE, his idealism gets a shock and which is reinforced by his English teacher ANTOLINI. Its the first time he accepts the fact that even he could be wrong. And boy thats the beginning of learning. If you already know everything you cant learn anything.You need to create space for new things.

If i tell you the truth, it is quiet sure that this boy goes under the treatment and comes out as a human being not as a hero.He himself has broken his image. But the only problem is he is too clever to say it clearly.

There is a drastic change in his character from first page to last page. Till the page number 180, he wants to become ‘The catcher in the rye’, he thinks that he will become a protector of children, and if any children will ever try to leave the field of rye he will catch him and send him back to the field.

If i take the symbolic meaning then it is like, if childhood will try to enter in the phony world of adulthood i will catch it and send it back to the field of childhood. Because childhood is the most pure form of life. And whole life should be like this only.

But when he sees her sister in carousel, she was trying to grab a golden ring. He thinks that, now pay attention to his words -

“ All the kids kept trying to grab for the golden ring so was old phoebe,i was sort of afraid she’d fall off the goddamn horse, but i didnt say or do anything.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.”

He is no more a catcher in the rye. He is no more a protector. He is no more someone who thinks childhood should be preserved.Now at this moment he is ready to accept the change. This is the moment when he has created space for something new. First time he has opened himself for others. And its not an easy thing to leave something which has given you shelter for a long time. It requires a lot of courage. And thats the only one thing which helps you in entering from childhood to adulthood.

Well so thats pure my take on Mr. HOLDEN CAULFIELD. You are free to disagree with me as i am free to disagree with you. Even it dosent matter too much what matters is at least we have our own point of view. I dont know if i am through with it or not. Because as nothing is perfect similarly nothing is finished. There is always something which remains untouched, unseen and unexplained.

In the end i was just wondering if i could be able to apply the idea of ‘HERO WITH THOUSAND FACES‘. I tried a little bit and the result says that Holden is very comfortable in his childhood world’s memories. He gets a call from adulthood. Its a new world for him. And its full of mysterious things. There are things he has never seen before. There are people who are devil for him. He dosent know how to deal with it. So what he dose he refuses the call. And this refusal is huge.

But as we know refusal dosent solve the problem, it just makes thing more complicated. If you refuse the call you have to pay the price. Holdan dose pay the price. He becomes all alone. Except him everyone else accepts the call and enters in the world of unknown.

It takes a long time to him to accept the call. What all we know is he accepts the call and enters in the world of adulthood. He denies to tell us anything els about himself.

And if i tell you the truth at first place, i am sort of convinced with this explanation.