CATCHER IN THE RYE ESSAY

SHIP LOST IN THE SEA

A ship which is lost in the sea of adulthood and facing the terrible tornado of time and a castle full of knights on the walls, with shields to protect them from the arrows of change. Those wars and storms were happening in the heart of an adolescent, our protagonist, throughout the novel of J.D. Salinger, The Catcher In The Rye. In the novel there were significant places or objects that describe something about Holden such as ducks, hunting hats etc. But I believe the most interesting motif in the novel was the museum and glass cases. In this book Salinger uses a motif relating to the museum and glass cases to show how Holden fears change so that he wants to put everything behind glasses like they are just figures to prevent time from having an impact on their lives. This demonstrates that generally people who saw through the lies of the adult world don’t want change to happen because they think that it doesn’t not make people better, only worse.

Glass cages and the museum have a special place in Holden's inner world which deserves explanation through the novel. Holden is a teenager who is afraid to bond with people and hates change. He likes things to stay where they are, stay the same. He mentions his thoughts about things staying the same when he said that “You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole...”(65). The reason Holden fears change is mostly about children and their innocence. Since Holden is a teenager and he is stepping into the adult world, full of lies and phoniness, he does not want children to go down the same path he did and become liars and have a hard time transitioning. This is why he hates time to affect people, mostly children, because then they would face the disgusting behaviors of humanity . After he went into a tomb in the museum, he says that “I was the only one left in the tomb then. I sort of liked it, in a way. It was so nice and peaceful” (110). This is because there are no lies of the adult world, everything is real. Those are some of the reasons Holden has a special place for the museum in his heart. He sees it as a castle, as a shelter from the tornado of time. This is why he said “I can't wait around till Wednesday any more so I will probably hitch hike out west this afternoon. Meet me at the Museum of art near the door at quarter past 12 if you can and I will give you your Christmas dough back. I didn't spend much. Love, HOLDEN” where he was planning to leave the town and say goodbye to Phoebe at the museum (108). He wanted the museum to protect Phoebe from the adult world. He does not want her to go into a war against the adult world just as he did. He desires that for all the children. He wishes them to stay innocent, away from lies and time and safe in the shelters behind the museum glass. This is what the motif of museum glasses were all about through the novel.

Holden’s fears of change and desires of trapping time behind the museum and glass cases were demonstrated successfully by Salinger throughout the novel. He took us through the world of adolescence and revealed the feeling he had just like any other teenager: battling against the world, all alone with the fear of change. However, he did not teach us the meaning we should be searching for while reading which is we can summarize as: There may be storms of time and pirates of phonies in our sea of life but that does not mean we should be desperate and give up because after every dark cloud of change, there are new days waiting ahead.

Mahir KAYA

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This essay was a class project for the book "Catcher In The Rye".

DATE: MAY 7, 2020

AUTHOR: MAHIR KAYA

BOOK BY J.D. SALINGER