Holden's Dream Job feat. My Thought Process

After following Holden's story throughout the book, there has been 1 major question that I have wondered.  What does the title mean?  Finally towards the end of the book, Holden mentions "Catcher in the Rye" once.  In the book he tells his sister that he wants to be a Catcher of kids that are trying to run off of a cliff, which is all in rye.  But, I don't think this is meant to be taken literally.  After thinking about this, I realized that Holden wants to be the savior of kids, the cliff is something he sees as danger for them, and the rye is something that blinds them.  But what could the danger be, as this seems to be the key to the metaphor?  At first I thought is was phoniness, or being a phony because that is something that Holden really dislikes.  But then I looked at all of the people he called phony.  His teachers, the principals, the teens around him, pretty much everybody else....except kids.  Maybe the danger is growing up?  Throughout the book Holden has praised the kids around him, Allie, Phoebe, the girl at the park, to name a few.  He seems to love the thing that makes them kids, their childhood innocence.  He even mentions that when he talks about how when adults say thanks it's an obligation, but when kids say it, they say it genuinely.  So maybe Holden wants to "catch" the kids (or maybe their innocence) from the "cliff" of growing up.  The last part is the rye.  I think the rye symbolizes the desire of the children to grow up.  In the second to last chapter of the book, when Holden and Phoebe are at the carousel, Holden talks about how when kids want something, you have to let them get it.  Maybe this desire is the what the rye symbolizes.   So, Holden's dream job is not just to catch kids from falling of a cliff in a giant field of rye, but to save them from becoming adults and making sure they keep their childhood innocence.

Expectations

What are these things

That are bearing down on me?

A presumption, a promise,

A probability.

That I'll grow up,

with a Ph.D

In engineering, or healing,

or psychology.

Now why should I listen?

Why should I care?

I don't have to eat your apples

When I can eat my own pear.

I don't really want to sit

In an office all day,

Looking at the same screen,

And waiting for my pay.  

So what's holding me back?

What won't let me soar?

The fear of my dreams,

becoming a bore?

Or maybe my parents

With all their support,

Trying to make them proud

And then falling short.   

But what did they tell me?

What did they let me know?

That they're proud of me, 

Wherever I go.

I hope it's true,

But I can't help feeling,

These unearthly expectations,

That always keep me reeling.

I guess I'll just tackle them,

Going 1 by 1,

Checking off more and more

Until there are none. 

An impossible task,

One I can never outrun,

No more fighting or flighting,

For now I am done.

A Quote for Life

"Nobody'd be different.  The only thing that would be different would be you."

In chapter 16, Holden looks for his sister, Phoebe.  He finds out that Phoebe might have gone to the Museum of Natural History with her class, so he decides to walk there. On his way there, Holden thinks about when he used to go to the Museum with his class.  He talks about how everything in the Museum always stayed the same, from the birds flying in the air to the Eskimo fishing.  It is at this time that Holden says the quote I chose.

This quote isn't just about a museum, it's a quote about life itself.  But, the museum is a great way to think about it.  Every museum has moving exhibits, but the bulk of the exhibits stay the same and don't change.  For example the Louvre, a museum in France, has all these famous paintings, like the Mona Lisa and Madonna on the Rocks.  They don't ever take those paintings down and put something else up.  The paintings are there year round.  There are some parts of the Louvre that do change, but the bulk of the exhibits stay the same.  Just like in life how the city you grow up in pretty much stays the same.  Some places may open, some places may close, but all the houses are still there, and all the roads are still there.  The only thing different about the city would be you if you came back 5 years later.  

I think that this quote is significant to Holden because from the moment he leaves his school, He has gone back to his past.  When he goes to New York, he goes to places he's gone before.  Everything has stayed the same in these places, but Holden has a different experience because he himself had changed.  For example, Holden tells us that Sally Hayes was phony as ever on their date, but before he never made her cry.  The same can be said for Carl Luce.  Carl wasn't really different than before, but Holden kept asking him questions he didn't want to answer.  In both cases, Holden is the one who changed.  Because he changed, the other people in his life had different reactions then he thought they would have.  It is kind of hard to tell this because the book is written from Holden's perspective, but both times, Holden speaks first to start the chain of events.  

Slightly Earlier Late-Night Thoughts About Holden Caulfield

In chapters 13-14, I was kind of left speechless after what happened to Holden.  I mean, first he hires a prostitute from a pimp in an elevator and then ends up paying 5 bucks to talk to the prostitute.  Then, he gets beat up by the pimp for not paying him more money and pretends he is shot?  I don't know, it just seems like only Holden Caulfield could get in a situation like that.  If I was in his position I would have flagged the pimp in the elevator from the start.  I mean, what kind of pimp works out of an elevator?  Only a shady one would do that.  Then, if I somehow got in the situation of having a pimp and a prostitute come to my room demanding money, I would probably give them the money.  If I'm not mistaken, Holden is pretty rich already as he is staying in a hotel multiple nights and he still has money for  a cab and going out to bars/parties.  What's another 5 bucks to me anyway, I would just hand them the bill and tell them to go somewhere else.  But I guess that's what makes me and Holden different.  Also the fact that Holden can get depressed enough to buy a prostitute.  I'm pretty sure that I will never get that depressed, but if I do, it will be a sad day indeed.

Anyway, back to the point.  I started out in this book liking Holden a lot because he seemed like a pretty cool guy.  But, you think you know someone and they do something crazy.  Don't get me wrong, I still like Holden because I could see that he was really depressed, something that I hope to never feel.  The depression was what drove him to take such drastic measures, not himself, so I guess it's not entirely his fault, but let's just say I'm starting to walk toward the base of a fence that I may climb up when it comes to Holden.

Friend, Foe......or both?

"Better is one's own duty imperfectly carried out than following perfectly the law of another.  Better is death in the fulfillment of one's own law, for to follow another's law is perilous." - The Bhagavad Gita

For me, the first part of this quote means that it is better for someone to do what they want, even if there is mistakes, instead of conforming and doing what other people want you do to perfectly.  An example of this would be like in college.  It would be better to be yourself and do what you want than join a fraternity/sorority  and do what ever they want you to do perfectly. 

The second part of this quote, to me, means that it is better to die sticking to what you believe because following what someone else does is a slippery slope that could lead you to places you don't want.  This makes a lot of sense when you think about it because you know exactly where you are headed if you do what you want, and you won't put yourself into harms way.  Also, following what someone else wants you to do may make you do illegal things and/or things you don't believe in.  Before you know it, you will become a different person, maybe not even a person anymore but a pawn in someone else's chess game of life.  

I think this relates to Holden because he is a person who does what he wants.  Even though he makes mistakes like hiring a prostitute, drinking, and smoking, he does these because he himself wants to do them.  He isn't a pawn of someone else's game and I don't think he has ever done what someone else has wanted him to do, except write the composition for Stradlater, which he apparently failed at.  Other than that one example, I can't think of any other time where he follows what someone else wants him to do.  What Holden does is pretty much what the quote says to do, carrying out one's own duty imperfectly rather than following what someone else wants.  

The quote I decided to do was another quote from the Bhagavad Gita, "A man's own self is his friend.  A man's own self is his foe."  This reminded me of Holden because in many ways Holden is not only a friend to himself, but also a foe.  In fact, he might be more of a foe to himself than friend.  He is a foe to himself because he has never gotten over the death of his brother.  This caused him to do crazy things, and now he has permanent damage to his body because of it.  But he is also a friend to himself because at the end of the day, he does things that he knows will be okay for him.  He hired a prostitute because he was depressed, but he realized what he was about to do, and told himself not to do it, something only a friend could do.  

I would say that this quote connects to me because I do things as a friend and as a foe all the time.  Take this blog post for instance.  I just got back from a long day of defending the cyber space from a team of hackers who wanted to get in.  Further more, I got about 3 hours of sleep last night and have only had about a 1 hour nap, so I'm running on 4 hours of sleep in the last 24 hours.  There is no way I would be able to wake up in time to meet the deadline of these blogs tomorrow, so I'm making myself stay up and finish the blog posts before I go to bed.  Even though I don't want to do it and want nothing more than to get up, walk to my room and fall asleep on my bed, I know I can't because I know that I won't get up tomorrow until at least 12:30 in the afternoon.  I'm just not a morning person.  

Although I just portrayed myself as such a noble person in the last paragraph, that may be a slight exaggeration.  I actually got to my house at  around 9:45 and spent the first 20 minutes of my time eating ice cream and figuring out how to setup some tablet thing I won in a raffle at the same competition.  That's 20 minutes that I could have saved and 20 extra minutes of sleep I could have gotten, but I chose not to for some reason I have no idea why.  I even knew that it was a bad idea but I acted as a foe and disregarded all of the reason I was trying to tell myself.

As you can see, I just found an example of being a friend and foe to myself in that last hour.  If you can find 1 per hour, just think about how many times there are each week, or month.  It seems to me that life is a tug of war between being a friend to yourself and being a foe to yourself.  Oh, and maybe a little time in between for ice cream!

Old Holden Caulfield

I think Holden Caulfield is a good person.  There may be some bad things about him, but the good far outweighs the bad.  For example, in chapter 10, Holden writes, "The band was putrid.  Buddy Singer.  Very brassy, but not good brassy—corny brassy.  Also, there were very few people my age in the place.  In fact, nobody was around was my age.  They were mostly old, show-offy-looking guys with their dates" (Salinger 69).  Even though that's pretty mean, he writes what he thinks is right, which is a lot better than someone who tells you what you want to hear.  Later in the chapter he meets three girls, two of which are pretty ugly from what he describes.  But even though he says that he dances with all three of them, which is kind of him.  Another thing that is bad about Holden is that he lies a lot.  Especially about his name.  In chapter 8 he lies to Ernest Morrow's mom about his name and in chapter ten he also lies about his name to those girls.  But when you think about it, Holden is actually carefully protecting his identity.  He doesn't want people to know he's in New York, so he uses different names so people won't find out.  Also, he doesn't know the people he's talking to, so, he's being safe too.

The last thing I want to say about Holden is that he's a real person.  He says what he wants to and he doesn't care if people don't like it.  Even though he seems mean, these are the feelings he's expressing about the people.  He doesn't ever say those things to their face, so he's not hurting anyone else's feelings.

Grief

After reading chapter 5, I felt really bad for Holden.  Not only does a family member die, but one who was younger than him.  If I was in his position, I would be really spooked to already outlive someone.  But I can't really relate to what he's feeling because I don't think I've ever had something of that nature happen to me.  Nobody in my family that I've met has died in my family.  I mean, yeah my dad's parents are gone, but they died before I was even born.  I might feel bad if I had met them and remembered them, but for some reason I don't.  Whenever I think about it, I feel like a bad person.  What kind of person doesn't feel bad about their grandparents being dead?

Anyway, my impressions on Holden didn't really change that much.  I thought and still do think that he's a pretty awesome guy who says what he wants because after all, this is his journal, right?  After reading this I  think I understand why he doesn't do very good in school.  I think it's because he doesn't want to be as good as Allie was, or at least as good he remembers Allie to be.  When someone is gone, all you have left of them is memories and some personal items, so you don't want to mess those up because then your slowly getting rid of the person who's gone.  Holden obviously doesn't want to get rid of Allie, so he gets bad grades to keep the same comparison of smartness to Allie.  That could be a reason, I don't know, but it makes sense to me.  I think this shows that Holden is still dealing with Allie's death, and may end up dealing with it for the rest of his life.  He still has his hand that can't make a fist to remind him, and he has his memories that he'll never forget.

After reading about Holden's reaction to Allie being dead, I thought about what I would if my sister died before I did, any family member for that matter.  Like I said, I really don't have any experiences with grief, so I don't know how I would react.  I'm already pretty reserved with my emotions already, so I don't think it will be as crazy as punching windows out of my garage, but it makes my wonder...

Late Night/Early Morning Thoughts about Holden Caulfield

DISCLAIMER: It's 1:28 AM right now (Or at least that is what my laptop clock says) and I just had two cups of black coffee, so things may not be as eloquent as I want them to be, but I hope my writing is good enough to get my point across. 

Well right off the bat, I definitely sympathize with Holden because he just got kicked out of his school, although he sounds like he doesn't care.  Even though he sounds like that, I kind of think he does care because no matter who you are in the world, you feel self-conscious at one point or another.  It's just human nature, there's no way around it.  I've felt self-conscious before, you (the reader) have felt self-conscious, and anyone who tells themselves they've never felt self-conscious is lying to themselves.  

From what I've experienced, when you tell people that you don't care about something, you really do.  Or, you have had some bad experience that makes you feel like you don't have control over anything so why should you care about what happens?  There are probably many more reasons for someone not caring about something, but it also depends on the person you are talking about.  Take Holden for example, in The Catcher and The Rye, Salinger writes, "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth" (Salinger 1).  This first sentence sets the whole mood of the book.  From this quote,  I think that Caulfield wants us to think that he doesn't care about anything because he is too cool.  He tries to mask his uncertainty about how we will perceive him by talking about how he doesn't care about anything, and how so many things annoy him.  That is why I sympathize with him.  He is afraid to show his true self to us, and is instead hiding behind a mask of false carelessness which is not big enough to cover everything up.  A prime example of this is towards the end of chapter 4 when Holden talks about Jane Gallagher.  You can definitely tell that he really cares about her, because he repeats what he says about her to Stradlater two to three times, and he also talks a lot about going down to say "Hi" to Jane even though he never does do it.  

I guess I can empathize with him a little bit too because sometimes I'm not that interested in a certain subject either and I see why he failed that paper, but on the other hand I see why Mr. Spencer was mad at him:  He didn't even try!  I think that's what separates me from him, he seems to not care about his grades while I care a lot about my good grades.  I also empathize with his loss of interest because of our school on the verge of closing.  I can still remember the week of and after the announcement that our school would be shutting down.  I don't think we did very much in school, and even now, I have little to none inspiration to work.  There just seems to be nothing to look forward to anymore.  While Holden's school isn't being shut down, Holden is getting kicked of the school, which is like our school closing except teachers don't lose their job and only one person has to leave school.  Another example of out similarities is the Disclaimer I put at the top of this post, and the note he left at the bottom of his paper for Mr. Spencer.  Although his note was about his lack of interest and mine was about writing at a way late time, I can feel how he tried to work on the paper but eventually gave up caring and trying because he got frustrated.  

Towards chapters 3 and 4, I started to pass judgement on him because of this, "I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life.  It's awful.  If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera.  It's terrible" (Salinger 16).  I'll admit I lie, but not for reasons like that.  I don't know why he would lie an say he's going to the opera instead of a store, but I guess this was an older book where going to the store must have been for adults only.  Whenever I lie, it's because the lie is better than the truth sometimes.  The more I think about lies, the more I think that maybe they aren't always the bad things to do.  I mean if you tell certain kids that they were adopted during the school year when they learn about family, you are bound to have an awkward, even bad relationship with your adopted kid as they grow older.  I really wish I could think of another example, but I'm blanking out right now.   

Another reason why I sort of passed judgement of Caulfield during chapter 4 was the part where he puts Stradlater in a half nelson and keeps him there until Stradlater breaks free.  I think this shows that there is some violence under neath his not-caring act and hidden self-conscious.  This is something that scares me because in the book Caulfield just says that he felt like putting his own roommate in a half nelson.  

That's pretty much all I've got to say about Holden Caulfield so far.  He definitely is an interesting character with a lot of depth.  But it's been an hour since the coffee and I'm getting really tired, so I'm off to bed.