Catcher In the Rye
...nt to do. He has experienced the death of his brother, and knows how hard it is to try to adapt to new situations. When someone close to you dies, it's hard for me. You have to learn to live without the person and learn to adapt to this new situation. This is what Holden doesn't want to do. Holden is very immature for his age. On the outside he is all grown up and looks like an adult. However, on the inside, he's a child. "I was sixteen then, and I'm seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I'm thirteen." Holden couldn't bare to watch people mature and lose their innocence. In his mind, Jane Gallagher was still a little girl who left all her kings in the back row while playing checkers. He couldn't picture her growing up and maturing. He was very naïve in believing that she was still a child. "Did you ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row?" Jane represented the good and innocent child; however she was really experienced and able to take care of herself. When Holden found out she was going out with Stradlater, he was very upset. He was worried that Stradlater would treat her like everyone else, which he didn't want to occur. He was protective of Jane and asked Stradlater many questions. "What did you do? I said. Giver her the time in Ed Bank's goddam car?" Phoebe, too, represented the good and innocent child. Even though she was mature, Holden couldn't bare to think that she could lose her innocence. She was only a child in his mind. Holden wanted to freeze time and preserve childhood just like the mummies. The mummies represent a stop in the aging process when everything stays exactly the same. In Holden's mind, the mummies represent staying a child forever and being saved from adulthood. This also relates to the exhibition under glass, in the museum. These exhibitions are signs of purity with no change. "The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. You could go there a hundred times and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those fish. The only thing that would be different, would be you." Time has been frozen in these exhibitions and there are no signs of aging. However, it would be noticeable that people would be aging, which is not what Holden wants. Holden wanted to protect the youth from the danger of adulthood; however, he realizes he cannot succeed in doing this. He loved the carousel because it played the same song over and over again and the horses kept on going in the same circle. However, while Phoebe was on the carousel, she started reaching for the gold ring. This is when Holden realizes that if kids will grow up, they'll do it and he can't change anything. If they fall, they fall, but you can't stop them. "All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold rings, including Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she'd fall off the goddam horse, but I didn'...