Symbolism in The Catcher in the Rye The novel, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, is a tale of a seventeen year old boy who struggles to fit in with the conservative crowd of the late forties to early fifties. The boy, Holden Caulfield, is often looked at as troubled or disconnected with the world around him. Throughout the novel Holden references certain people, places, and items multiple times. When this occurs we can presume that these represent symbols in Holden’s life. The major representations
1. "Finally, what he did, instead of taking back what he said, he jumped out the window. (170)" Flashback: Holden thinks back at the suicide of one of his fellow classmates, one of the deaths that Holden was connected to. He didn't know the boy very well, but he died in his sweater and Holden heard him hit the ground. One of the things that mad Holden angry was the fact that James' instigators were only expelled. These are the types of "phonies" that cause Holden to have a cynical view of people
When the ideal family is shown in commercials and public advancements it can be hard to visualize what the actual family might have looked like. In a chart provided by Roland Marchand we can get a more realistic picture of the Golden Era. In his chart, Marchand shows that everything from photographic records to the number of potato chips produced increased