Innocence and ugliness

Dear AP students:

Is there anything more childlike and innocent than a carousel? It's for little kids. Even Phoebe makes the comment that she's "too big" for it. Yet, she is talked into getting on and riding it, and this give Holden great joy.

This final scene at the zoo where Phoebe rides the carousel speaks much about Holden's concern for his loss of childhood and the accompanying loss of innocence.

The author succeeds in emphasizing the innocent nature of the carousel by preceding it's introduction into the story by also showing Holden's disgust for the F-word, which seems to be painted everywhere he goes. Isn't that a perverse societal sign of growing up, or a loss of innocence, when a kid starts using the F-word? It's very hard to avoid in our society--so many movies use the F-word these days. It never appeared in movies before the late 60's. Now you can hear it all the time on TV, at least on pay per view stations like HBO. Perhaps Salinger in 1951 was foreshadowing how our society would turn out...more vulgar...more accepting of bad words. Maybe that's what he was saying by making D.B. a Hollywood script writer...a phoney who would eventually be using the F-word in movie script by the late 60's.

I find it interesting that on a carousel the kids aim to get a gold ring. They are on a quest, like the hero on a hero's journey. And they sometimes fall off their horses while reaching for the gold ring...just as we sometimes fall or fail in life as we strive for something. What doe you think about Holden's$ response to the idea of kids falling off the horses? Didn't he want to be the catcher in the rye?

Different subject...can somebody volunteer to explain the significance of the mummy scene (with Holden and the two brothers inside the museum)...right before the carousel scene? I thought it was such an interesting scene.

Keep reading. If anyone is looking for another book to read for the break I suggest A Separate Peace, which is a different kind of story about preppies. If you haven't already read it To Kill a Mockingbird would also be good...its the 50th anniversary of the publication of that famous book.

Don't forget to read the two articles I gave you before we left. I will ask you to relate and apply those two articles to Catcher in the Rye (in an essay) when we get back.