Madrid, January 12th, 2011
Holden is an inward-oriented, independent boy, born into a well-to-do
New York family who fights to accomodate him into their society. Despite
these attempts, Holden feels alienated from the game that is played in this
social status and identifies with random ”others” - usually the weak, the
elderly. Hence, he feels in a constant position of tense discomfiture and does
not cease to denigrate those around him in a cynical tone.
Despite his cynicism, Holden is deeply idealistic: a romantic of childhood.
He wishes he could freeze life in his ideal conception of childhoold and to
protect this notion eternally. This is precisely the reason why he wishes
to become ”the catcher in the rye” - a profession which involves playing
with and like children endlessly while protecting them from the abyss of
adulthood.
The paradox within Holden is that he dreams of this infantile, pure
way of life from an adult, cynical point of view. In fact, he does long for
connection with adults, but it is hard to attain because he is neither fully
a child nor a grown-up. His failed sexual episodes and his uncomfortable
conversations with adults prove his awkardness towards the so-called mature
world, full of conventions and rules.
Torn in between both perceptions of life and having sprouted from a
socioeconomic status with which he does not identify, Holden feels lonely
and uncomprehended. He develops his cynical, bitter speech towards adults
combined with a nostalgic sense of childhood. He wants to be pure, but as
lonely as he is, his cynicism waxes.
The tragedy behind Holden are his resignation and compliance, his refusal
to fight for his own idealism. This result is probably caused by his own
isolation and by his lack of connection with outsiders. As a form of selfrebellion
and outward defeat, Holden refuses to face the challenges ahead
of him, exemplified by his personal academic debacle and the lightness with
which he discards friendships. As a result of declining to change his own
reality and those around him by communicating, he retreats to his world of
fantasy and childhood, becoming increasingly uncomprehended by the external
world. He is tragically deemed as neurotic and, finally, falls into the
abyss of void, as described by his teacher, which he will no longer be able
to escape.
