Holden Caulfield
Holden has many traits that define him and his values; however, some of these values contradict with his actions and others (in my opinion) simply aren't very well thought out and may be detrimental to people around him in the future.
Let's start with the first, most apparent trait Holden has. Holden is very irrational, making decisions without thinking about them first and seemingly has no regard for others' investments in him. This makes Holden a seemingly selfish character at the beginning of the book, with him completely ignoring Mr. Spencer's attempts to help him and constantly remarking how much he smells and how little he likes his bathrobe, and later on with his date with Sally when he asked her to run away with him. However, as we progress through the story, we realize that Holden does care for people and isn't completely self-absorbed; this is demonstrated through Holden's interactions with Phoebe, the nuns, and even Ackley to an extent.
Holden is also stuck in the age where you're not exactly an adult but you're not a child either. This is extremely evident in Holden's actions, especially during the night where he travels to all the nightclubs (including the visit to Sunny) and the conversations with the three dumb women; Holden wants to be seen as an adult but nobody seems to regard him as such. On the contrary, Holden seems to feel like adults are all phonies and innocence is preserved in childhood; this is why he gets so upset when he sees the "F You" signs on the wall. This is one of many character contradictions we see throughout the book.
Symbolism
While there are many more obvious and perhaps more game-changing symbols in the book, the most interesting symbol to me was the scotch and soda. Holden orders this almost everywhere he goes, and is turned down (denied adulthood) multiple times. This is demonstrated exceptionally by the three "dumb" women he meets and how he tries to impress them by ordering a scotch and soda. They proceed to laugh at him, essentially calling him a child. As I've mentioned before, it's an obvious contradiction in Holden's character; he seems to not want to expose children, which are inherently ignorant and innocent, to the horrors of the world. This is shown perfectly with the "F You" signs on the wall of the museum (which has many kids, including Phoebe, travelling through it on a regular basis). He gets so upset that he says he wants to kill the person who did it.
The golden ring is another example of this difference; he acknowledges that the kids must grow up at one point but he wants them to do so without becoming a phony. The interesting part is that by his own standards, HE is a phony as well. He's not innocent by any means and repeatedly tries to be someone he's not. In fact, the reader gets the impression that he's not exactly being himself very often- except in his memories with Jane. He seems like he could always be himself around her, and knew that she would never want to hurt him (by keeping her kings in the back row).
The Final Sentence
The line "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody" was extremely confusing to me, and seemingly came out of nowhere. I actually had to read it about five times to even grasp what it was supposed to mean. I feel like it means that whenever you share something with someone, you begin a sort of bonding process that changes everyone involved. Once you begin to bond with someone and you leave them, you'll inevitably start to miss them. Another meaning is wanting to stay secure. When you tell someone something personal about yourself, you put yourself in a position to be hurt; like what Holden did when he presented Allie's baseball glove to Jane. In this context, the "missing everybody" portion of the statement would mean that they'd leave and therefore wouldn't be a part of this equation. It's a belief that, in my opinion, is extremely dangerous. When you start to believe that you can’t trust anyone and that you have to keep everything to yourself, you start to lose a bit of humanity. We are naturally social and keeping something to yourself is the best way to make sure you never recover from it (which I'd venture to guess is why he let Jane see Allie's glove).
While Allie's glove may just seem like the glove of his dead brother, it's so much more (and Salinger wants us to see that). In "An Ocean Full of Bowling Balls", we discover that Vincent (or D.B.) actually gets Allie killed. The fact that Holden no longer appreciates D.B definitely has something to do with this traumatic event and adds even more weight to the fact that he let someone else "inside".
Dialectical
"A lot of people, especially this one psychoanalyst guy they have here, keeps asking me if I'm going to apply myself when I go back to school next September. It's such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it?"
(Reflect/Comment) Perfectly displays how Holden thinks; fighting the social norms of someone who goes (or went) to a rich private school from a well off family. This quote is awesome.
