The Catcher in the Rye
...Holden’s situation. They have to deal with issues such as losing their home in the winter and having to go to a new place. Holden also has many issues in his environment and he is just trying to learn how to cope with them. He is not very good at relating to people who could help him with his problems, so he has to try to find the answer in the ducks. He thinks that figuring out how the ducks deal with their problems will help him with his own. The question of the ducks in the pond is comparable to whether Holden should get help with his problems or just take care of them on his own. While drifting off in his conversation with Mr. Spencer, Holden wonders if the ducks were picked up by a guy in a truck or if they just flew away during the winter. Holden also asks Horwitz his cab driver this question. I think what Holden is trying to figure out is whether he should get somebody to help him with his problems or just solve them on his own. If the ducks are taken away by a man in a truck then Holden thinks it is okay to ask for help. But if they just fly away on their own, then Holden can handle his own problems. The pond becomes a metaphor to the world as Holden sees it. After staggering to the pond while he was drunk Holden states that the pond was “partly frozen and partly not frozen (154).” Some parts of the pond are rock-hard cold yet others are not so bad. This is like Holden’s world. There are the phonies and there are the people like Jane Gallagher. Holden tends to think of many people as phonies and this is why he is somewhat hostile to the wo...