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Holden Caulfield Symbolism

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In the novel, “The Catcher in the Rye,” Salinger addressed several issues. Most importantly that of youth innocence in which his main character, Holden Caulfield faces this realization that youth is not permanent and instead of acknowledging that adulthood scares him, he invents a fantasy that adulthood is a world of superficial and full of hypocrisy, while childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty.Salinger expresses Holden’s belief with using a significant amount of symbolism using objects, places, and interpreted symbolic meaning such as death. Did you know that Holden Caulfield was originally first introduced in another book by J.D. Salinger? Holden’s character was introduced in the story “Slight Rebellion.” This story is …show more content…

First there was Stradlater and the fight that broke out between the two in which led to Holden being on the floor with a bloody nose. “Holden can only cry helplessly under the attack of such a powerful opponent,” which comments on how Holden is not ready for adulthood. Second there was the accident with the pimp Maurice where he basically punches Holden in the stomach forcing him to the ground in pain and takes his money.“ Then I stayed on the floor a fairly long time, sort of the way I did with Stradlater. Only, this time I thought I was dying. I really did. I thought I was drowning or something.” (Salinger 75) In both incidents, Holden’s physical strengths are not shown as strong as his strong minded mentality. In his situation, his mind doesn’t equal out to his thoughts. He acts and portrays himself to be a strong grown man but crashes at every little physical thing thrown at him such as a baby or child would act. Falling to the floor, throwing a fit- well as for Holden exaggerating pain, and not defending himself to outside dangers such as these …show more content…

Holden realize that nothing is ever completely permanent and that has to come sooner or later whether anyone is ready for it. Not only does human have to go through but all nature forces. Things may go back to the same, but it will never be exactly the way you left it such as things like age, hair, skin, clothes, or whatever else that you would desire to keep the same. More than objects to Holden can have symbolic meaning. In this novel Holden tells us the symbolic significance of the museum’s display. Holden wants the the world and society to be easily understandable and externally fixed as the displays in the museum. The appearance of everything standing still appeals to him because that is what he wants. He wants time to stand still so that his youth can be preserved but, despite what Holden wants he knows that stopping time would never happen. This is also why he is discouraged every time he visits the museum because everytime he does, he has changed physically. The museum is a representation of the ideal world that Holden wants to be

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Holden identifies innocence in this instance and through it shows maturity by not sleeping with her. Growing up/change is also shown when Holden visits the museum to kill time before his date with Sally. He says “The best thing...in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move” The museum presents him with a vision of life he can understand: it is frozen, silent, and always the same. He then goes on to state “‘Nobody’d be different.

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Additionally, his admiration for the museum exhibits, which remain frozen in time and unchanged, reflects his yearning for a world where innocence is preserved indefinitely. The theme of the novel revolves around innocence, as well as its protection and loss. It symbolizes Holden's tireless efforts to preserve and protect the innocence he perceives in himself and others. Holden's fixation on maintaining his innocence stems from his deep-seated disillusionment with the adult world, which he sees as deceitful, hypocritical, and corrupt. The central theme of the novel is Holden's struggle to maintain his own innocence combined with the realization that innocence cannot be preserved indefinitely.

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