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Interpretations

Author Sarah Graham notes two connections to David Copperfield: David Copperfield is a famous example of a bildungsroman, a genre under which The Catcher in the Rye falls; and the character David Copperfield was born with a big caul.^[10]

Holden is widely considered to be an unreliable narrator^[11][12] because of his unstable perceptions, which allows for multiple interpretations of many events in the novel.^[13]

Writer Bruce Brooks held that Holden's attitude remains unchanged at story's end, implying no maturation, thus differentiating the novel from young adult fiction.^[14] In contrast, writer and academic Louis Menand thought that teachers assign the novel because of the optimistic ending, to teach adolescent readers that "alienation is just a phase."^[15] While Brooks maintained that Holden acts his age, Menand claimed that Holden thinks as an adult, given his ability to accurately perceive people and their motives. Others highlight the dilemma of Holden's state in between adolescence and adulthood.^[11][16] While Holden views himself to be smarter than and as mature as adults, he is quick to become emotional. "I felt sorry as hell for..." is a phrase he often uses.^[11]

A recent discovery has shed light on the interpretation of Holden's immaturity. Peter Beidler, in A Reader's Companion to J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, is the first to identify the movie that the prostitute Sunny refers to in chapter 13 of The Catcher in the Rye. She says that in the movie a boy falls off a boat. The movie is Captains Courageous, starring Spencer Tracy. The reference is important because Sunny says that Holden looks like the boy who fell off the boat. Beidler shows (see p. 28) a still of the boy, played by child-actor Freddie Bartholomew. That shows that Sunny thinks Holden looks like a little boy, not the tough guy he is trying to be.^{[citation needed]}

The death of his younger brother Allie was a catalyst for Holden's fear of change.^{[citation needed]} Phoebe revolving on the carousel can be seen as a symbol for Holden's revelation that change does not always produce negative consequences^{[citation needed]}. Whether this is understood determines the reader's interpretation of Holden's predicament in the final chapter.^[17] For instance, the novel has been read as positing only a negative answer to the social problems it criticizes^{[citation needed]}, with its philosophy being negatively compared with that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.^[18]

Each Caulfield child has literary talent: D.B. writes screenplays in Hollywood; Holden passed his English course while failing everything else; Allie wrote poetry; and Phoebe is a diarist. Phoebe is particularly influential on Holden; her name denotes and derives from the Greek Phoibe—the Greek Titaness associated with the moon, suggesting she is oracle and catalyst for the boy who sees himself as the catcher in the rye at a cliff-side rye field where children play tag, whom he catches, and saves from themselves, when they stray too near the edge.^[19] This "catcher in the rye" is an analogy for Holden, who admires in kids attributes he struggles to find in adults, like innocence, kindness, spontaneity and generosity. Falling off the cliff could be a progression into the adult world that surrounds him and that he strongly criticizes. Later, Phoebe and Holden exchange roles as the "catcher" and the "fallen"; he gives her his hunting hat, the catcher's symbol, and becomes the fallen as Phoebe becomes the catcher.^[20]