Sunday, May 6, 2012

"Comin' Thro' the Rye"

"Comin' Thro' the Rye" is a poem written by Robert Burns that is more widely known as a traditional children's song. Holden hears this song sung while walking down the street and also tells his sister that when he hears the tune he imagines all the children are running in the rye near a cliff, and wishes that he could have the duty of catching them if they fell off. The tune serves as the ultimate symbol for Holden's firm desire to safeguard the innocence of children and is the part of the novel from which its title is derived.

"'You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye'? I'd like — '

'It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!' old Phoebe said. 'It's a poem. By Robert Burns.'

'I know it's a poem by Robert Burns.'

She was right, though. It is 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye.' I didn't know it then, though.

'I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'' I said. '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'd 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. I know it's crazy.'"

Carousel

The Carousel in Central Park is a location Holden visits in the last chapter in the novel with his sister. It is yet another symbol for Holden's childhood, but his thoughts while watching his sister ride it transform it into something more. As he watches Phoebe dangerously reach out and try to grab a gold ring, he finally accepts that you can't protect children and their innocence from the "Adult" world- it's simply a natural part of life. After coming to this realization, Holden feels so happy that he was "damn near bawling."


“Then the carousel started, and I watched her go round and round...All the kids tried to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she'd fall off the goddam horse, but I didn't say or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it is bad to say anything to them.” 

_The Return of the Native_

The Return of the Native is a novel by Thomas Hardy mentioned a few times in The Catcher in the Rye as a literary work that Holden greatly enjoyed reading. It was extremely controversial when it was released for containing multiple scandalous relationships, which is why it represents Holden's fascination with (and slight fear of) sex and other adult actions. Holden can also relate to a woman in the novel, Eustacia Vye; a scorned misfit who seeks adventure. The woman that Holden relates to drowns in the end of the novel, which might be a subtle tie to his preoccupation with thoughts of death.

"Then I started wondering like a bastard what the one sitting next to me, that taught English, thought about, being a nun and all, when she read certain books for English. Books not necessarily with a lot of sexy stuff in them, but books with lovers and all in them. Take old Eustacia Vye, in The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy. She wasn't too sexy or anything, but even so you can't help wondiering what a nun thinks about when she reads about old Eustacia" 

"F--- You" Signs

One symbol that is seen throughout the last few chapters of the novel is "Fuck You" penned or graffiti'd  onto places relevant to Holden's childhood. When he sees the words written on the wall at Phoebe's (as well has his past) elementary school and one of the "sacred" tombs of the museum, Holden goes of on rage-fueled tangents. The signs symbolize the corruption of Holden's childhood and innocence, and serve as yet another immoral observation that creates internal conflict for him in the novel.


"That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'Fuck you' right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say "Holden Caulfield" on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say 'Fuck you.' I'm positive, in fact."

"If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the 'Fuck you' signs in the world. It's impossible."

Museum of Natural History

The Museum of Natural History is a location that Holden visits during his solo trek through New York City. He comments on how he loves that the exhibits never change and are "frozen" in time. His joy of the exhibits is juxtaposed with his sadness that every time he returns to the museum, he has changed himself. The museum allows Holden to reiterate his consuming fear of change and serves as a symbol for his ideal world where everything stays the same and innocence is retained.

"The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move"

"Then a funny thing happened. When I got to the museum, all of a sudden I wouldn't have gone inside for a million bucks. It just didn't appeal to me--and here I'd walked through the whole goddam park and looked forward to it and all"

Ducks in Central Park

Holden is very curious as to where the ducks in central park go for the winter. He asks two different cab drivers for an explanation, but they either disregard him or scoff for his lack of knowledge on migration. The mystery of the duck's migratory pattern brings out a youthful side of Holden and they symbolize perseverance in an environment that may not be suited for them. They also represent that change can be cyclic, and not definite as the death of his brother was.

"I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go? I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away."


Allie's Baseball Glove

Holden's deceased younger brother, Allie, had a baseball glove with poems written all over it so that he would have something to read while he was in the outfield. The glove has great sentimental value for Holden and is a symbol of his emotions that he keeps locked away (much like the glove is hidden away). It is a reminder to him of the intelligent, creative, and friendly person his brother was, and his description of the glove is the first time the reader sees his emotional side. When Holden's essay on the glove for his roommate Stradlater is mocked, it becomes the catalyst for his leaving school and going to the city on his own. Memories of Holden's brother are some of the happiest he can remember and inspire a sense of nostalgia and innocence within him.

“I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage. I don't blame them. I really don't. I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it. I even tried to break all the windows on the station wagon we had that summer, but my hand was already broken and everything by that time, and I couldn't do it. It was a very stupid thing to do, I'll admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was doing it, and you didn't know Allie. My hand still hurts me once in a while when it rains and all, and I can't make a real fist any more – not a tight one, I mean – but outside of that I don't care much. I mean I'm not going to be a goddam surgeon or a violinist or anything anyway."

"So what I did, I wrote about my brother Allie'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 descriptive about it, though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he'd have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up at bat. He's dead now. He got leukemia and died when we were up in Maine, on July 18, 1946. You'd have liked him. He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times as intelligent. He was terrifically intelligent. His teachers were always writing letters to my mother, telling her what a pleasure it was having a boy like Allie in their class. And they weren't just shooting the crap. They really meant it. But it wasn't just that he was the most intelligent member in the family. He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody. […] God, he was a nice kid, though. He used to laugh so hard at something he thought of at the dinner table that he just about fell off his chair."

"Little Shirley Beans" Record

The record that Holden buys for his little sister, Phoebe, is titled "Little Shirley Beans." The record is a symbol for innocence, particularly pertaining to one's childhood. Shortly after purchasing the record, Holden drops it in the park and it shatters, representing one of the novel's themes of innocence being lost in the "real world." After dropping it, Holden scrambles to pick of the broken pieces because even though the "innocence" is permanently shattered, he is desperate to gather any small form of it he can find. The fictitious record was supposedly sung by the real life 30's singer, Estelle Fletcher.

"...very Dixieland and whorehouse … not all mushy …not cute as hell."

Red Hunting Hat

The Red Hunting Hat that Holden adores wearing is a symbol for his individuality and uniqueness throughout the novel. It is described as being very unusual and Holden has conflicting views about wearing the hat in public. Holden's self-conscious attitude toward his favorite hat represents his internal conflict of wanting to be isolated from society while still having companionship with others at an erratic frequency that is slightly reminiscent of Bipolar Disorder. The hat may have deeper significance to Holden than what he implies in the book, but it is known to many as a symbol of conflicting values from Twentieth-Century America.



“…but it was freezing cold and I took my red hunting hat out of my pocket and put it on, I didn’t give a damn how I looked."

“I took my old hunting hat out of my pocket while I walked and put it on. I knew I wouldn’t meet anybody that knew me, and it was pretty damp out.”

Cigarette

Holden Caulfield, the novel's main character and narrator, is heavily addicted to smoking. Throughout the novel's time frame of a few days, he manages to go through an entire pack plus more that he takes from a brief visit to his home. The most prominent significance of cigarettes for Holden is that he smokes them whenever an act of hypocrisy, immorality, or general "phoniness" depresses or irritates him. Another use that the narcotic substance has is to demonstrate Holden's own hypocrisy to the reader. While he is nearly a chain smoker, he still manages to find others at fault for smoking.

"I lay on the bed and light up a smoke. Stradlater hated when I smoked in the dorm, it was against school rules but no one could smell it. Stradlater hated when anyone broke any rules. He was so goddam phony. It killed me. It really did, I just turned to the other side on my bed and smoked like a madman , as he clipped his goddam toe nails."

"At the end of the first act we went out with all the other jerks for a cigarette. What a deal that was. You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear how sharp they were."

Introduction

WARNING: The novel (and therefore, My Blog) may contain STRONG LANGUAGE


My Blog is composed of specific items from Catcher in the Rye that are relevant to the novel's plot/themes. 

Each post will include a picture of the "artifact" and an explanation of its relevance.

*Feel free to comment below any post!*
~Austin Smith