When he first appears in the story, Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye” is a novel about a young character who goes through growth into maturity. Typically Holden Caulfield is an unusual protagonist because his central goal is to resist the process of maturity itself. As his thoughts about the Museum of Natural History demonstrate, Holden …show more content…
Holden has a fantasy that adulthood is a world of hypocrisy “phoniness”, while childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty. Of these two worlds he better his imagination of childhood as an wonderful field of rye in which children frolic and play; adulthood is an alarming place where you have to be significant. His created understandings of childhood and adulthood allow Holden to cut himself off from the world by covering himself with a protective armor of cynicism. But as the book progresses, Holden’s experiences, particularly his encounters with Mr. Antolini and Phoebe, reveal the shallowness of his impregnation
Holden’s little sister Phoebe plays an enormous role in his life. Being the fact that she is little and Holden is trying to preserve her youthfulness. When Phoebe tells Holden that she is going to run away with him, this snaps Holden’s mind back into reality. At that moment, Holden had to be a big brother and take care of his sister, as a result try to shape her into a good young lady. Holden doesn't want to infect Phoebe’s young