It’s not a significant symbol in the novel but it represents Holden’s love for his younger brother. An object in the novel that holds a symbolic view, is Allie’s left-handed baseball glove. Just because those girls were going to Radio City Music Hall he thinks they are phony and ignorant however, he was just making conversation and buy the girls drinks. I’d’ve bought the whole three of them a hundred drinks if only they hadn’t told me that. If somebody, some girl in an awful-looking hat, for instance, comes all the way to New York from Seattle, Washington, for God’s sake and ends up getting up early in the morning to see the goddam first show at Radio City Music Hall, it makes me so depressed I can’t stand it. And that business about getting up early to see the first show at Radio City Music Hall depressed me. They were so ignorant, and they had those sad, fancy hats on and all. Caulfield comments on how phony the people there can be and goes into detail: It manipulates the audience into glorifying war and the military, which he despises.
The movie that is shown is, to Holden, significantly worse. The Christmas show, the Rockettes, and the sentimental war movie, symbolizes much of what Holden despises about inauthentic art that satisfies the audience. Another example of a symbolic location is Radio City Music Hall. For Holden, the two schools are emblematic of a corrupt system designed by privileged adults and catering to boys who want to join their ranks. Pencey Prep school’s motto is equally repulsive to Holden: Since 1888 we have been molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men.” Holden says he can think of perhaps two boys who fit that description. The schools Holden Caulfield has gone to, Pencey Prep and Elkton Hills, represent the phony, cruel world of those who run them. The Catcher in the Rye uses various locations and objects as symbols throughout the novel. He struggles to engage in social interactions, convinces himself the world is uninteresting, and does not develop his growth in the relationships around him.
Like many teenagers, Holden reached point in his life where he is expected to follow many more rules and essentially how to be a proper and responsible adult’ guidelines. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-by(sic) or a bad good-by(sic), but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them.
What I was really hanging out around for, I was trying to feel some kind of good-by.
When Holden finds out he is being expelled from Pencey Prep: Even though Salinger writes Holden Caulfield as a person who does not care about a situation that another person would deem appalling, there are a few instances where Caulfield shows emotion towards others. He is known in the book for having a depressing mental state. Caulfield wants to make a connection with people, but for him to do so means to make an emotional investment that will most likely end up depressing him. Samantha Schmidt, an English teacher, comments on The Catcher in the Rye and how the book is relatable by saying, Even if our own situations are not as severe as Holden’s, we still go through pressures that are put on us as we enter the adult world (Munasinghe). He faces relationship issues, family problems, and mental conflicts.
Holden Caulfield is a 16-year-old boy who finds the world full of phonies and does not exactly want to grow up. Salinger, represents an accurate and descriptive representation of a teenagers’ mind because of his ability to make the conflicts Holden faces relatable, which is still written in Catcher in the Rye research paper. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye should be in Penn Manor’s Literature curriculum because of his ability to present an accurate and descriptive representation of a teenagers’ mind his use of locations as symbols that represent a phony and cruel world and the depiction of his own life experiences and the conflicts he encountered during his school life.