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What does the weather represent to Holden in The Catcher in the Rye?
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In The Catcher in the Rye, weather symbolizes inevitability and reality for Holden. His curiosity about the ducks in Central Park during winter reflects his anxiety about adulthood and change, both of which he cannot escape. The weather's impact on Allie's grave highlights Holden's struggle with immobility and inaction. Additionally, Holden's irrational attachment to his red hat and indifference to the cold represent his efforts to avoid confronting harsh realities, such as his brother Allie's death.
One of the most striking examples of the symbolic nature of the weather in The Catcher in the Rye is Holden's persistent curiosity about where the ducks in Central Park spend the winter when the lagoon freezes over. He asks two cab drivers about them, wondering if they "fly away by themselves" or if "somebody come[s] around in a truck or something." The ducks are representative of Holden's own struggles with impending adulthood. He knows that his dreaded maturation, like the approaching winter, is inevitable, yet he's unsure of how to escape it; he has rejected education as a means of moving forward and seems to be waiting for some kind of rescue. When one cab driver, Horwitz, remarks that winter is "tougher for the fish" because they get "frozen right in one position," Holden challenges him, perhaps out of the realization that his own inability to progress beyond...
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childhood will leave him similarly "frozen solid."
In another weather-related scene in chapter 20, Holden remarks that "when the weather's nice, my parents go out quite frequently and stick a bunch of flowers on old Allie's grave." He then says that twice it rained when they were there and that he "couldn't stand" how the other visitors "could get in their cars," but Allie couldn't, and "[i]t rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach." Again, he sees the weather as an unavoidable inevitability that punishes the immobile. Holden closes the passage by saying, "It's not too bad when the sun's out, but the sun only comes out when it feels like coming out," reiterating the lack of control one has over one's environment, which helps to justify his own inaction.
One intepretive argument we can make and easily support is that the weather represents a reality which Holden is attempting to ignore in The Catcher in the Rye.
Early in the book, Holden mentions the cold weather and introduces his red hat with the ear flaps. The purpose of the hat is to keep out the cold. Holden's attachment to the hat is irrational, as he says himself, and the attitude he holds regarding the hat is repeatedly associated with an intentional indifference.
Holden wears the hat, though it looks ridiculous. He wears the hat, though it is a sign of his irrationality.
We can point to similar behaviors in Holden in relation to the weather. He walks home from the bar to the hotel and sleeps outside despite the cold. Though he feels the cold, he does not allow it to shape his behavior.
The reason Holden chooses to ignore the weather is in keeping with his other avoidance behavior. He cannot face reality. He cannot face the fact that his brother Allie is dead. Holden persists in speaking with Allie and keeps him alive in his imagination. The reality is a cold one. Allie is dead. Yet Holden persists in behaving as if this fact is debatable or adjustable.
Holden, we might say, is essentially defenseless against the weather but tries to shut it out and clings to tokens of indifference to it, as symbolized in his red hat.