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Holden's Story: A Search for Meaning, Innocence and Identity

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Holden's Story: A Search for Meaning, Innocence and Identity

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He was unhappy at Pencey. Then he was unhappy in New York. I seems like Holden Caulfield would be unhappy pretty much anywhere he goes, unless he was able to go back in time. He only speaks positively when thinking about the past: hanging out with his brother, being a child in the city, spending time with his sister. For sure, something about the adult world depresses him. The innocence of childhood vanishes. And he sees a very limited path for his future: go to school, get a job, buy a Cadillac, become a phony. Holden longs to "live deliberately," as Henry David Thoreau stated in Walden. In fact, his whole trip to New York can be seen as Holden trying to "reduce life to its lowest terms." Perhaps this was Salinger's point. The search for meaning in one's life must take precedence if one is to be happy, even if this very search takes a person in the opposite direction of what is expected of you by everybody else.

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Thinking about the museum made me realize what I want to do with my life: "I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around. . .except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. . .that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy" (Chapter 22). I guess you could say I wanted to save children from taking the plunge over that cliff. I want to keep them safe. I want to keep them innocent.

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If there was one place I loved to visit in New York City, it was the Natural History Museum. Why? Because I realized "that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole […]. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything."(Chapter 16). When I thought about people in my life, like my sister Phoebe, this is what I wanted. I wanted us to remain they way we were forever.

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Steven Pisano

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It shocked me that I could feel so alone in such a big city. But, "New York's terrible when somebody laughs on the street very late at night. You can hear it for miles. It makes you feel so lonesome and depressed." (Chapter 12). It actually made me homesick for Pensey!

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Here is what I learned over three strange days:

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Here is what I learned over three strange days:

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Discover & Share this Black And White GIF with everyone you know. GIPHY is how you search, share, discover, and create GIFs.

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