Teenage Wasteland

Reading The Catcher in the Rye as an adult, Holden seems like a much sadder, confused character than when I first read the novel. I do think that he speaks to a broad range of teenagers in the post-war America that we find ourselves, where adolescence is seen as a period of depression, rebellion and idealism that eventually results in adjustment and realism in adulthood. And that is why I think it was a critical--and contentious--novel when it was first published. It came out during the post war boom, where teenagers were first really seen as a powerful consumer group and commercial culture was solidifying in America. For many people, especially young people, it was (and is) difficult to find total fulfillment in the material culture presented by the media. Holden acts out against these forces and against the tight lipped upper class society that benefited most from these changes following WWII.

However, I think that it is central to the novel that Holden does not really do anything about this. He actually winds up spending a lot of money on drinks, cap rides, hotel rooms and a prostitute. The one thing he really seems to feel good about is when he gives money to the nuns, but laments that he does not have more to give them. I totally agree with Edwin’s post last week and believe that Holden is our proxy. But Holden does not really resolve his issues at all. The ambiguous ending of the novel does not leave us with a sense that Holden has come out of his experiences having learned how to deal with the world any better. He escapes the prep school world and is protected by an institution, presumably to rehabilitate him and return him to society. But the novel does not offer its young readers any solution to the problems Holden faces, only gives them an outlet of expression.