Childhood

Throughout the entire book, and even looking back, I am fascinated with Holden's obsession to childhood. This book is known as a Coming of age story, but an unusual one at that. Holden is an interesting protagonist to the idea of coming of age as Holden's central goal is to resist the idea of maturity.

There are many instances throughout the book where you see him protest the ways of maturity, assimilating with things that are fixed in society, things that don't change. However, Holden never quite acknowledges that the concept of adulthood scares and perplexes him. Instead he describes how this concept is superficial and phony (a theme that re-occurs a lot throughout the book). Inversely, the world of childhood is innocent, curious, and honest. His goal in life is to preserve this idealistic world that he has invented, to stop children from calling over the cliff into a superficial and phony world. Over the course of these few days, Holden combats and cuts himself off from the adult world by protecting himself with this metaphorical armor of skepticism, perhaps cynicism.

To me this denial of maturity defeats the purpose of growing up or coming of age. The whole concept of coming of age is to accept the personal and mental growth in both maturity and age, through both experiences as well as learned characteristics. Holden seems to revert to childhood ways in situations that would require or challenge his personal maturity. He gets caught up in childhood, the people he loved in his childhood, and things that seem to stand steady and stuck in their roots.

While I loved the book, and it was definitely a nice transition from Portrait, I am stuck in my thoughts on the outcome. I struggle to find more than a few instances where he "came of age", something that I think should be more apparent in a book of this sub-genre.

Has He Landed?

Throughout the entire book there is this paradox of flight -  A direct reference to Daedalus and Icarus. You see him navigate through his own teenage and early adulthood life through a so called ‘labyrinth’ and then decide to take flight. But I would argue he never ended his flight by landing. Perhaps it comes in the later books that Joyce wrote, but perhaps he never makes that landing. It all goes back to the whole idea of what coming of age really is… He has made this life changing decision, this huge life decision to pursue art, but does that mark his peak of maturity. Does the plateau of maturity now consume his character? I keep coming Back to Stephen in my everyday thoughts. I have found myself thinking about him, meeting people who’s character I assimilate with his, and just questioning his existence. I want closure on where he landed, if he landed.

On another and completely opposite note, Holden Caulfield. His whole demeanor completely contradicts the character that we just saw developed in the other book. It was an interesting switch between the two, reaffirming the stark contrast between every individual and the way that they enter and exit this Coming of Age paradigm. I am reminded that not one way is better, not one set of internal thoughts is more worthy of attention from the reader. Both characters are deserving of a story, and both characters are deserving of their own voice. However, I do hope to draw some connections throughout the rest of Catcher in the Rye in order to grasp a more accurate understanding of this genre novel.