Catcher In The Rye Themes

Many people can agree that the Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger has many themes that can be interpreted several ways. Some people think that the novel has a simple theme of a misunderstood boy who just does not want to grow up. On the other hand, some think that the story deals with more complex themes about life and death, while others believe the theme revolves around Holden’s outlook on masculine success. The one thing that these different themes have in common is that they try to explain why Holden behaves the way he does in the story.
One of the most common themes that is thought to be concluded in the story is that Holden is a afraid to grow up. Now there are several different theories as to why Holden is afraid to grow up. Salinger …show more content…
Holden behaves so aggressively and childish because during a time where he supposed to be transitioning from being an adolescent into an adult he had to deal with the death of his little brother Allie. In the novel, Holden mentions frequently that his mother is still having trouble coping with Allie’s death; Edwin even goes as far as to say,” that in [Holden] eye[‘]s his mother is so preoccupied with Allie that she continues to neglect Holden, as presumably she did when Allie was dying” (Miller). And if you keep looking deeper into the book you can look at Holden’s actions you can see that he is also having a tough time coping with the death of Allie. For instance, the night that Allie died Holden spent the night trying to punch all of the windows out of his parent’s car. In hindsight Holden thought it was stupid that he tried to do it and does not even understand while he tried because all he did was break his hand. Miller believes that Holden did this as because he was angry at his father, “who was powerless either to save Allie or to understand [him],” and because he knew he would be hospitalized and, “by injuring himself he received the attention and sympathy which were denied him during Allie's illness”(Miller). Another example that supports …show more content…
This theme is seems to be prevalent in the book because Holden dislikes any successful man in the book. Alex Pitofsky points out that “any male character associated with wealth, prestige, or authority will elicit a hostile response from {Holden}” (Pitofsky). For Instance, Holden describes his brother as“[being] out in Hollywood... being a prostitute”(Salinger 1) . He also believed that the way that Mr.Ossenburger acquired his money from his funeral services had to be in way that was sketchy. Just because Mr. Ossenburger was a successful man. He’s so jealous of the the musician at the nightclub he calls him a,“a big fat colored guy that plays the piano”(Salinger 80) . He calls him that to downplay the musician’s talents. Another thing that can be seen in the book is that Holden won’t participate in things that involve masculine competition. For instance Holden calls guys who play golf and ping-pong “stupid” and instead of participating sports at Pencey he settles for being a equipment manager (Salinger 123). On the other hand, Holden does like the company of women,“ because his relationships with them are generally based on affection, not on competition” (Pitofsky). In the book Holden loves hanging out with the nuns, empathises with a prostitute, and finds his classmate’s mother very endearing. The only time that Holden calls a woman a demeaning name is if they like snobby,

Show More

The Theme In Catcher In The Rye