Second of a series

I greatly enjoyed writing last week’s column on J.D. Salinger’s novel “The Catcher in the Rye. Looking over the book, I was reminded how much I enjoyed it the first time I read it. My view that it is an exceptionally good work of art was strengthened.

In writing last week’s column and in writing this one, I have been helped by a fine study of Salinger: Eberhard Alsen’s “A Reader’s Guide to J.D. Salinger” (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press). Alsen analyzes “Catcher” in detail.

While reading and re-reading Salinger’s novel, though aware that the author was using symbols to convey meaning, I had difficulty interpreting the symbols. My graduate school education was primarily in philosophy and theology, not in American literature. As I looked through the novel, I had an experience similar to those I have when viewing modern painting. I know the work of art is presenting some meaning but I need help to capture just what that meaning is. Reading Alsen helped me a great deal in understanding Salinger’s novel.

In his chapter on “The Catcher in the Rye,” Alsen surveys and summarizes the theories of many critics about the novel. After reading Alsen, I did a little more research and was impressed at how much he was able to get into his relatively short chapter, which consists of only 23 pages of text. What I find most interesting about his interpretation of the novel is his commentary about the symbols in the story.

Pointing out that the settings in the book tell us more about social milieu than about physical details, Alsen notes that there are three settings that tell us something important about Holden. They are the room with the dioramas in the Museum of Natural History, the elementary school attended by his sister, Phoebe, which is the same one that Holden attended and the imaginary cabin by a lake that Holden wants to escape to with his girlfriend, Sally Hayes. Each of these settings calls attention to Holden’s unwillingness to move into the future, to grow up, his desire to have things stay the way they are. I confess that without Alsen’s help, I would not have given these settings this interpretation.

I especially like Alsen’s comments on Holden’s hat. Holden says it is a red hunting hat with a very long visor. He wears the hat with the visor backward. Alsen comments:

“By turning the visor backward Holden suggests that his values are the reverse of what everybody else’s are. It is also the way that baseball catchers wear their caps. Therefore Holden’s turning the visor of the hat to the back can be seen as foreshadowing his desire to be a catcher in the rye. And finally, because Holden calls it a people shooting hat, it symbolizes his dislike of most of the people around him.”

Most important is Alsen’s comment on a change that happens within Holden near the end of the novel. Holden seems to take a step into the adult world, a step that indicates that he is beginning to mature. He is sitting in the rain on a Central Park bench watching Phoebe ride the carousel. Holden is wearing the hat with the visor in the front in order to protect himself from the rain but the change in the way that he wears the hat also has a symbolic significance. It represents the change that is going to happen in his outlook on reality.

Alsen suggests that watching Phoebe on the carousel and enjoying the experience so much that he does not mind getting soaked is like a parent watching and enjoying a child. This experience seems to be Holden enjoying a taste of what it means to be an adult. Alsen says:

“On this particular carousel the children are supposed to lunge upward and try to pull down a golden ring. Holden says that he is afraid Phoebe might fall off the carousel horse, but he stops himself from doing or saying anything. He has come to understand that when children want to go for the golden ring, we should not stop them. He says: ‘If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them.’ Holden here realizes that the carousel represents life and grabbing for the gold ring represents the chances that children must take in order to grow up. When we see Holden allow Phoebe take her chances, we realize that… he has come to accept adulthood.”

Alsen’s comments remind us that in a classic work there are many layers of meaning. That’s why we return to the classics again and again.