Holden Caulfield: Young Republican
The events of Holden Caulfield’s life during the narrative are sketchy at best in relation to the impact upon the millions of readers of the novel. Holden Caulfield is a hero to many rebellious youths desperately searching for an icon of nonconformity in a world hellbent on enforcing conformity from every angle.
When one begins look closer at the character of Holden Caulfield, however, these readers for whom he represents the ultimate rejection of the established order might be unpleasantly surprised to discover that Holden, living in the golden age of conformity-America in the 1950s-is actually rebelling against progress and liberalism. In a way, Holden Caulfield is nothing more than a young Republican who might deem Pres. Eisenhower as being too progressive.
Catcher in the Rye begins with Holden Caulfield as a 16 year old east coast prep school student who has recently flunked, ust before Christmas vacation. He plans to spend a few days in New York City on his own before he heads home to his family. Holden has friends at school and is personally quite charming, but he also constantly feels alienated from everyone around him, whom he singularly sees as phonies. The one person in all the world he feels closest to his younger sister Phoebe. Unfortunately, Holden fears that if he gets in touch with Phoebe, she will spill the beans about his flunking out and his spending time alone in the city.
The opening section of the novel is dominated by the first person monologue of Holden’s in which he offers up his view of the various teachers and fellow students at his school. As he wanders around New York, he comments upon Jane Gallagher, a girl he had a fight with roomate about. New York makes him sad and lonely and so he takes up an elevator operate on his offer of getting him a prostitute. He’s so lonely that he ends up sending the prostitute away without having sex and refusing her request for double the money the operator agreed upon. After she leaves, Holden details us in on the death of his brother Allie.
Throughou the novel Holden gives mostly negative opinions of various movies, though he refers to enough of them to make it clear that he’s a big fan of the cinema. He’s kind of Joe Scarborough and the folks over at Fox News, who constantly rail against movie stars speaking out on issues, and then do everything they can possibly can to book those very same actors to speak out on issues.
Duh! In much the same vein, Holden makes a date with a girl he knows even though he considers her a phony as well. While waiting he buys a record for Phoebe and then finds out that he can meet her at the Museum of Natural History The museum is a symbol of the innocence of youth to Holden, however, and since he doesn’t want it to have changed and become phony like so much else, he refrains from entering.
He goes to see a movie and, naturally, complains about it before meeting up with a college student who used to be his adviser. Later, Holden visits Mr Antolini, whom he considers the best teacher he ever had. This incident is cruising along smoother than anything else that has happened so far in the novel until Antolini puts his hand on Holden’s forehead, causing Holden to panic at the idea that Antolini is making a pass at him. It isn’t hard at this point to imagine Tom Selleck or Bruce Willis playing Holden with ease.
Holden Caulfield reflect a decidedly conservative strain of confusion over what men should expect from women. In his tender attitude toward Phoebe, about whom he writes as though she is older intellectually but younger physically than she actually is, and in his quaint attitude toward Jane that has the feel not only of a pre-war consciousness, but a turn of the century prudeness, Holden’s cry against the phoniness of his contemporaries sounds like conservative call to roll back the clock. Part of the actual liberal rebellion expressed by teens in the 1950s was going to the submarine races (sex in the back seat), spending freely on consumer goods, and an infatuation with movie and music stars to a point never experienced before.
This description of 50s teen rebellion is almost impossible to apply to Holden Caulfield, though it certainly seems easy to do so to those whom Holden tags as phonies. Holden is certainly not a fan of actors, and he doesn’t appear to have bought into the American idea that while money can’t buy happiness, it can certainly buy things that should make you happier and, as stated, Holden isn’t one to jump into the back seat of a car and have sex. Entertainment, shopping and sex are clearly important to those around Holden, however. Holden, though often held up as an avatar of nonconformity, is an excellent example of the conformity that so many others struggles desperately to escape.
Despite all his admirable qualities as a potential anti-hero, or a paragon of truth in rebellion against all that is phony, it simply cannot be denied that part of Holden’s rebellion is against the march of time. Holden desperately clings to the way things were. Holden’s desire to stem the passage of time is most beautifully wrought in the sequence when he goes to the Museum of Natural History.
As he walks to the museum, his memories are filled with childhood trips, and this reinforces the image of Holden as stuck in a time warp. Indeed, much of the criticism of the book is directed at Holden’s inability to grow up and mature. Holden Caulfield enjoys the tableau offered at the museum and if he had the ability he would turn those around him into a never-changing tableau. He wants to keep Phoebe young and innocent and even views himself as her protector against encroaching experience.
That description sounds much closer to Pres. Dwight David Eisenhower than it does to Elvis Presley, James Dean or any of the other icons of rebelliousness from the 1950s.
For a different perspective on Holden Caulfield, I highly recommend J. Lin’s article here at AssociatedContent.
