Blog 39

With almost every book I read I try and figure out why the book is titled what it is titled. I did it with Old Man and the Sea which was an obvious title. I also did it for Grapes of Wrath which I did blog about after doing some research to figure out why the name of the book was so. I also did it with this book, Catcher and the Rye. I really did not have a clue of why it would be titled this. But eventually in the book you get to a point where the titling of the book is revealed thanks to the characters Phoebe and Holden Caulfield. Phoebe, Holden's younger sister, ends up asking Holden what in the world is he going to do with his life. He answers her and says that he would like to be up on a mountain in a rye field with a bunch of children playing. This is not exactly a profession. It certainly is not a police officer, NBA Player, firefigher, or doctor. All Holden really wants to do is have the time of his life on this mountain with hsi siser(Sallinger 112). He also states that while they are playing if one of them starts to slip and fall over the edge, he wants to save her and wants to be the one to carch them. He wants to be the catcher in the rye. When I read this part of the book, it just all made sense. It was almost like a tiny weight had been lifted off of my shoulders because I had cracked the code of the titleing of the book. It was much much easier than the Grapes of Wrath, but was not quite as easy as the Old Man and the Sea. It just felt so good to understand one of the things that I had been wondering. I admit it is a little tad bit odd that a sixteen year old boy would say that is what he wanted to do with his life. However, it is interesting and he really just wanted to be a different type of hero, a catcher. A protection to the children of the world and be there for someone, especially his sister Phoebe. This is a point when I see that Phoebe brings out the best in Holden. She got a serious answer out of her brother and that is more than I think anyone else would of been able to accomplish.

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown and, 1991. Print.