The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most controversial stories of the last sixty years. Since its publication in 1951, there have been numerous attempts to ban JD Salinger's tale about the angry young man known as Holden Caulfied, for reasons as various as extensive swearing and the fact Holden is not the best role model for the children who would read the book in school or outside of it. Despite this, the thematic elements present in the story make for a well-written, expressive tale about a young man searching for something.
Holden Caulfield
Seventeen-year-old Holden Caulfield is getting kicked out of Pencey Prep, his fourth school to either flunk out of or be expelled from, and intends to head home to New York City the Wednesday after he returns to school from Manhattan with the fencing team. Holden's roommate, Ward Stradlater, asks him to write a descriptive paper about "Anything. Anything descriptive. A room. Or a house. Or something you once lived in or something – you know. Just as long as it's descriptive as hell." (Chapter 4) while Stradlater goes on a date with Holden's former girlfriend Jane.
Holden decides to write about the baseball glove his little brother Allie had, poems written all over the leather so Allie would have something read while standing in the outfield. The lenghty description about Allie, who died of cancer several years ago, is the first time Holden universally praises anyone. He reveres the deceased Allie as a paragon of innocence, someone who never gets mad, and had the best laugh of anyone.
Catcher in the Rye
The protection of innocence is the main theme of The Catcher in the Rye, as shown this first time by how highly Holden speaks of Allie. Even when Holden finds out Stradlater is going on a date with Jane, all he can think about is how often they played checkers when they were dating. Holden's default tone of angry derision returns when, during his story about Jane, all Stradlater responds to is a statement that Jane's stepfather used to walk around the house naked with Jane around. Not even that she had, in Holden's words, a bad childhood. "That didn't interest Stradlater, though. Only very sexy stuff interested him." (Chapter 4)
Protecting the innocent and innocence in general even plays into the title of the story itself. In a conversation with his younger sister Phoebe, Holden relates that he sees himself as standing at the edge of a cliff that's on one side of a rye field and his job is to catch the kids running through the rye field if they stray too close to the cliffside. Phoebe herself is exemplified as innocent and is the only one that Holden feels truly comfortable speaking with.
The Phonies of Elkton Hills
A secondary theme is the derision of the type of people Holden calls phonies. The headmaster at his old school – Elkton Hills – was, in Holden's words, one of the biggest phonies of them all. "I mean if a boy's mother was sort of fat or corny-looking or something, and if somebody's father was one of those guys that wear those suits with very big shoulders and corny black-and-white shoes, then old Hans would just shake hands with them and give them a phony smile and then he'd go talk, for maybe a half an hour, with somebody else's parents." (Chapter 1)
Holden regularly trashes the people he calls phonies, even going so far as to believe practically everyone is a phony. Everyone at his school, including all the faculty and students except for Mr. Spencer, is classified with this label. Holden is surprised, in fact, when he meets the mother of a classmate who he hates on the train back to New York and she isn't similar to her son at all.
Holden's Fear of Change
Holden also has a distinct fear of change. He decides, after going to Central Park, to walk into the Museum of Natural History. Once there, he remarks that the best thing about the museum is that all the exhibits stay the same. The Eskimos, stuffed birds, and Native American exhibits are static and don't alter ... no matter if you go back the next day or the next year. The one thing that changes is the person viewing them. This is something Holden doesn't enjoy in the slightest.
By the end of the story, Holden has accepted both the potential goodness of change and that you can't protect the innocent from everything. Sometimes, he muses, children have to go for "the gold ring," the dangerous things, so they can learn about life for themselves.
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