Important symbols to Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye. In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye written by J. D. Salinger, there are numerous symbols that represent Holden Caulfield. The most important symbol that represents Holden is his red hunting cap. Another important symbol that represents Holden’s life is Allie's baseball glove. The ice skates in the novel also represent Holden’s life. All of the symbols mean something different in Holden’s life. They affect how he acts and the way he portrays himself throughout the story. Holden’s red hunting cap is a symbol for the unique inequalities he finds in objects and in people. On a Saturday morning after Holden lost the fencing equipment, he came across this unusual hat in a window of a Sports Store. This unique hat Holden picked out for a dollar has red floppy ears and an oddly shaped bill. In the novel, most people wouldn’t match Holden’s personality to the red hunting cap he wears all throughout the novel. While wearing this cap, Holden saw it as a reading cap. The novel lets it known to the readers …show more content…
On Allie’s glove he wrote inspirational quotes and poems he would read out in the field when he got bored. Out of all the people in the word outside of his family he showed Jane Gallagher. In the novel Jane went out with Holden’s roommate Stradlater. Stradlater asked Holden to write in a descriptive paper on a room or a house, but he wrote it about Allie’s baseball glove. When Stradlater read what Holden wrote for his English paper Stradlater did not understand. “I wrote about my brother’s baseball mitt. It was a very descriptive subject. It really was. My brother Allie had this left handed fielder’s mitt. He was left-handed. The thing that was disrupted about about it, thought, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket ad everywhere. In green ink.” (Salinger, page
Salinger uses specific motifs and symbols to illustrate Holden’s naive and unrealistic view of the world. A great example of this is when he believes he can be the catcher in the rye. By doing so he imagines he is able to maintain all the innocence within society. Holden
“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 they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.” (173) Holden wants to be the catcher in the rye because he wants to save himself and other children from falling into the phoniness of adulthood. The symbols of both the baseball mitt and being the catcher in the rye are used to portray a deeper meaning about Holden and his emotions and actions. He becomes depressed when thinking about kids becoming adults or when he thinks about his
Symbolism in The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye", published in 1951, is his best piece of work. The story is about a sixteen-year-old young man by the name of Holden Caulfield. Holden is being expelled from Pency Prep and decides to leave three days early. He chooses not to go home, enabling his parents to receive the letter that his headmaster at Pency Prep wrote to his parents about his expulsion. He chooses to hang around in New York until Wednesday, when he is going to be able to return home.
In the beginning of the novel, Holden believes that the world is out to get him, so he alienates himself for protection. A way to do so, he brings forth his hunting hat, “‘This is a people shooting hat,’ I said. ‘I shoot people in this hat.’” (Salinger, 22) Holden’s hunting hat is the strongest symbol in the novel. It gives Holden protection from people who could be potentially harmful to him. Whenever he is afraid or anxious he regresses and puts on his hunting hat for comfort. This anxiety is triggered by memories from his past. The world has stepped on him and beat him down, so now he uses his hunting hat to symbolize his independence and alienation from the world. He consciously knows that the hat will not physically protect him, but, “the nihilist does not believe in the necessity of being logical.” (“On the Pathos of Truth”) So, since he doesn’t need to be logical, he uses the hunting hat regardless if it is actually going to work or not. Holden feels disconnected to the world in the beginning of the novel. Holden states that he feels trapped on “the other side of life.” (Salinger, 8) When Holden says this, he is in a distressed point in his life because he has recently just been expelled from his fourth school. The expulsion could be a reason why he feels so disconnected, but since this didn’t happen during his last expulsions, he
Holden had a very traumatic childhood, because of the death of Allie, who he constantly conveys his love and devotion to his dead brother. Holden, often does not seem to grasp that Allie is dead, and seems to bring out Allie’s spirit in objects. The red hunting cap, reminds Holden of Allie, because it is also red like Allie’s hair, Holden also carries this hat with him throughout the novel (Salinger 17). Another thing Holden carries with him that reminds him of Allie is Allie’s baseball mitten, Holden admits “to have it with me, in my suitcase” (39). This baseball mitten, seems to be the only thing of Allie’s that Holden owns, and reminds him fondly of who and how Allie was as a person, Holden admitting that it was in his suitcase, telling us that he travels with it and that it is a prized possession.... ...
J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye tells an unforgettable story of teenage angst by highlighting the life of Holden Caulfield, a young boy who commences a journey of self-discovery after being expelled from his private boarding school. Throughout the novel, Holden struggles with issues such as self-identity, loss, and a wavering sense of belonging. Holden’s red hunting hat is consistently used throughout the story as a symbol of his independence and his attachment to his childhood. From the very moment he receives it, Holden’s red hunting hat becomes a symbol of his own alienation. After traveling to New York for a fencing match and losing the team’s equipment on the subway, Holden is outcast by his teammates, who are angry that he hindered their ability to compete in the match.
“The Catcher in the Rye” is a 1950’s novel written by J.D. Salinger. It tells a story about a teenage boy who travels to multiple locations throughout New York after being kicked out of his school, Pencey. Throughout the book, Salinger uses numerous amount of symbolism to show the feelings of the main character, Holden Caulfield. One of the most recognized symbol is Holden’s red hunting hat. It is present in many situations and has abundance amount of symbolic characteristics. The red hunting hat plays an important role to Holden and represents his individuality, safety, as well as his strive for childhood innocence.
Holden's red hunting hat was used to camouflage himself from both his problems and actuality. As bother some Ackley disturbs Holden while reading, Holden uses his hat as a defense. "I pulled t...
The first symbol shows Holden’s desire for children to embrace their childhood innocence just as he would like to. The second symbol, Phoebe, displays the maturity which Holden refuses to grasp onto. The last symbol, The Museum of Natural History, represents how Holden would like to freeze time. J.D. Salinger's use of symbolism in The Catcher in the Rye develops Holden's character and provides insight as to why he does not want to grow up. The three models, the poem, Phoebe and the Museum of Natural History individually provide the reader an impression of what operates within of Holden's head, yet even when it is not openly
Making mistakes is a completely normal part of life. Learning from your mistakes is a necessity because it’s the only way to progress. Beatrice Wood, an artist and sculptor speaks one solution for dealing with mistakes. “Life is full of mistakes. They’re like pebbles that make you a good road.” These “pebbles” (mistakes), which come in all different shapes and sizes create structure for us to go anywhere in life. By contrast, Holden’s resistance towards his school work creates too many pebbles, and he is stuck spinning his tires in rocks. In The Catcher in Rye, J.D. Salinger displays through Holden that making mistakes and learning from them is a vital part of growing up, because running
Indeed, just the naming of his red hunting cap as a “people-shooting hat” is suspicious enough; but Holden merely wants to stand out in a crowd and be different from all the phonies around him, and the unique hat is enough to do so, despite it making him look foolish. He is going “people-shooting” in the sense that he is putting down partisans of the supposedly fabricated adult world, the same people who put Holden down for his visible immaturity. The cap gives Holden the confidence he needs to feel like his own independent person – an adult – without actually being one. This is yet another one of Holden’s desperate attempts to cling onto whatever shred of youth and innocence he has left and avoid growing
The baseball mitt was significant to Holden as it displayed how emotionally attached that he was towards his brother, Allie. Holden carries this glove everywhere that he goes, as this glove is a symbol of his late brother. With this glove, Holden is reminded of Allie’s personality, intelligence, and his spirits which are with Holden. This mitt is significant to Holden as it was Allie’s favorite to write his poem with green ink so that he could read them on the field when he was bored. For Stradlater’s composition assignment, Holden wrote about his bothers left-handed fielder’s mitt as it meant allot to him. This shows how deeply connected that he was towards his brother, therefore when he died he broke all the garage windows, which caused him
In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger describes Holden as one who is struggling in growing up and making his own choices. He explains Holden’s journey into the transition from childhood and adolescence to adulthood. The author brings up the red hunting hat a variety of times while on his journey.
In the Catcher in The Rye, the baseball glove represents Holden's anxiety about remembering Allies death. Before Holden begins writing Stradlater’s composition, he put on his “pajamas and bathrobe and my old hunting hat” (37), the clothes represent being comfortable, this helps Holden to channel his memories of Allie without being nervous or uncomfortable. Holden was hiding Allie's baseball glove in a “suitcase”(44) because he himself is hiding his feelings like he is hiding the baseball glove. In this scene Holden describes Allie’s glove like as if it were Allie himself. Stradlater later ignores Holden’s silent cry for comfort, and says “For Chrissake, Holden. This is about a goddam baseball glove”(41). This especially hurts Holden because
Symbolism is prominent throughout both works, representing many aspects of Holden and Charlie’s personalities. Holden frequently mentions the ducks in the pond and wonders where they go in winter. The ducks represent Holden and the freezing of the pond represents adulthood, symbolising him questioning where he will belong as an adult. However, the ducks always return, which he interprets as the ducks always make it through their winter so he can too. Furthermore, the red hunting hat worn by Holden in The Catcher in the Rye is a unique symbol of his individuality, with his tendency to wear it only when he is alone suggesting an outward appearance of conformity. Symbols in The Perks of Being a Wallflower further allude to the idea of individuality, with Charlie and his friends performing The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This musical is an ultimate symbol of individuality, and performing it allows Charlie and his friends to feel as if they belong. The other symbol representing Charlie’s passage into adulthood is the tunnel he drives through with his friends, causing him live in the moment and ‘feel infinite’. These stylistic features illustrate aspects of coming of age for both