Rejection In Catcher In The Rye

The deeply troubled adolescent Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye displays signs of fear and rejection towards the adult world, into which he is strongly resisting the transition. Caulfield is disgusted at the world and in particular the adults that surround him which ultimately drives Caulfield to the point of expelling the idea of maturity and rather preserving the childlike innocence in the youth. Caulfield labels adults as arrogant and superficial who are believed to be the carriers of vice and phoniness and are blind to their wrong doings. On the contrary, Caulfield believes that children are the carriers of virtue and innocence, who are sucked into the complex and superficial adult world.

The consequences that Caulfield faces

The notion of Caulfield’s desire to live as a “poor deaf-mute bastard”(Salinger 1994:179) where “they’d leave me alone”(Salinger 1994: 179) is a prime example of Caulfield’s wish to become detached and alienated from those around him. Through alienation and detachment from those around him, he avoids confrontation and interaction with people which he believes will be the saviour of his own self falling victim to phoniness. However, as Caulfield acts quickly to criticize and label others as, “that was the phoniest bastard I ever met in my life” (Salinger 1994:12), he does not realise that he is actually guilty of the phoniness that he so easily labels others with.

Holden Caulfield exhibits a clear dislike for the idea of change, where he shows visible signs of fear towards this idea, “Certain things they should stay the way they are” (Salinger 1994:110). Caulfield finds safety and security in The Museum of Natural History, “I loved that damn museum” (Salinger 1994:108) as it an example of the ideal stagnant and predictable world that Caulfield longs for, “The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was” (Salinger 1994: 109). Caulfield’s