To a large extent I agree that Holden’s mental problems arise is the result of him never wanting to grow up like a Peter Pan figure as his behaviours reveals he struggles when he experiences adulthood when he sees phoniness in adults and innocence in children, so he wishes to save himself and other children from growing up in The Catcher in the Rye.
First, Holden struggles against growing up which causes him to have extensive psychological problems. According to Strauch (1961), “In effect, Holden is finished with childhood and is prepared for the burdens of maturity. But all the same he gathers up the pieces to be treasured, and in a final act of childhood profligacy—skipping coins over the lagoon—he symbolically rejects the materialism of the adult world that he is about to enter.” This implies that Holden fears the responsibilities of being an adult and refuses to enter the shallow adult world, although he defends his chastity throughout the novel. For example, in the Edmont hotel, the elevator operator Maurice offers to send a prostitute to his room for five dollars (pp. 102-106). Holden accepts it. However, he accepts his offer out of loneliness and a desire to be more adult. But he is still a teenager and is frightened of both sex and human contact and so he immediately regrets it. This suggests that Holden is being naive about the complexity of the adult life and also his basic insecurities in the adult world. He knows that he is sexually excited as an adolescent; however, he does not want to be sexually active like adults, so he tries to suppress himself. Therefore, he struggles against growing up and transit into the adult world. Another example is Holden meets Lillian Simmons and the Navy boy at Ernie’s (pp.93-95). They talk about Holden’s brother D.B. working in Hollywood but all he wants to do is to leave instead of sitting down with them when Lillian invites him. This is because he sees the superficiality in Lillian when she talks to him, only wanting to know that how is D.B. going on after they broke up. He chooses to tell them that he is leaving rather than listening to Ernie playing the piano and privately comments that people always ruin things for him. Holden seems to aware of the sacrifices one has to make if one wants to grow up and succeed in the adult world. He understands that one has to compromise for being an adult and it seems that his idealistic mind and his realisation make him struggle into the adult world. As a result, he suffers from depression and alienation when he refuses to grow up and compromise.
Besides, Holden’s refusal to change between childhood and adulthood is illustrated as his love towards the American Museum of Natural History and the death of his brother, Allie. In particular, the museum displays appeal to him because they are unchanging; everything is understandable and predictable. He says, “Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of the big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that’s impossible but it’s too bad anyway.” (pp. 130-132). The static world contained in the museum embodied his ideal world, he wants to be part of it and never changes. The museum stops time, just as Allie’s death froze him in the ideal state of childhood. Consequently, Holden’s fear of growing up converts to rejection of adulthood (Neffinger, 2014, P.20).
Furthermore, Holden rejects the rules imposed by society and refuses to enter adulthood because he feels like an outsider and is not on the winning side of society. When he visits his history teacher, Mr Spencer, to say goodbye, he tells Holden to heed Dr Thurmer’s advice that life is a game that must be played by the rules. “Life is a game, boy, life is a game that one plays by the rules.” Holden agrees but privately comments that life is really only a game for the winners and refuses to play by the rules (p. 9). This implies that he feels alone, thereby alienates himself and refuses to become a hypocritical adult in the future. Mr Spencer continues to lecture him, reminding Holden that he failed history because he knew nothing and wrote a horrible essay on the Egyptians. This suggests that Holden does not apply himself to his studies because he does not value the things that academic success brings. He realises academic success will only bring him into that insincere adult world and he obviously refuses to become a pretentious adult. As a consequence, Holden always dislikes the phoniness of adulthood as a teenager who never wants to grow up and isolates himself from others.
Last but not least, Holden wants to protect the children’s innocence and prevent himself and them from falling into the dangers of adulthood. Namely, he repeatedly removing “fuck you” graffiti in her sister Phoebe’s school (p. 216) and expressing the desire for a career protecting children from falling from grace, or into adulthood (p.186), suggesting he wishes to save the innocent children from the phony adult world. His idealisation of the purity and unworldliness of childhood makes him happy, revealing Holden’s fear of maturity and his resistance of phoniness of the adult world (Chen, 2009, P.2).
In short, this essay has discussed four reasons why Holden struggles against growing up like a Peter Pan figure and leads to his mental problems. He sees the adult world as hypocritical and has a fixation on childhood, thus refuses to change and isolates himself from the society. The adolescent problems Holden encounters has a great impact on him and results in his eccentric behaviours. Hence, to a large extent, I agree with the statement.