I just finished Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and was very impressed with the writing and the message Salinger got across. The theme that really struck me was about the growing pains of adulthood. Holden, the main character, seems to point this out quite often. At every chance he gets, Holden illustrates the hypocrisy and superficiality of adults, and how they interact with each other. He paints a comparative picture on how childhood is about innocence, honesty, and curiosity and that dividing line between adults and children are very clearly drawn. However, Holden’s conception of adulthood and childhood are not true. Since adulthood is difficult to simplify or clearly understand, Holden writes it off as hypocritical and superficial, and he isolates himself from it.
I can easily identify with Holden’s conception of adulthood. I once attributed childhood or being young with idealism and a hopeful innocence, that everything is honest, good, and real. I wanted to hold on to it for as long as I could because I thought adulthood meant compromising my values, honesty, and integrity in order to make a living and survive. Similar to Holden again, I thought that all adults took part in superficial conversations and hypocritical actions to make a living and survive. This idea simply is not true. It would make it easier if it were, but it isn’t. This is why I really enjoyed reading this book at this particular time in my life. Nothing in life is black and white. It is easy to write something off as all good or all bad simply because we fear it. So we protect ourselves with cynicism and cut ourselves off from that reality because deep down we are really scared. It would be too easy if everything were easily understood, labeled, and eternally fixed, but it is not. Life is complex and complicated just as adulthood is.
I was as frightened as Holden because I feared that I was guilty of the same things that I criticized in others, so I fought that reality. I wanted to stay young, idealistic, and uncompromising forever. Like the metaphor Holden uses in wanting to be the catcher in the rye, catching the children from falling off the cliff, which symbolized adulthood equivalent to death. I thought that adulthood meant death. Not so much in the physical sense, but who you were as a person before that, your hopes, dreams, and passions washed away giving you a standard identity that is no different than anyone else’s. I would never get to be one of the hopeful happy children running around in the rye anymore. I would lose that identity completely. I think that is what Holden fears the most about adulthood too. However, nothing in life is that black and white.
This is evident when Holden speaks with Mr.Antolini. Many quotes in this conversation stuck out to me. One of them was “‘The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one'” (244). This one made a lot of sense to me. I think children feel invincible. From the influence of superhero books and other media, they probably think that in order to be all good you have to martyr yourself to the extreme of defending this one all good cause. However, that is a very childish view as Mr. Antonlini points out to Holden. Once a child matures as an adult, he or she realizes that he or she can live for this noble cause, from a place of humility, rather than dying for it.
The next quote that stuck out to me was “…’And I hate to tell you,…’but I think that once you have a fair idea where you want to go, your first move will be to apply yourself in school. You’ll have to. You’re a student – whether the idea appeals to you or not. You’re in love with knowledge” (245). Similar to Holden, I hated secondary school and school in general. It was not that I was not interested in learning, because I was. I was in love with learning, reading, and writing, but I hated the bureaucratic style school was structured in. However, in order to get to the place where you affect change and make a difference, school is a rite of passage in society. It is a mark to establish credibility and build your skills. Mr. Antolini made this clear to Holden.
The quote that really made me think deeply about life, value, and contributions was this one. “Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry…I’m not trying to tell you…that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It’s not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they’re brilliant and creative to begin with – which, unfortunately, is rarely the case – tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men who do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And – most important – nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker” (246). This quote simply says it all to me. After internalizing his words, I can see that Mr. Antolini argues that a good education provides us with the necessary tools to clearly articulate our thoughts, pinpoint them, and live by them. Without them, we might be brilliant and creative, but we are brilliant and creative at a lost. We can never contribute things of value to others to give hope, inspiration, and become more than just ourselves. To be educated and to be scholarly means that we can understand that we are a part of something greater than just ourselves and be humbled by that idea.
@TheHungryVC 