Making Extra Long Tittles And Digging Too Deeply For My Last Blogpost Of The Year

Loving pop-culture myself, I have lately noticed patterns in books and movies. I noticed that certain settings, either added subconsciously or consciously, mean certain things or transitions in a story. While reading the end of The Catcher In The Rye, I noticed a couple of settings representing a character changing, or lack thereof. At the beginning of The Catcher In The Rye, Holden is childish and sometimes acts without thinking. For the majority of the story, it is winter and it is cold and snowy. But at the end when Holden goes home, he realizes how much he really cares for his family, and is very thankful of them. While he is home his sister, Phoebe, gave him a kiss. She then stuck her hand out, and said, "it's raining. It's starting to rain." It is as if she is stating that a change will happen, even though she, as a character, doesn't know that these changes will happen. All Holden says is "I know." His saying "I know", is like he unknowingly understands and accepts that a change is occurring.

I think the signifigance of the snow to rain transition is that snow sticks on your skin. This gives you time to think about the snow being on your skin and the individual snowflakes. If it is snowing lightly, you can brush off the snowflakes you don't want on you. But when it snows harshly, you must be surrounded by coldness. This is similar to the way Holden is surrounded by "phonies", as he calls the people that he knows and finds very uniform. At first he can brush them off, but when he gets caught in a blizzard, he must acknowledge their existence and move on. He must learn to accept things he does not like. I feel like this is a message that J.D.Salinger is trying to send out about growing more and more mature. I believe the rain represents a cleansing. I think the rain allows him to realize that it is not worth making a big fuss about people that are "phonies". Holden realizes that he should focus on what really matters most for him, his family.

J.D.Salinger could have many different messages in his story about childhood and adulthood. But I think the two that are most prominent, are the idea of understanding and the idea of love and appreciation. Holden was, in the beginning, inconsistent with his opinions, because he didn't understand them. But as the weather changes, so does Holden. He learns to comprehend most of his feelings and realizes that you don't always have just ONE opinion. For example, he once hated his school roommate, but when he gets kicked out, Holden realizes that he will miss him too. Holden always loved his family, but after his adventure in New York City he seems to love them more. J.D.Salinger could be doing this in order to show the reader that sometimes you need to experience something bad to fully appreciate something good.