Symbols in The Catcher in the Rye In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger many symbols are used to show a deeper meaning for the people, objects and places Holden Caulfield comes in contact with during the story. Holden is often unable to connect to or make relationships with other people, and his encounters usually end with him alone and feeling insecure. Holden deals with these insecurities by looking for the phoniness in others. But his failures are something that he cannot truly run from, no matter how often he tries. Holden sees the innocence of childhood and dreams of protecting that innocence by being a catcher in the rye. But sooner or later Holden will realize that eventually children grow up. In The Catcher in the Rye …show more content…
I saw it in the window of this sports store when we got out of the subway, just after I noticed I’d lost all the goddam foils” (17). Almost right after buying the hat and losing the foils Holden uses it to hide from his mistakes. Holden’s hunting hat makes him unique from others, making him, in a sense, separated from other people. He is also insecure about his hat and won’t really wear it around some people. Holden shows this when he says, “I took my old hunting hat out of my pocket while I walked, and put it on. I knew I wouldn’t meet anybody that knew me…” (122). Holden likes being different, but he also desires to be like others. He enjoys trying to connect with other people, but every encounter seems to go poorly for him. The red hunting hat connects to the novel as a whole because it symbolizes Holden’s inner struggle for both companionship and isolation. In the Catcher in the Rye these symbols represent problems that Holden faces throughout the novel. Scarred by his brother’s death, Holden has always found comfort in the purity of children. Even Holden’s hunting hat is red, like the color of Phoebe and Allie’s hair. Holden has developed this image that children are innocent and pure, and he is disturbed by the fact that they cannot remain that way forever. When he saw the swear words on the school wall, he never thought of the possibility that one of the students could have written them there .
Holden Caulfield’s red hunting hat is mentioned throughout the novel, like a motif, but it does not just display
The novel The Catcher In The Rye, by J.D. Salinger, contains many complex symbols, many of the symbols in the book are interconnected. A symbol is an object represents an idea that is important to the novel. I believe the most important symbol in this novel is Holden 's idea of being the "catcher in the rye".
1) Page 16: Holden explains that his hat represents his individuality. Even though his hat looks “very corny” turned around, he likes that it looks different from the way anyone else would wear
In 1951 J.D. Salinger writes The Catcher in the Rye. This book tells a tail about a 16 year old boy who is afraid of changing. Holden Caulfield has yet again for the fourth time been expelled from school. For failing his classes except for english. He leaves Pencey Prep 3 days early and sets out on an adventure to find himself. Holden travels to New York and rents a hotel only to make a mistake and have a prostitute over. Maurice you delivered her to him comes back to the room to get Holden to pay up the rest of the money. Back talking results in Holden getting beat up. Maurice leaves after he gets the money, whist list Holden starts to cry. Later in the book Holden meets nuns and has a conversation with them that he enjoys. After his day with the nuns Holden meets up with his brother's ex-girlfriend Sally. Only their date doesn't last long as Holden tells her "you give me a royal pain in the ass" (Salinger 148) resulting in Sally crying and the date ending. Fast forward he meets with his sister Phoebe and tells what happened. As Holden is going through a rough time he gets checked into a mental institution. In The Catcher in the Rye Salinger uses 3 symbols to describe Holden's feelings. The 3 symbols that explain Holden's feelings, Holden's red hunting hat, the ducks in the lagoon, and Allie's baseball mitt. The three symbols represent Holden's fear of changing from a child and becoming an adult. Which he calls "phony".
Ergo, the symbolism that is shown throughout Holden’s story are symbols that are proven to be relevant today due to the fact that they are general situations life throws to one. Unconformity, loneliness, and uncertainty are all uniquely experienced by all therefore; reoccurring in lives and relevant to today. The symbols in The Catcher in the Rye are present symbols of the days of our
Everyone is born into the world innocent, wouldn't you want to preserve that innocence? In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, we meet Holden Caulfield, who recounts this one weekend before he was sent to a mental hospital. Throughout the novel, we are shown different symbols present this weekend, Holden brings them out in certain situations. These symbols are a representation of the innocence from his childhood that he doesn't want to leave behind as he transitions into adulthood, as he likes things to stay the same, he doesn't like change. Holden had a little brother named Allie, who unfortunately passed away due to leukemia.
In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield struggles with social and emotional connection with people, and throughout the story, the reader is led to believe that Holden has had many social struggles and tragedies during his childhood which frequently can cause someone to have mental health issues later in life. This is shown by many of the stylistic elements of the story. For example, symbolism is in use throughout the story of James Castle, the prep schools he goes to, and his brother Allie’s glove, these symbols bring to light a lot of topics that Holden was not very comfortable talking about directly due to his mental state. All over the story, Holden often states his ideas in a way that portrays, his mercurialness. He speaks in a tone
In the Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, there are many items of symbolism. The symbolism in the story keeps Holden sain. Some items of symbolism are Holden's’ brothers baseball mit, the schools Holden gets kicked out of, and the carousels gold rings. The baseball mit and the carousels’ gold rings are positive representation of symbolism, whereas the schools, are negative.
Arguably, the novel’s most obvious symbol can be found in the title. Holden discusses and explains with Phoebe that he wants to be the “catcher in the rye”. He imagines himself wearing a giant baseball glove, ready to catch the kids as they ponder and fall off the cliff while playing in the rye. The children in the poem symbolize childhood. Furthermore, the field in the poem represents innocence, the action of falling from the cliff is the fall from innocence. Moreover, Holden symbolizes the protector of children, he protects them from losing their innocence and childhood. Furthermore, it also represents his desire to avoid the harsh reality of the adult life. Ironically, Holden mistakes the meaning and words of the song, much in the same way he mistakes the cause of his torment, it comes from himself, not from others. For example, "I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'" I said. "Anyway, 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. What I have to do, 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
The first symbols that Salinger uses to convey his message is the red hunting hat. The main character of the novel Holden Caulfield has an iconic and important red and black hunting hat which he frequently wears in different situations for more than just its obvious use as a hat. Holden is a very secluded character and is very critical of the individualistic society that he lives in, often criticizing others for not being themselves and being “phonies”. Even the way that Holden acquired the hat is special and symbolic of Holden and the theme of the novel. While giving the reader some background on his
Holden Caulfield plays a timeless character in the sense that his way of life is common for the American teenager, in his time as well as now. Today parents dread the terrible and confusing adolescent years of their child's life. In J.D. Salinger's book, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden is in this terrible and confusing point of his life. At this point in his life, as well as in modern teenager's lives, a transition occurs, from child to adult. Holden takes this change particularly rough and develops a typical mentality that prevents him from allowing himself to see or understand his purpose in life.
Holden’s red hunting hat is one of the main symbols in the book, The Catcher in the Rye. The hat represents individuality and uniqueness. It symbolizes the confidence, self esteem, and comfort in who someone is. Holden is only willing to express himself when he is alone, with no one around. He looks for approval. Holden does not want to be seen negatively in any way. The hat is a symbol that Holden uses to tell Phoebe that she should always stay the same. Also, to tell her that she should be confident in whom she is, but, as Holden knows, Confidence and self-esteem can be easily broken. In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger uses Holden’s red hunting hat to symbolize Holden’s uniqueness and a sense security and comfort.
In The Catcher in the Rye, the color green is a symbol that represents innocence and how it has been lost. An example of this would be Sunny and her green dress: “I took her dress over to the closet and hung it up for her. It was funny. It made me feel sort of sad when I hung it up” (Salinger 107), this presents how green represents innocence. Holden feels upset hanging the prostitute’s dress up because he wants to keep innocence within her. The green dress is Holden’s way of thinking the prostitute is innocent, however when she takes off her dress, the facade of innocence disappears with it. Holden does not want the guilt of taking one's innocence, eventually Holden pays the prostitute to leave. Another time where green is symbolic of innocence is Allie and his fielder's mitt, “My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder’s mitt… The thing that was descriptive about it, though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink… He’s dead now. He got leukemia and died. ” ( Salinger 43). This continues the illustration the color green is symbolic of innocence. Allie is Holden's younger brother, but once Allie died, Holden is forced to grow up and give up his innocence. As a result, Holden
But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game” (8). Holden does not understand Spencer’s metaphor. Holden believes that life can only be a game if people are given advantages. From his point of view, he is one of the unlucky ones, but in reality he is on the side with the hot-shots, because he is given many advantages that others are not. Salinger emphasizes Holden’s immaturity in a very subtle way by having Holden’s authority figures always calling him “boy”. Both Mr. Spencer and Mr. Antolini call Holden “boy”. Of Spencer, Holden says, “I wished to hell he’d stop calling me ‘boy’ all the time” (12) and then later on, Antolini tells Holden, “You’re a very, very strange boy” (193). Both Mr. Spencer and Mr. Antolini recognize and acknowledge Holden’s immature behaviour in calling him “boy”. This only stresses the fact that Holden cannot seem to realize he is acting more like a child than a teenager. Holden’s red hunting hat is a very important symbol in The Catcher in the Rye. Holden uses this hat as a way to hide from society. He says, “That hat I bought had earlaps in it, and I put them on–I didn’t give a damn how I looked. Nobody was around anyway” (53). Holden thinks that wearing his red hunting hat makes him an individual, but in reality, he will only wear it when no one is around to judge him. It is his immaturity that makes him believe that he is being unique,
One of the literary devices in this novel is symbolism. Holden’s red hunting hat is the symbolic feature that alienates him from society. Ackley tells Holden “Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake… That’s a deer shooting hat” (Salinger 30), meaning Holden’s hat is only worn while hunting. Holden does not seem to care much for Ackley’s opinion and he wears it anyways. This shows Holden’s individuality and his uncommon desire compared