amount of growth and maturity. For the majority of the story, for instance, Holden is determined to run away and live on his own in the wilderness, where he plans to avoid all "phonies." He even asksSally Hayes to move with him out of the city and initially tells Phoebe that is going to run away. However, Holden changes his mind and realizes that running away will not solve his problems. Holden's decision to stay home and confront his issues depicts his maturation.

Holden also changes his opinion on adulthood and protecting childhood innocence. Initially, Holden desires to become a catcher in the rye and prevent children from falling off a cliff, which symbolically represents entering adulthood. Toward the end of the book, Holden watches Phoebe grab for a gold ring while riding the carousel and thinks,

The thing with kids is, if they want to grab the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them.

Holden's comments reveal his change of perspective and his realization that he cannot prevent children from becoming adults. He has accepted the fact that everyone will eventually enter adulthood, and nothing can prevent time from progressing.

Holden also changes his opinion on suicide and decides not to take his life. As a lonely adolescent struggling with depression, Holden contemplates suicide several times in the story. After getting beat up by Maurice, Holden mentions that he feels like jumping out of the hotel window. Fortunately, Holden takes Mr. Antolini's advice and decides not to die nobly for an "unworthy cause." Instead, Holden is taken to a mental hospital, where he recounts his recent experiences.

Holden Caulfield has changed his perspectives in few areas; he alters his attitude about Mr. Antolini, his sister Phoebe, and his writing of his autobiographical account.

--Mr. Antolini

In Chapter 24 when Holden visits his former teacher, Mr. Antolini is very solicitous and suggests gently that he thinks Holden is "riding for some kind of terrible fall." But because it is late and Holden feels extremely sleepy, Holden cannot listen well to the good advice that Mr. Antolini gives him. So, his host makes up the couch as a bed for Holden.
After sleeping for a while, Holden wakes up and discovers Mr. Antolini stroking his head. He is very upset by this. Since he claims to have had "that kind of stuff" happen before, Holden believes that Mr. Antolini is gay.

Later, in Chapter 25, Holden rethinks what has occurred with Mr. Antolini:

...I wondered if just maybe I was wrong about thinking he was making a flitty pass at me. I wondered if maybe he just liked to pat guys on the head when they're asleep.... I mean I started thinking that even if he was a flit, he certainly'd been very nice to me.

--Phoebe

Whereas Holden has desired to be a "catcher in the rye" and save children from the phoniness of adulthood as a protector of their innocence in Chapter 24, in Chapter 25, he changes his mind. 

In Chapter 25 Holden sends Phoebe a message to meet him at the museum, where he will return her Christmas money, which she gave him. When she arrives, Phoebe has a suitcase with her and asks if she can go with him. Holden denies her request, instructing her to return to school, but Phoebe adamantly refuses to go, so he offers to take her to the zoo. There the siblings reconcile and Holden convinces Phoebe to ride the carousel as she has in the past. As Holden sits watching her, he sees Phoebe grab for the gold ring, and he becomes afraid that she will be hurt. But, Holden recognizes,

The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you just have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them. 

Thus, Holden realizes that he cannot stop children from maturing. He cannot be "a catcher in the rye."

--His autobiographical account

After giving his account of why he has left school and his feelings about phonies and other people and things, Holden reveals that he has been institutionalized for a while, but he will soon attend a new school. However, he does not want to reveal much more, and he wishes now that he had not told so much about himself already. He adds,

Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

Hi, stb:

This is a tough question, because in The Catcher in the Rye you could make the case that Holden doesn't change much at all.  Really, he's a critic of society (but not of himself) throughout the entire novel.  In the end, he regrets telling us his story at all, which shows that he is very conservative and in denial of change and maturity.  In short, he's a reluctant hero not ready to cross the threshold into the adult, illegitimate world.

If I had to choose only three (3) ways in which he changes, it would be:

1)  He doesn't commit suicide, like James Castle.  Because of Antolini's advice ("The mark of a mature man is that he lives for [a noble cause]"), Holden refuses to romanticize his own death.  He refuses to martyr himself for the phony culture.

2)  Holden refuses to enter that adult world of sex.  He hires the prostitute Sonny only to talk to her.  In short, he wants to protect his and her innocence.  By losing his virginity, he might have been swallowed up and drowned in the adult world completely.

3)  Holden chooses to live for Phoebe, his sister, instead of kill himself for Allie, his brother who died of leukemia.  Holden lives with survivor's guilt, and he can't turn to adults for help.  So, he looks to become a surrogate parent to his little sister, a type of therapy and a noble cause.

Throughout the course of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden matures slightly. His coming of age is far from complete. Maturing consists largely of his recognizing the limits of his ability to change his own circumstances, and the corresponding need to accommodate to his actual situation. At the end of the novel, the reader learns that Holden is living in a facility, presumably a hospital or recovery center where he is receiving treatment for his emotional problems. He has developed a stronger relationship with his older brother, who lives in California, and is no longer living either with his parents in New York or at a prep school.

It can be argued that Holden’s getting expelled from prep school was the precipitating incident that really set in motion his journey toward recovery. Holden is not old enough to live on his own without his parents, but they have apparently provided inadequate emotional support following the death of his younger brother, Allie. Holden has tried to take initiative to help other children, including his remaining younger sibling, Phoebe. What he has learned is that he is neither old enough nor strong enough to do so. Rather than continuing to distance himself from childhood, Holden now accepts that he is still a child and needs to remain in a dependent status until he is further recovered from losing Allie.

In the famous final scene of the book, it's clear that Holden has indeed matured over the course of the novel. As he watches Phoebe riding on the carousel, each time reaching for the golden ring, each time missing it and still being able to laugh hysterically, Holden finally realizes what really matters in life. It's not the golden ring—that is to say, worldly achievements—that is most important, but rather it's how we live our lives. In other words, it's the process of life that provides lasting fulfillment, not the end results.

This may not seem like a particularly stunning transformation on Holden's part, but it's significant all the same, because now, for the very first time, Holden has found some meaning in a life previously characterized by nihilism, or a belief that life is meaningless. Critics have long debated how much of a transformation this change in attitude really is, but what cannot seriously be debated is the fact that Holden, in his own little way, is more mature at the end of the story than he was at the beginning.

Throughout the novel, Holden fears growing up and has a mental breakdown as he transitions to adulthood. He does not want other children to experience the "phoniness" of the world and become corrupted by society. In a conversation with Phoebe, Holden mentions that he wants to be a catcher in the rye, and save children from falling off the cliff. Being a catcher in the rye is a metaphor that represents Holden's dream of saving children from entering the disillusioned world of adults.

Towards the end of the novel, Holden meets up with Phoebe, who plans on traveling West with her brother. Holden initially upsets Phoebe by telling her that she cannot accompany him, which makes her cry. Holden then tells Phoebe that he changed his mind and has decided to stay home. Holden and Phoebe then go to the zoo, where Phoebe insists on riding the carousel. Holden watches from a bench as Phoebe and the other children riding the carousel attempt to reach for the golden ring. Holden fears that the children will fall off their horses, but doesn't say anything. Holden says:

The thing with kids is, if they want to grab the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them.

Falling off the horses on the carousel parallels the children running off the cliffs in Holden's earlier comments regarding what he wants to be when he grows up. Holden's admission that he has to let the children attempt to grab the gold ring without intervening is analogous to him allowing children to run off cliffs, which metaphorically means that he is willing to allow children to enter the world of adulthood without stopping them. This is a drastically different perception from Holden's earlier views of saving children from entering adulthood. Holden's different outlook concerning children entering adulthood illustrates his maturation throughout the novel. Essentially, Holden accepts the fact that there is nothing he can do that will prevent him, or any other children, from eventually becoming adults.

One could argue that we know Holden has matured when he returns home, instead of running away. Near the end of the novel, Holden decides that he needs to go west; he even writes Phoebe a note to meet him, so that he can say goodbye to her. When Phoebe arrives with her bags with the intention of joining him on the trek, Holden changes his mind, however. He seems to change his mind because he realizes that his little sister cannot run away from home, not because he should not. Nonetheless, "Going home seems to symbolize rebirth, getting his life in order, maturity."

In the final chapter, the reader understands that Holden has been telling his story from a mental institution. We can take whatever we like from that-- Salinger has certainly left all meanings wide open. But one could argue that with maturity comes self-reflection. Maybe Holden realized that he needed help.

Catcher in the Rye is a kind of backwards Bildungsroman, or a coming of age story, in which has already crossed the border from innocence to experience before the novel begins (probably when Allie died), and now he is trying to protect children who are innocent from experiencing the materialism and phoniness of the adult world.  In this way, Holden is trying to move backwards, toward the security and innocence of childhood, which he realizes at the end is an impossibility.

Holden is obsessed with innocence (things frozen in time and child-like things), and he hates all phonies (experienced adults):

A. Things Frozen in Time

1. Allie: died of T.B.

2. Holden has “survivor’s guilt” (feels he should have died instead)

3. Allie’s grave (doesn’t like visiting because of the rain)

4. Museum of Art: never changes

5. Eskimo is mummified forever

6. Frozen pond in Central Park

7. Fish trapped underneath

8. Ducks forced to be moved elsewhere

9. Essay about Egyptians (mummies) written for Old Spencer

B. Child-like Things

1. Jane keeping her kings in the back row (checkers)

2. “Catcher in the Rye”: rescue kids from falling

3. “F#@K”: tries to erase it

4. Elmer Fudd-like hunting hat; red like Allie’s bright red hair

5. Allie’s glove with the poems written all over

6. “Little Shirley Beans” – record he buys Phoebe

7. Carrousel – Holden watches it go round and round (never progresses)

8. Ducks in the lagoon: wants someone to rescue them

9. Kisses Jane all over face, but NOT on the lips

10. Homophobia: calls them “flits”

11. Gender stereotyping of girls, older women obsession

C. “Phonies”

1. Glad-handing adults (headmaster)

2. Over-sexed teens (Stradlater)

3. Pretentious snobs (Luce)

4. Celebrity-obsessed girls (in Lavender room)

5. Materialistic artists (D.B.)

6. All kids are non-phonies: Allie, Pheobe

7. Nuns are non-phonies: talked about Romeo and Juliet

8. Biggest non-phony: James Castle--fell to his death rather than take back “conceited”

a. J. C. (“Jesus Christ”): is Castle Holden’s martyred saint?

b. Antolini carried Castle’s body; protected him from rubber-necks

I think that there is a really strong and debatable issue if Holden has changed as a result of what has happened.  The ending of the book is ambiguous as to what actually ends up happening to Holden.  As a result, we are not entirely certain if he has matured or evolved as a result of what has happened.  Presumably, he will go back to another prep school back East, but there is little else offered to the reader if he will change or if this particular set of experiences have helped him mature.  I think that in constructing his character in this manner, Salinger has developed Holden into a complex characterization.  The traditional notion would be to force some level of false realization or revelation in noting that Holden would automatically mature or capitulate into a socially accepted understanding of "maturity."  In leaving the issue of Holden's maturation as something that is not entirely clear, Salinger has been able to raise issue as to what society defines as "maturation" and what we, as readers, understand as maturation.  In this, Holden's supposed "change" becomes as much a crucible for him as it is for us, the reader.  In this light, there is no clear question as to whether Holden has matured as a characterization, and we are left to wonder what defines the concept in our own being and in our view of ourselves as well as Holden.