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In "Catcher in the Rye," the main character, Holden Claufield, is very critical of many adults and refers to them as being "phonies." He finds himself getting very annoyed at small things others do that many people would simply look over and claim as being normal. In sharp contrast to this, Holden seems to treat children with a lot of respect and doesn't find himself annoyed by anything they do. At the end of the story, Holden is even brought to tears at the sight of his little sister riding on a carousel with other children. Holden is also strongly connected to the central park duck pond, as he spent a lot of his childhood there and now he feels he has grown up. Throughout the story, Holden wonders about the ducks, and where they end up going in the winter months. This serves as a symbol for the fleeting nature of childhood and how Holden doesn't seem to understand that eventually everyone grows up to become an adult.

Holden wearing red hunting hat:
(http://l.sakinorva.net/view?id=2304)

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"It made you depressed, and every once in a while, for no reason, you got goose flesh while you walked. It didn't seem at all like Christmas was coming soon. It didn't seem like anything was coming. But I kept walking over to the mall anyway, because that's where Phoebe usually goes when she's in the park. She likes to skate near the bandstand. It's funny. That's the same place I used to skate when I was a kid." (118)

This quote comes from chapter 16, when Holden is trying to find his sister Phoebe to give her an album he had bought her. He looks for her in Central Park, since he knows that she is likely there skating. He mentions in the quote that he used to skate on this pond when he was a kid, and you can tell that he longs for the past. Before this quote, Holden is very critical of Broadway and the rest of Central Park, but you can tell he still likes the pond because it has that childlike innocence and cannot change.

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1. In chapter 2, Holden tells the reader that he is thinking about the ducks in the pond, and whether they fly away or if a guy takes them to a zoo.
2. In chapter 9, Holden asks the cab driven where the ducks go in the winter, and the driver and the driver asks him if he was kidding.
3. In chapter 12, Holden asks a different cab driver about the ducks and the driver hastily tells him he doesn't know and annoys Holden.
4. In chapter 16, Holden talks about how all the birds on a display in the museum look like they were flying south for the winter. This shows that Holden knows that birds adapt for the changing environment, but doesn't seem to understand that the ducks do the same.
5. In chapter 20, Holden walks drunkenly through Central Park and looks for the ducks, figuring that they had nested on the shore, but was unable to find them and is at an all time low at the point. He also decides to go home after that event.

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"I didn't say anything for a minute. Then I said, "All right. What do they do, the fish and all, when that whole little lake's a solid block of ice, people skating on it and all?" Old Horwitz turned around again. "What the hellaya mean what do they do?" he yelled at me. "They stay right where they are, for Chrissake." (82)

This quote comes from Holden's ride in a taxi cab in New York. He is talking to the impatient driver about the ducks and fish in central pond, and although the driver doesn't know what the ducks do in the winter, he tells him with certainty that the fish "stay right where they are." This can serve as symbolism for Holden versus the rest of society in his eyes. Holden is like a fish, who wants to stay right where he is and not change, meanwhile society is like the ducks, who leave and change over time.

Here's what I imagine he looked like:
(https://www.alamy.com/cab-driver-new-york-usa-image9595488.html)

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"Then finally, I found it. What it was, it was partly frozen and partly not frozen. But I didn't see any ducks around. I walked all around the whole damn lake- I damn near fell in once, in fact- but I didn't see a single duck. I thought maybe if there were any around, they might be asleep or something near the edge of the water, near the grass and all. That's how I nearly fell in. But I couldn't find any." (154)

This quote comes from the near the end of the story when Holden leaves hos hotel and decides to walk through Central Park in the middle of the night. Holden is very drunk during this moment, and his drunken mind has brought him to the park to reminisce on his childhood even though Holden tells us that he doesn't really know why he goes there. This is the final time that Holden talks about the ducks, and it's clear that Holden still doesn't know where the ducks go and is unwilling to accept the fact that they have left for the winter. This is symbolic to the fact that Holden is unable to accept the fact that people become adults and that childhood doesn't last forever.

Pond: (https://depositphotos.com/124384344/stock-video-four-kids-skating-on-icy.html)

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1. Phoebe- Holden's little sister. She is most similar to Holden out of anyone in the book, and is still a child, so Holden likes her. She spends time at Central Park like Holden used to and makes him think of the ducks.
2. Horwitz- Talks about the ducks with Holden and seems very annoyed at Holden's questions. He explains that he doesn't know nor care about where the ducks go in the winter but tells him that the fish stay frozen in the ice.
3. First cab driver- Holden only talks to this cab driver about the ducks briefly, but he also doesn't answer the question and asks Holden if he was kidding him. Both cab drivers do not care about the ducks since many people assume they fly away in the winter.

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The ducks in Central Park come up multiple times throughout the book, but they never dominate the page with the exception of Holden's conversation with Horwitz. Multiple times Holden thinks about the ducks whenever he feels lonesome, or when he is receiving criticism. It is clear to the reader that the ducks remind him of his childhood and like childhood, he doesn't want to accept the fact that it leaves eventually. Anyone he talks to about the ducks seem annoyed at his goofy question and the reader can tell that normal adults do not think about the ducks in Central Park. It is ironic because Holden claims to look and act like an adult himself, but there are numerous examples that hows other do not agree, and it shows that Holden is very hypocritical as he detests adults, but wants to be seen as one at the same time.

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J.D. Salinger clearly incorporated the ducks in Central Park for a reason. Although that reason may not be clear at first, and the audience is left to wonder why Holden continues to think about such a random subject, the purpose of the ducks is fully visualized once the book itself is fully understood by the reader. The ducks serve as one of the many symbols which form the deeper meaning of the book and shape the overall theme of growing up. Holden refuses to believe that the ducks go away for the winter, and wants to think the place where he spent his childhood has stayed exactly the way it was."I thought maybe if there were any around, they might be asleep or something near the edge of the water, near the grass and all." Perhaps Salinger uses these ducks as a symbol because he himself remembers the ducks at Central Park since he was born in Manhattan.

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https://youtu.be/U2PvSblaMXM

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“How Did a Rare Duck Native to Japan Wind Up in New York City?” YouTube, 1 Nov. 2018, youtu.be/U2PvSblaMXM.