FREE ESSAY ON CATCHER IN THE RYE

CATCHER IN THE RYE

The title of the book A Catcher in the Rye is reflected in the mistaken words of a poem by
Robert Burns. Holden thought it was If a body catch a body coming through the rye. That's
what he wanted to be. The only older individual in a group of kids in the rye, that he
would catch them before they fall off the cliff. Many events caused this belief or
illusion that he could stop people falling off and eventually he came to many
realisations.
Holden Caulfield was (believe it or not) an average teenager in an adult world with many
conflicting ideas and thoughts. He was trying to establish his own personality, and was
searching for secure values. Yet, he found nearly everyone and everything to be phoney.
He observed that the principal shook hands with rich parents while discarding the poorer
and that most people were hypocrites. It was these (plus many more phoney) elements that
Holden did not want the kids to see - kids like Phoebe. He was protecting them against
the adult and materialistic world and was 'catching' them before they fell. He had
already seen too many 'falls' and in fact it was these people who 'fell' who fell into
the category of non-phoniness. This was probably because Holden's memories of them
remained pure. Many people fell. James Castle 'fell' out of the window and Allie 'fell'
to death. He thought that these innocent people had gone. They had been eaten by the
phoniness and that they didn't have a 'catcher' to protect them from harm. Holden wanted
to prevent any more of this happening by being the 'catcher' himself.
But being the 'catcher' it distanced himself from many characters in the book. He stayed
away from everyone who he thought was phony, hypocritical, or had bad habits. In fact, he
did not come past many people who were not in the above category. What made him stay
away? As mentioned before, it was the adult world. He rejected them and they rejected
him. Only a few people like Phoebe even listened to him. He had told Sally to run away
with him to the west, but she thought he was crazy. Both Carl Luce and Robert Ackley had
told him to grow up. In the end Holden regards them as phonies. Hence, staying away from
them all. The only people that he approached or admired, were kids or people who were
dead. Therefore, it was this idea of being a 'catcher' that made him what he thought was
the fine line between the world of good and phoniess.
At the same time, Holden's want to be the 'catcher' also shows his immaturity. The fact
that he believed he could change the world, the way people behaved, and that he could
stop all the phoniess in the world. He attempted to rub out a 'f*** you' sign outside of
Phoebe's school. He was successful. He completely removed all the traces of the two words
and he was quite satisfied that did so. But it only late that he came to realisation that
could not alter everything. He later found another f*** you' sign. This time, scratched
with a rock. He found himself hopeless. Holden tried as hard as he could to remove the
sign but he started thinking. He thought that there would be a million signs just like
that one in the world. There was no way he could rub out all of them At this point, he
was helpless. The more the thought about it, the more he realised how impotent he was in
the world. He could not be the 'catcher in the rye'.
Could the reason for Holden's wanting to be a catcher be because there was no one to
catch him? When he went home, his parents were not there. That was a symbol that he
lacked his parents' love. To Holden, no one really cared for him. Even though Mr Spencer
tried to encourage him to do better and Mr Antolini gave him warmth and shelter when he
needed it, he believed that Spencer was a 'phony' and made up a half-witted excuse to
'get the hell out', while he thought Mr Antolini had some sort of sexual thing toward
guys. No one was really there for him when he needed them. Surely there were the girls
and and his roommates, but he simply treated them as a joke, as if their existence had
never really mattered. Probably the only one that came close was Phoebe. With her, Holden
talked (to a degree) intimately and openly about his thoughts. Even though she was young
and naive (yes, even though she is smart for her age), it gave comfort to Holden that
someone was listening to him. His lack of love brought him the want to be someone that
others could love, a lending hand, some sort of security. He wanted to be there for
others so that they do not fall into the phoney world.
Because Holden saw the world as phoney and pretentious, he wanted to be a 'catcher' to
stop a few of the innocent, such as Phoebe from going into the materialistic adult world.
His wish to be a 'catcher' showed his insecurity, immaturity and his illusioned view
towards everyone and everything. It resolves in the end when he came to realise that he
was incapable of being the catcher. He was useless in such a big world. The significance
of the title revolved around Holden, and because the book did the same, it was one of the
most important themes in The Catcher in the Rye.
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