Growing Up In Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye

“Welcome to the Machine”*

What is so appealing about being an adult as we are children and unappealing once we become adults? Probably, it is because that adulthood is not actually appealing at all, yet alluring. The process of growing up is painful and cruel which deludes one to think that the adulthood as a reward for surviving the process. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye and the poem “Prayer Before Birth”, J.D. Salinger and Louis MacNeice both show that growing up is an agonizing process which involves the allurement of the adult world, the abnegation of control and the corruption of identity. In the process of growing up, adulthood can be seen as an appealing and attractive term of life; however, actually it is a beguiling fiction

In The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger shows these advantages by Holden’s obsession about his age. Even though Holden hates growing up, he is still not content with his age, especially when he wants to flirt with ‘women’ and use alcohol. When a woman he tries to flirt with asks his age, Holden says “That annoyed me, for some reason.” (Salinger, 81) which shows that he is not satisfied with his age and what does it mean to others. Discrimination between the ‘adult’ and ‘child’ is inferred by the question. His age causes the woman to have a prejudice against Holden and to disdain him. Holden is aware of the fact that his age prevents older people, the woman in this case, to take him seriously and this prejudice towards age annoys him. Another example of the differentiation that age creates for Holden would be when he wants to order an alcoholic drink, the waiter explains that he can’t give him alcohol because of his age (Salinger, 78). The limitation that being a child causes makes him want to become an adult in order to be more free. Therefore, despite the fact that he sees adulthood as ‘phoniness’, the prejudice towards younger people and freedoms given to an adult makes him want to grow up only to overcome the bias and to have the freedom which only

Society’s stereotype expectations of a person make him/her lose the control over their dreams and purposes to meet the society’s. In the poem, persona asks for forgiveness with the verses “… forgive me for… my words/ when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,/ my treason engendered by traitors beyond me” (MacNeice, 13-15) which states how not in control of things the persona is. Even though the persona doesn’t explain who is ‘them’ and who is in the role of the ‘traitors’, it can be estimated that ‘traitors’ and ‘they’ represent society. Another verse “I fear that human race may with tall walls wall me”(MacNeice,5) emphasizes the lack of freedom and not being in control of things, those others around us and their wall of expectations cause. The image of the tall wall represents how the rules and laws in a society limit our freedom and make us feel ensnared in a plot, desperate. Holden’s speech about cars perfectly fits with this idea. "Take most people, they 're crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they 're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that 's even newer.” Holden says and continues, “ I don’t even like old cars. I mean they don’t even interest me. I’d rather have a goddamn horse.” (Salinger, 145). The people