Holden Caulfield: a perfect bigfoot

Holden Caulfield displays interesting character features in Catcher in the Rye, judging the world unfavorably for its phoniness and expressing a desire to escape and become a hermit; individuals of Magnopeditus barbarus, the Nearctic Sasquatch (referred to as Homo pilosus in some old manuscripts, and popularly referred to as bigfoots as well [yetis are a related species, M. spelaeus]), also isolate themselves from society. Do these apes also resemble Holden in their disgust for self-dramatization and condemnation of others' phoniness?

Cryptid apes have vanished from most of the planet as their habitat has been encroached upon by humans. In North America, they were already extremely rare by the time that Europeans arrived; fossil records indicate that their populations took a huge hit after early humans began competing for food. The host of overheating-related diseases that proliferated after the end of the last ice age in the southern parts of their range didn't help any. As a result, the apes today keep to themselves in areas apart from human habitation. When Holden Caulfield proposes to Sally that they run off together to "the woods or some goddamn place" (145), his behavior is quite like what one would expect from a sasquatch which had rendezvoused with their sweetheart in a crowded city. Cryptid ape males wander outside of their comfort zones during the mating season, but once they have found a partner they attempt to retreat to their normal habitat. Holden has a romanticized view of self-sufficiency in the wilderness, impractical for a modern specimen of Homo sapiens like Holden but normal for a sasquatch.

At the end of chapter 14, alone in his hotel room in New York City after a night of misadventures, Holden contemplates throwing himself off of the building to the ground, but decides against it because of the unwanted publicity it would attract. "I didn't want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory" (117). Holden wants to be anonymous and unnoticed just as much as bigfoots, which avoid journalists and photographically talented hikers at all costs.

Holden's individuality is reminiscent of wild North American apes, which can be very solitary. Staying away from one another, whose values they regard as pretentious, they form emotional relationships with inferior animals. "Take most people, they're crazy about cars... I don't even like old cars... A horse is at least human, for God's sake" (145). Holden sees the meaningless interactions with material objects as worthless, but considers bonding with an animal. Holden's repeated inquiries with taxi drivers about what fish do in the winter also evinces his awareness of nature.

At one point, Holden considers the potential of being a lawyer. However, Holden worries that he would end up arguing cases not for the actual benefit of being a lawyer but for the congratulations of other people. Holden fears that this would prevent him from being true to himself, and make him into just another phony. In a paper published in 2006 in the Journal for Bovine Empistics, Dr. John Ombleton of the Oregon Zoological Center presented his findings which he had gathered over five years using cameras placed in remote areas of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. This paper claimed that bigfoots, talented in sculpture, valued originality--when they shared their work at annual "conventions," one of whose sites Ombleton happened to place a camera at, remote similarities between entered sculptures led to head-bashing rituals against the offenders. Sculptures which had features deemed "conforming" or "gaudy" were destroyed, and their creators censured loudly. Holden certainly doesn't try to convince people to be less phony, and from his reaction to football at the beginning of the book, among other things, one could judge that Holden would be remote from joining violent action against "phony" people. Furthermore, the wild apes' perceptions of phoniness may not have extended to general social practices--the very existence of sculpting "conventions" suggests that the apes care about others' impressions; the apes essentially made nonconformity into the mainstay of conformists. Holden Caulfield runs into a paradox by trying to stay true to himself  against personal change. By resisting change, Holden actually influences his growth. Similarly, anyone who tries to free themselves by resisting outside influences will in fact be subjugating themselves to internal influences.

Although not perfect, I thought that these commonalities between the behavior of sasquatches and Holden Caulfield brought an interesting perspective to the reading of Catcher in the Rye. If you made it this far in my post, I hope you enjoyed yourself!

Holden's Attitude Toward Movies

Throughout Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield criticizes others for laughing at the wrong parts of movies. But what are the right parts of movies to laugh at?

To answer this question, I'd like to look at the scene immediately after Maurice, the elevator pimp, has punched Holden and exited with Sunny from Holden's hotel room with the stolen money. On page 116 (Chapter 14), Holden shares how he imagines that Maurice shoots him. He goes on to share how, in this fantasy, Holden, bleeding and dying, confronts Maurice with a machine gun, and is nurtured by Jane Gallagher back to health like in some kind of spy movie.

Holden expresses discomfort with his imitation of the movies, but can be seen nevertheless to identify with movie characters and their reaction to imaginary situations in this scene. Instead of laughing at the pain and vengeful emotion of the actors like I imagine the people Holden scorns to do, Holden projects his own feelings onto them.

Holden has an "abnormal" empathy; for example. he finds himself incapable of taking non consensual sex from his dates, unlike his fellows, and where most people would objectify, he tries to connect emotionally (we see this when Holden talks about his double-date with Stradlater and in the scene with Sunny in the hotel room). Holden tries to understand people and see the good in them, and he sees them as people.

Perhaps the big problem Holden has with the movies is the way they force a particular perspective on their characters, effectively taking away a whole dimension. In action movies, soldiers and spies are pawns of good and evil but lack mundane problems and hygienic flaws; in comedies, we laugh at the mindless misfortune of others without much empathy; in romances, we idealize love and attraction while ignoring the problems and uglinesses. Holden's description of a movie he watched on page 154 (Chapter 18) of Catcher echoes these complaints. I imagine Holden would movies corresponding to these stereotypes distasteful because of the disregard for reality--this constitutes an imposed phoniness inherent to most cheap fiction.The screenwriters are at fault here because they take such a limited approach to make people laugh, cry, or have fun, at the price of a 360 degree character. As I see it, this is Holden's biggest objection with D.B.'s current work.