Catcher in the Rye: Holden's Job

So at the end of the book, or near the end, during Holden's big talk with Phoebe, we hear bout the job Holden would love to have. He wants to stand at the edge of this crazy cliff and catch kids before they go off over the edge. This is obviously an important metaphor of summat because it's the title of the book. I think the whole cliff deal is like the transition beween childhood and adulthood. Once you fall off the edge, there's no climbing back to the top. Holden's standing there, or maybe near the end of the book he's hanging there, and he can see that at some point, these kids are going to blunder out of the rye and out off the cliff. I think what really seperates Holden from the rest of kids his age, or maybe he thinks it does, is that he can see the cliff, and for now at least, he can stop himself from going over. He wants to show the others how to stay at the top too. But eventually, eventually he's going to have to take the fall himself in some way. Maybe he thinks he won't have to, but he will.

Marriage?

Marriage, ha!
You think I have time for that stuff?
I've got hours upon hours of things to do,
books to read and games to play,
I've got paint to watch dry, by God!
And you guys keep telling me marriage, marriage, marriage?
The gall! The audacity!
I can't think of a better time to yell
and scream
and shout
and live the way I want to!
The way I want to!
I want to sit here and ponder,
and examine life,
and climb to the top of my tower and watch!
But the people of my life,
the aunts and uncles and sisters and brothers of my life
pull me down and out and tell me
go get married!

I don't even know how!
Do the books and movies tell me how?
I haven't learned a thing from them,
a single goddamn thing!
What am I supposed to do?
Rush into this blind?
Well there's no other way to do it, is there?
Is there?

You guys can sit at a table with me and tell me you understand life.
And then tell me your problems,
and I'll sit there and listen.
The same old problems,
the same old stories,
the same stupid old vows and the same ideas.
And then you can sit back and wait,
wait for me to tell you mine,
and I'll tell you what my problem is:
I don't understand yours!
You refuse to climb the tower with me.
You refuse to go explore the universe with me.
You refuse to live for anyone else but everyone else,
because everyone else says
go get married!

Sure, I know it feels good.
Love can feel good.
Love can really hurt and tear,
but it can feel good.
But hell, who cares?
I've got better things to do than
sit around here
or wait around there
or chase you to feel good!
I've got research
and philosophy
and I get enough goddamn social interaction as it is!
I'll be Newton if I have to!
If I have to!

So you can sit with me and talk with me,
you can smile and laugh with me,
challenge me
debate with me
explore with me
even play freakin' blackjack
or rummy or hearts or texas with me
but I'll never tell you to
go get married.

Catcher in the Rye: That One Kid's Skate Key

She was a very nice, polite little kid. God, I love it when a kid's nice and polite when you tighten their skate for them or something. Most kids are. They really are.

So Holden helps out this kid and she's thanking him and he tells us how much he loves it when a kid's nice to him. I just found this interesting, and I definitely feel the same way when kids are nice and polite. I think it has something to do with the honesty, you know? It just seems like they really are grateful. You get these teenagers, even adults, they thank you for helping them move something or getting something off the top shelf for them or whatever and it just feels like they're only thanking you because they feel obligated to. But when a kid does it it's more like, wow. Good kid. It doesn't technically make much sense because it's probably the parent drilling it into the kid that they should thank people, but it feels nice and it feels like you really helped em out.

I think this shows that Holden really can appreciate honesty when he sees it, and that when a person's alright, he knows they're alright. He only criticizes when there's room to criticize.

Catcher in the Rye: The Bhagavad-Gita's Quote

'Better is one's own duty imperfectly carried out than

following perfectly the law of another.

Better is death in the fulfillment of one's own law,

for to follow another's law is perilous.'

-The Bhagavad-Gita

 This quote talks about how marching to the beat of your own drum, or sticking up for yourself as an individual, is always better then standing in the line with the rest of them. Holden seems to believe this same kind of ideal, and although he tends to conform on the surface, his mind is filled with this notion. Holden wants to follow his own path, and strike out on his own; he just can't seem to find the support, whether it be internal or external, to bring this dream to reality. He certainly pushes this judgement upon others, though, recognizing their fulfillment of the law of another as phony.

There's a quote from Kurt Vonnegut that goes like this:

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

This says a lot about what Holden does half the time: people can only see what he pretends to be, so they assume he is what he pretends to be. When he suddenly reveals a deeper layer of him that what we expected, people tend to be surprised. Of course, this quote is kind of out of context since it's from Mother Night and it was talking about WW2 propaganda, but it applies to this just the same, eh?