The Holden Trinity: Phoebe, Jane, and Allie
The Catcher in the Rye poses a very interesting question: why does Holden care so much about kids? It’s likely because kids are the only people Holden feels he can trust. Holden has been through a lot, dealing with his brother’s death and adults betraying his trust on multiple occasions. At the point in Holden’s life when the book is set, there are only a few people he holds close to himself: Phoebe, Jane, and Allie. All three are important to him because they represent how his childhood was much happier than his adolescence, after he lost Allie, after Jane moved away, and after he went to boarding school and stopped seeing Phoebe so much. Because of the loss of these three people in his life, he tends to think about them a lot, bringing them up to the reader often throughout the book.
Now, I want to talk about Phoebe and her relationship with Holden. As we talked about in class, Phoebe is kind of a mini-Holden. She is smart and she has a similar outlook on society (although not quite as dark as his). Holden also treats her like he treats the reader, which shows just how connected and close they are. However, Phoebe also seems to conform to societal standards more than Holden does, which separates them a bit. Still, Holden thinks of her very highly, a lot of which is because she is still a kid–honest, truthful, and pure. That’s important to Holden because by having those qualities, Phoebe shows Holden that she won’t betray him like adults in his life have before.
I also want to talk about the end of the book because that part also reveals some about Holden’s idea of Phoebe. When he encounters her at the museum with her suitcase and his hunting hat, he is immediately reminded of himself. This isn’t good for his perception of Phoebe, because deep down Holden knows that he isn’t what he would want Phoebe to be as a teenager, as he often feels alone and despises pretty much everything. This is why when Phoebe shows up reminding him of himself, he decides to stay because he doesn’t want her to end up like him and risk corrupting her childhood and her innocence. Later on, when they reach the carousel, which is a classic little kid experience, Phoebe enjoying the carousel makes Holden happy because it reassures him that he won’t lose the Phoebe he knows.
With Jane, he has a similar experience because he only really has the memories of them from his past years. He thinks about her so much but never calls, because he worries that by calling her, she will be changed from the idea of her in Holden’s mind. He does exactly this when he says, “I started toying with the idea, while I kept standing there, of giving old Jane a buzz…The only reason I didn’t do it was because I wasn’t in the mood” (Salinger 63). Holden’s never in the mood. To tell you the truth, I flipped to a random page and found this quote. That’s how much he thinks about her. He never calls her because he is scared of spoiling his memories with ones of Jane being a phony, thus losing another trustworthy person in his life.
Allie is the last of the trio, and to me has a really intriguing role in the book. Like with Jane, Holden’s only memories of Allie are from years before the book happens. When Holden describes the time after leaving the Antolinis’s, he talks about speaking to Allie. In his declining state of mental and physical health, he says to his brother, “Allie, please don’t let me disappear. Allie please don’t let me disappear. Allie, please don’t let me disappear. Please, Allie” (Salinger 198). I find this part so heartbreaking because his cry for help is to one of the only people in his life that he truly trusted. Holden knows that Allie is gone, but he tries anyway because he feels the need to connect to at least someone.
Holden’s reliance on these kids (or memories of these kids) is so important to him because it makes him feel less alone in a world where he doesn’t connect with the people around him. Even though they may not be around, he still treasures their memories and paints them all in a light that reveals just how much he loves them, which represents just how close their relationships were.
It's really interesting thinking about the reasons Holden enjoys childhood more than adult society because there are probably more than a dozen reasons. I totally agree with you that these people, and his good experiences with them, are immortalized in childhood (whether that childhood be his or theirs). I also think that his chase of the pureness of childhood comes from the fact that he enjoyed how he could just float through life when he was younger with Jane & Allie and how Phoebe can float through life at her young age now.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely interesting that kids are one of the only groups of people Holden doesn't have a grudge against, because of their innocence. You use a lot of good examples to show that he is putting Jane and Phoebe on an unrealistic pedestal, because in the present for Jane and in the future for Phoebe, they will both likely be what Holden considers phonies. Naturally, he works to preserve this perfect image of his "holy trinity" as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteWow you also have a really pretty blog #twinningwithpraachi! This is a really great blog and I really enjoyed reading it. I think one of the things that depresses Holden so much about growing up and becoming terrible and phony is how inevitable it is, and we see this in the way that he interacts with Phoebe and thinks about Jane. He doesn't want to call up Jane cause he knows that it's inevitable that she has changed, and he actively tries to push his views about the world on Phoebe so he can influence her more than the world around her. Good job!
ReplyDeleteHey Citlali! I really really enjoyed this blog post. Throughout the book, it's definitely clear who Holden trusts and your point about Holden's idealization of these characters because of their relation to his own innocence definitely makes sense. I thought your part about Jane was funny (because of the page part), but it's a little ironic that he thinks about Jane so much but never acts on it. I also had some questions about the ending scene with the carousel and I think your interpretation is spot on. I also love your blog theme! Great job!
ReplyDeleteHi Citlali! I liked how you addressed the Holden Trinity, because it really is such an important aspect of both the novel and Holden's character. These characters are symbols of childhood for him, which seems to be the one thing keeps him going, and is eventually what helps him reach some semblence of peace at the end. I also agree with your interpertation of the ending of the novel, especially with how Pheobe acting like Holden made him realize the consequences of his actions. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteI agree that Allie is the most heartbreaking and poignant of these figures in Holden's "trinity," and that's because there's nothing we can really say to him to ease the pain of this loss. With Phoebe, we can talk about how he needs to accept the fact that he and she are both growing older, and that it's maybe important for him to be around for her as she goes through this process (and for her to be around for him!). With Jane, we can talk about his idealization of their late-childhood hangouts and how sad it is that this inevitably morphs into the less appealing teenage prep-school dating scene (so she goes out with Stradlater, not Holden), but this too is easy to frame as something he just needs to accept and move on.
ReplyDeleteBut with Allie, in moments like the one you cite, or (for me) the poignant passage where Holden talks about how unfair it is that they can all run to the car to get out of the rain, but Allie has to stay there in that grave, I don't know WHAT anyone could say to him to make it seem allright. Holden is upset about "phonies" and authenticity and the compromises of adulthood, but at this more fundamental level he's upset about *the human condition*--the transience of life, the inevitability of death, and the difficulty and seeming impossibility of getting over a profound loss. For some of his other obsessions, I can see myself saying some version of "get over it, move on." But when Holden mourns Allie, and talks about how he just can't deal with the fact that this amazing kid no longer exists, I am less comfortable just telling him to forget about it and move on.
Hi Citlali! This is a really interesting breakdown!! I remember vaguely talking about how the idea of childhood was one of the main things Holden valued most (and how him failing out of school was sort of a way to delay adulthood), so it makes sense that the people who represent or are in their childhood would be the people he thinks of most fondly. It's a bit upsetting how he tries to hang onto that stage of his life for so long, but it definitely explains a lot. Great work!!
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