Breaking the Shell- The Catcher in the Rye

A detailed Summary of Breaking the Shell- The Catcher in the Rye

Everybody experiences their own loss of innocence in their own way and at their own particular time. One person may lose their innocence when they are at the age of 15 while the other at the age of 21. We are all different our own ways and experience different things. It all depends on our biological clock and our ability to handle the loss. For Holden Caulfield, the loss of innocence is a trauma for him especially since he does not like the concept of change. Throughout the entire book, Holden strives to presevere his childhood and innocence, but at the end, he fails to achieve this preserverance, which leads to the inevitable heartbreak of the young man.

"The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move...Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you." (121)

This quote explains the reason why seventeen-year old Holden Caulfield loves the Museum of Natural History. The museum enables him to visualize his perfect fantasy: a world without change. Every time he visits the museum, everything is as it was before. However, he does not want to go in the museum for a second time because it corrupts his fantasy-world

Holden also experiences betrayal and deception in this book. The origins of deception and betrayal come from phoniness in Holden's perspective. The one attribute that he hates about adults is that they think that they are somebody they are not, hypocrites. He also resents people who do not recognize their own phoniness or their own mistakes and weaknesses. Holden believes that lying to someone is the worst thing someone can do to a person. Ironically though, Holden lies incessantly throughout the whole book to many people including himself, which means that he is contributing to his own self-deception.

In this book, Holden has many chances to get romantically and physically involved with someone. However, just when Holden seems to want to come out of his shell of isolation, he crawls right back in again. For instance, in one situation, where a prostitute comes up to his room to have sex, he wants nothing but a conversation, and right when he is about to be "pleasured", Holden "went and got the dress for her. She put it on and all, and then she picked up her polo coat off the bed"(98). This is exactly what he fears, the change to an adult, things such as complexity, intimacy, conflict, dilemma and much more. When the opportunity comes to Holden to encounter someone to get romantically and physically involved with, at the last minute, he alters into a cynical individual and ultimately scares the person away.

A great symbol in this book is the ducks in the Central Park Lagoon. They symbolize more than one thing. First of all, his interest in the ducks and where they go every winter symbolizes his curiosity for the things around him, just like a child. Most importantly, the ducks represent temporary change. As I have mentioned before, Holden is terrified by change and disappearance ever since his younger brother Allie's death. The ducks only disappear in the winter, but they return in the spring. It is nothing but a cycle. Holden also talks about the pond's state. It is half frozen and half not frozen. This can be used as a metaphor and symbolizes Holden's alteration from childhood to adulthood.

There are many themes that relate to the loss of innocence. One of them is maturity and coming of age. His comments about the Museum of Natural History indicates that he does not want to grow up and fears the very concept of it. In Holden's eyes an as well as any other person, a chi

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Approximate Word count = 1628
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English