The Ducks and Holden Caulfield
Holden first thinks about the ducks while talking to Mr. Spencer about flunking his class. Ignoring Spencer's advice and thoughts about the future, he wonders where the ducks by the lagoon go during the winter. Does someone come and take them away? Or maybe they fly off by themselves? Holden's ultimately unsure about what they do to accommodate for the harsh winter months. In the same way, Holden's uncertain about his own future prospects and how he will survive the transition to adulthood.
This question of where the ducks go symbolizes Holden's own unwillingness to let go of his childhood. Whether he likes it or not, adulthood will come for him eventually, just as winter will arrive for the ducks. He can't sidestep it or avoid it forever, yet he still tries to hold onto his moments of purity and innocence. Constantly dwelling on these ducks and even asking cab drivers about it, Holden may actually believe that understanding where the ducks went will solve his own problems with how he should confront the end of his childhood.
In not one but two cabs, Holden asks the driver about the ducks on the lagoon. Unsurprisingly, they're uninterested with his questions and he doesn't get an answer. Filled with loneliness and facing the scary ending of his adolescence, I can sympathize with how he's grasping at straws, trying to find any solution to the problems he's facing.
Holden fundamentally has a problem with the human condition. He sees life in society as pointless, wanting to run away into the woods and start a new life. Holden so badly wants to escape from the path he's forced to walk down, he even dumps his problems and emotions on poor Sally Hayes, almost begging her to come and live a life with him away in the woods. Even if the idea makes no sense, he just wants to get away from whatever corrupt adult world he's about to walk into. This desperation is seen again and again (e.g., getting himself kicked out of schools), and it eventually ends with him bawling his eyes out, looking back at Phoebe and all that childhood innocence he'll never get to have again.
This connection between Holden and the ducks completely flew over my head during my reading, but looking back I think you're right. Holden's desire to understand where the ducks go when winter strikes in hopes of realizing some un-adultlike ending of his childhood would absolutely fit both his character and Salinger's style of metaphorical writing very well. Good Post.
ReplyDeleteThis is great, I didn't even notice the importance of the ducks and Holden I sort of brushed it off as something he was just curious about. But your point makes a lot of sense Holden is definitely holding onto his childhood. We see this in his denial to talk to or call Jane.
ReplyDeleteI agree a lot with your post. I wonder if Holden really does know where the ducks go when winter comes, and he's just asking because he wants to be optimistic about his own future, or if he truly doesn't know and the question symbolizes his uncertainty regarding his own future. Good post.
ReplyDeleteNice post, I never really thought much about the symbolism of ducks in the book. Thinking about it now, it makes sense that Holden would try to look for answers to his own life from an animal and not a human. I think him not really realizing that he's looking for answers to his own life is telling of his attitude towards life at the moment. At the end of the book he seems to have moved past this and is experimenting and looking for answers on his own.
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