Symbols appear throughout the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. The main character, Holden Caulfield, is passing through a painful period of growing up. To give a reader a deeper understanding of his emotions and feelings, the author uses symbols. The most significant symbols used in the book were Allie’s baseball glove and Holden’s red hunting cap (Salinger 36).
Allie is a deceased Holden’s brother whose baseball glove reminded Holden about happy days spent with Allie. Holden associated Allie’s glove with untroubled childhood. He kept the glove with written by the Allie’s hand poems, but never told anyone about his psychic wound caused by loss of his brother. Allie’s image embodied purity of human soul. On the contrary, school life represented quite different environment. The images of Pencey Prep and Elkton Hills also serve as symbols. They are associated in the Holden’s consciousness with cruel and hostile world where he always stays alone with his feelings (Salinger 124).
Another symbolic meaning is assigned to red hunting cap bought by Holden in New York. He likes the cap despite it is unfashionable and foolish-looking. The red cap symbolizes Holden’s attraction to unusual features both in objects and in people. Holden is like his cap – absurd, alienated and weird (Salinger 186).
The ducks observed by Holden in the Central Park Lagoon reveal his genuine and naive character. He wonders where ducks disappear each autumn. He is traumatized by his brother’s death. Sudden disappearance and changes are associated in his mind with fragility of human life. He is terrified by the changes. The partially frozen pond where he saw the ducks is a metaphor of transition period between carefree childhood and adult life (Schuessler, para 3).
In whole, the novel is a masterpiece of classical literature that contains philosophical discourse about meaning of life.
Works Cited
Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Bantam Books Inc., 1951. Print.
Schuessler, Jennifer. Get a Life, Holden Caulfield, 2009. Web. 28 October 2012.
