The "Fall"
The Catcher in the Rye, despite its sarcastic tone and unserious narrator, has some incredible Biblical themes that I couldn't stop thinking about. The thing that most interested me was "the Fall" mentioned by Holden after being beat up on page 104, prevented by Holden's imagined job of "the Catcher in the Rye" on page 173, and addressed on page 170 when James Castle presumedly jumped from the dorm room on a matter of principle. All of these instances are unique yet connected by their inclusion of "the fall." Whether or not you believe what the Bible teaches or claims, these observations serve to me as striking literature parallels that I think would be a mistake to discard. Let me begin with the first--and to me, most fascinating--reference to "the Fall" in The Catcher in the Rye. Holden tells Phoebe about how he would like to save children from falling off this imaginary cliff his mind has conjured up. He says, "I keep p...