Growing Up In Catcher In The Rye

I see myself portrayed as Holden Caulfield, the boy who tried to refuse the process of growing up. Holden and I both have come to a revelation of not wanting to grow up due to the exposure of the nasty secrets of the world. Through his discovery, he starts to act strangely, some actions include running away and pretending to be mature by drinking. Although people may categorize those actions and think that that someone is mentally ill, those actions are really a reflection of what an ordinary child transitioning into adulthood would do. Some of those traits are contradicting oneself, being critical of others, not wanting to change and being moody. In The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger shows how Holden is relatable to me and many other …show more content…
In the novel, Holden often shows the reader what he wishes for. He talks about how he wishes things could stay put: “Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone” (122). When Holden goes to this museum which he has been to before, he sees these big glass cases with objects in it that would never change. The people would come back and be different but the glass cases at the museum don’t change. One can see that Holden wants to preserve his youth and the people in it. He explains this wishful idea further when visiting Phoebe, he tells her, “Anyways, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids and nobody’s around-nobody big, I mean- except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. ... I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff- I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them” (173). In other words, Holden is metaphorically saying that he wants to catch little kids from falling off a cliff, the cliff of growing up. He wants them to not lose their innocence and be oblivious to the world’s dirty secrets. Through his want of catching all the children, he shows how he doesn’t want to grow up. From the glass cases and the catcher in the rye, one can see that Holden doesn’t want life to change, he wants to stay in his childhood where there were more happy memories. In essence, Holden connects very much to me. I, like Holden don’t want to change. I want to stay in the time when I was a child. Life was easier and more innocent, one could play in the fields or rye, or in simpler words, play around and not worry. I also want to catch my friends, the ones who are “falling off the cliff” and bring

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