Adolescence is the period of time following after puberty fully finishes developing within a teenager which a young person transitions from a child into an adult. Catcher in The Rye leads its audience through a narrated story about a teen’s weekend displaying his coming of maturity, or what he believes to be his coming of age. Is this weekend for the main character, Holden, his part in life of coming of age? Holden does not have his coming of maturity based off of the story that was described to the audience about that one specific weekend. It’s clear that it is not a bildungsroman based off the events he encountered, and how he went about handling these events.
As Holden begins to explain what his hectic weekend was like, he first starts off with him leaving his schools Pencey Prep, and he heads off firstly to reach out to one of his old teachers before he leaves. According to the Traits of Bildungsroman, bildungsroman involves “Often involves a separation from family. The protagonist desires to leave home and become “his own man.”” Eventually at the end of his narration he explains how he decided to stay home after his sister Phoebe expresses she doesn’t want him to leave. This is after he watches go around on a carousel multiple times the same way. This scene in the book is metaphorical to Holden realizing that he is in the same state of mind of how he started his weekend off. It can be contradicted that Holden expresses throughout this narration that he was seeking to go off to somewhere new, yet him decision to stay show exactly how much he had grown up. Right as he’s heading out from the school he is lying to Ernest’s mom about anything and everything just because. He evens lies to her about her own son. If someone was truly beginning to grow up lying about something that didn’t even need to be lied about would be unnecessary. He also goes to a hotel room to try, and hook up with a prostitute. He couldn’t even allow himself to get aroused for the situation. It can be argued that teens are usually the ones who are at most the ones who are sex driven, but it goes up as you are reaching adulthood.
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It’s also clear that Holden is not in a clear state of mind during this weekend. He shows multiple signs of being depressed due to past situations, and news ones that are starting to occur with him. He expressed that he still has a hard time coping with his brother’s death. He even expresses how he busted out the windows once thinking about his brother, Allie. I think one thing that Holden does to keep a piece of his brother with him is he continues to wear his red hunting hat. Holden tells his character that his brother, Allie, enjoyed baseball and had a baseball glove that was important to him, page 38 describers how Allie had a left mitt with poems written all over it. A baseball glove is very protective of the hand and clutches on to your hand pretty tight. A hunting hat also does the same thing for your head. I think Holden continues to wear this hat because it is one thing that keeps his brother with him at all times. It’s not healthy to keep around too many memories of someone dead because it makes you continuously miss them even more. It’s also obvious that he doesn’t know how to coupe with all of his feelings that keep rekindling throughout his story. That’s not to say that all adults have their feelings in control, but as you are transitioning into adulthood, it’s safe to say that he should have attempted to at least seek out for professional help. He should also know the specific reasons for why he is feeling the way he is, but he does not and that’s what bothers him most.
Another thing that proves Holden has not transitioned into adulthood is his continuous reaching out to his old teachers for advice. As seen on page 10 with Old Spencer, and page 180 with Mr.Antolini. Within both of these conversations Holden is seeking advice on how to improve himself because he seems not to know how to do so.
It’s clear that Holden has not completely transitioned from childhood into adulthood. The point is even more obvious when he ends the book the exact same way he started with a he doesn’t care attitude about what is going on. The book starts and ends with with Holden saying how he doesn’t want to get into too much detail about what was going on with him he just wanted to get straight into the purpose of why he was “here.” Holden says, “but I don’t feel like going into it,” at the beginning and end of his narration. According to Developing Adolescents, someone who is “excessively shy and rarely expressing one’s own point of view,” is not normal in someone who is viewed to be in adulthood.
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