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The Catcher in the Rye

by J. D. Salinger

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Holden's Connection with Central Park Ducks in The Catcher in the Rye

Summary:

In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield's preoccupation with the ducks in Central Park symbolizes his own feelings of displacement and isolation. He repeatedly wonders where the ducks go during winter, reflecting his anxiety about his uncertain future and his search for stability. This concern reveals his kindness and vulnerability, contrasting with his usual cynicism. The ducks' cyclical migration offers Holden a sense of continuity and hope amidst his struggles with grief and the transition to adulthood.

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In Chapter 2 of The Catcher in the Rye, what is Holden wondering about the ducks?

The desperately lonely Holden has taken the time to visit his favorite teacher at Pencey Prep, old Mr. Spencer. But Spencer's lecturing and storytelling grows old quickly for Holden, who begins to daydream. He chooses a topic that he returns to several times in The Catcher in the Rye: He wonders how the ducks who swim in the lagoon in Central Park South survive during the winter months. Does someone load them in a truck and take them to safety?

The question is more of a rhetorical one, since Holden is actually wondering about his own future. What will happen to him now that he is displaced with winter approaching? His aimless life seems similar to the ducks in park, and he wonders if someone will appear to save him as well.

This theme is repeated several times later in the novel, and during his return to New...

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York he asks an unfriendly cabbie the same question. The flustered taxi driver gives him a less-than-accurate answer, telling him that the ducks will adapt and hibernate. In truth, the ducks do as many Northern snowbirds do during the winter months: They migrate south to warmer weather. This is a thought that later crosses Holden's mind--to escape his problems by moving to new surroundings.

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What does Holden's concern for the Central Park ducks reveal about his character?

Holden's concern about the ducks in Central Park reveals that he is exceptionally kind-hearted, in spite of the cynical, negative attitude he typically expresses. The story takes place just before Christmas, which means that the weather is quite cold. Holden pictures those ducks suffering in the snow and ice, and he is evidently hoping they had sense enough to migrate south by now. Holden is perhaps the only person in New York who thinks about the ducks or cares what happens to them. He asks the cab driver in Chapter 9:

By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over?

The cab driver becomes belligerent.

He turned around and looked at me like I was a madman. "What're ya tryna do, bud?" he said. "Kid me?"

This is like Holden's introduction to Manhattan. Later he will express his same compassion about people he meets, including the young prostitute who calls herself Sunny. In Chapter 13, when Sunny wants to hang her dress up, Holden does it for her. He writes:

It made me feel sort of sad when I hung it up.  I thought of her going in a store and buying it, and nobody in the store knowing she was a prostitute and all.

Holden shows the same sensibility when he tells about his meeting with his teacher Mr. Spencer, when he meets the two nuns in Chapter 15, and whenever he thinks about Jane Gallagher or his little brother Allie who died of leukemia. Holden affects a cynicism and indifference which is constantly belied by his descriptions of his real feelings. His most revealing self-description comes in Chapter 22 when he tells his little sister Phoebe:

"I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."

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How does Holden relate to Central Park's ducks in The Catcher in the Rye?

The pond in Central Park is one of the novel's major symbols. Throughout the novel, Holden obsesses about these ducks because he, like the ducks, feels like he has no place to go. After leaving Pencey, Holden is effectively homeless. If he returns home, he will get in trouble.

When preparing to leave Pencey Prep in The Catcher in the Rye, Holden says he "was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over." Throughout the novel, Holden ponders this idea and asks as many people as he can in hopes of finding the answer. 

Holden asks two cab drivers about the ducks and they both treat him like he's crazy. The second one, Horowitz, raises Holden's anxiety about them even more by talking about the fish that remain in the pond over the winter. Holden says, "[The fish] can't just ignore the ice. They can't just ignore it." Then he worries about how the fish eat. 

Finally, Holden takes a walk in the park to look for the ducks, but doesn't see any. It's here where Holden has one of his first physical breakdowns. He says he was "shivering like a bastard" and "thought he'd probably get pneumonia and die." 

It's clear throughout the novel that, like the ducks in winter, Holden feels he has no place to go.

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How do the ducks symbolize isolation for Holden in The Catcher in the Rye?

Holden's obsession with the ducks in Central Park, especially where they go in the winter, he is very curious to discover the habits of the ducks and how they disappear and then reappear when the weather gets warm, acts as a way for him to focus on questions that are difficult to answer, like why young people die.

Holden asks this question over and over again, failing to get a satisfactory answer.  To me, this question about the disappearing ducks was always his way of asking about the isolation and transformation of death.  Since, in my view, he is stuck in a cycle of grief over the loss of his little brother, he can't make sense of his death and cannot find his way back to participation in society without getting some answers.

Holden longs to understand the cycle that the ducks follow, he somehow equates it with a sense of eternity, where life is renewed each and every spring.  It is comforting to think that there is life after death, especially thinking about Allie who will forever be a child.

Holden's desire to see the ducks again would provide him with comfort, they are familiar, they remind him of when he was a child.  So in a sense even though Holden sits by the frozen pond and contemplates his own death, the ducks really provide something for Holden to live for, waiting for them to return gives him a sense of purpose.

Even though, he can't get a satisfactory answer to where the ducks go in the winter and how they know to come back, in his isolation of never receiving an answer, he is comforted by the question, a mystery of nature, one that provides clarity to other mysteries that cannot be explained, like death.   

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Twice Holden makes inquiries about where the ducks in Central Park's lagoon go in the winter (Chapter 9 and Chapter 12). Both times Holden asks cab drivers where they think the ducks go in the winter; his query is met with brusque replies, expressing astonishment and even anger that he would ask such an outrageous question. It seems that only Holden is concerned with the whereabouts of the ducks.

Then in Chapter 20 after Holden gets drunk and breaks the record he bought for Phoebe, he takes a walk in Central Park and looks for the ducks in the lagoon. He cannot, however, find any ducks, so once again he is alone, isolated from everyone.

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What three quotes signify the importance of the Central Park ducks?

Holden, in Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, is very concerned about defending the lives and interests of the innocent. In this case, Holden feels responsible for the ducks during the winter. In chapter 12, Holden asks his cab driver, Horowitz, about the ducks and where they go when the lake is frozen over. Horowitz is confused at such a question and doesn't know how to answer the boy. The ducks' significance to Holden can be seen through the discussion he has with the cab driver in the following:

"The ducks. Do you know, by any chance? I mean does somebody come around in a truck or something and take them away, or do they fly away by themselves—go south or something?" (81-82).

Such a seemingly random question takes the cab driver aback, but it shows that Holden has thought of the innocent little birds before. Based on Holden's distrust for authority figures, he probably also wonders if the city, or any other adults, does anything to help innocent creatures like this each year. In like manner, Holden probably identifies with the ducks and feels as helpless in his own life as he thinks the ducks are in theirs. But then the cab driver brings up the fish in the lake and confuses the conversation further. So, Holden asks the following:

"All right. What do they do, the fish and all, when that whole little lake's a solid block of ice, people skating on it and all?" (82).

Now Holden is concerned about the fish who are trapped in the ice, which is more complicated than the ducks' situation. Horowitz gets frustrated, and the conversation gets more heated. Finally, Horowitz says something that seems to calm Holden down a little bit:

"If you was a fish, Mother Nature'd take care of you, wouldn't she? Right? You don't think them fish just die when it gets to be winter, do ya? (83).

Holden doesn't want to continue the conversation, though, because he says, "I was afraid he was going to crack the damn taxi up or something" (83). What Horowitz says suggests that Holden needs to have faith in Mother Nature and not worry about things that he doesn't have control over. Holden understands the theory, but it doesn't seem to help him remedy his concern. Because of the many traumatic experiences that Holden has had in his life, from his brother Allie's death to the suicide of a classmate, he worries about the lives of the innocent when left unchecked. The ducks, for example, seem helpless and innocent to Holden, just like children are, and that is why they are significant to him.

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How do ducks symbolize Holden's loneliness in The Catcher in the Rye?

I feel as though the ducks represent Holden in two ways.  Holden is very concerned where the ducks go during the winter.  First, Holden wants to know if a truck comes to get them and take them to a place more suitable for them. This could show Holden's internal fear that someone will eventually come and get him and take him to where he belongs- a mental ward. Second, Holden wonders if the ducks choose, or know, to leave on their own.  This, again, is like Holden.  He left Pency early and has plans to run away from home as well.  In both ways the ducks represent Holden. Regarding the loneliness aspect, Holden really wants to know if someone is looking out for the ducks or if they are on their own.  This is another representation of the imagery related to Holden and the ducks.

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Every winter the ducks disappear from the pond in the park, and Holden does not know where they go. He doesn't know anyone who does. These ducks are Holden. His loneliness, depression, and etc.are rooted in the fact that no one knows where he has gone--literally and metaphorically. He has vanished from school, but his parents don't yet know that. He has, however, been vanishing since Allie died. Look at all the schools and lack of achievement that he's experiencing, and yet not until he has the breakdown and is institutionalized does anyone know.

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In The Catcher in the Rye, what is the significance of the ducks?

Yes, the ducks are important.  For Holden, the ducks represent continuity, something that he needs in his life.  When he goes to Central Park to look for the ducks, he has a question about where they go in the winter.  Technically, what really fascinates him is that they come back in a very reliable way.

Holden is suffering from grief over the death of his brother.  He is isolated from society feeling unable to make a true connection with anyone. Holden finds everyone around him to be phony. 

The ducks in the park comfort him, make him feel safe in the belief that there is something reliable in life.  The ducks always come back, you can depend on it.  This provides Holden with comfort.

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Why is Holden obsessed with the ducks in The Catcher in the Rye?

Holden is fascinated with the idea of where the ducks go during the winter. On one hand, this fascination is childlike in its curiosity and sense of wonder. On the other, this obsession reflects Holden's struggles with coming to terms with adulthood and the end of his innocence.

Holden is fascinated by how the ducks disappear during the winter yet return every spring. Change disturbs Holden more than anything, whether it be the changes his body undergoes during puberty or the traumatic change that comes from his younger brother's death, but the ducks represent a different sort of change. Unlike Allie's death or Holden's progression into adulthood, the ducks' disappearance is not an irreversible change, but a cyclical one. They always disappear, yet they always come back.

This insight Holden gains from observing the ducks is an embryonic form of his epiphany while watching Phoebe at the carousel in the climactic scene of the novel. There, he realizes that change and the end of innocence are inevitable: just as Phoebe might get hurt reaching for the gold ring on the carousel and he cannot stop her from doing so, he cannot stop growing up any more than he can stop the ducks from leaving during the winter.

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