Mark McBride
8/28/08
Theology
Holden Caulfield: A Man of Little Faith


In J.D. Salinger's novel, “Catcher in the Rye”, Holden Caulfield proves to be a person with little or no faith at all. He exhibits his faithlessness in himself, in other people, and in society as a whole. But first, what is faith?

Faith is trusting and believing in a person or in a thing, including a sense of belief and trust in oneself. It is knowing that what you believe to be true is in fact the truth and not something that someone made up. Faith in yourself is a sense of confidence in knowing that you are able to make good decisions and being aware of what is true and knowing what is false. Holden does not have faith in himself, he does not have faith in the people that affect his life, nor does he have faith in society by these definitions of faith.

Throughout the book, Holden is always doing things that get him into trouble either at school, with his parents, with strangers, and even with his own friends. Holden can not trust himself to make good decisions and to decide what is right and what is wrong. He gets in trouble at school constantly for not trying hard enough to succeed; in fact, he does so poorly in his classes that the school expels him. Holden has not only been expelled from Pencey, but from multiple schools. Since he has been removed from so many schools in the past, Holden thinks that his parents would be terribly mad at him for being expelled from Pencey Prep. In truth, his parents would have been very angry with him, if only he had talked with them about his expulsion. But he did not even trust them enough to forgive him, even if they had forgiven him immediately.

Holden was also getting into trouble with strangers, such as with the elevator boy and the prostitute that he hired for ten dollars. Holden realizes how corrupt the world really is and that he does not believe that the world will become a better place. He does have reason to believe that the world will not become a better place though. When he is at Phoebe's school, he finds profanity carved into the walls of the stair case, in the stairwell, and again in the American Museum of Natural History. Also, Holden is allowed to hire a prostitute for an hour even though he is sixteen years old, which gave him the impression that society does not care about him as a person, and places a higher value on money. When Holden was asked by Phoebe what he wanted to do with his life when he grew up, he told her that he wanted to be the catcher in the rye. He wants to be able to keep children away from the corruptness of society, such as the prostitute, and to protect them from any harm. He does not have faith that society will treat young innocent children properly and shelter them from the corruptive forces of the adult world. Holden does not have faith or hope that other people will take action to prevent the corruptive forces, but instead he believes that they will keep adding to the corruptness that he sees in the world he lives in. If he had faith that people would stand up against the evil and tarnished forces of society, then he would not have to be the catcher in the rye.



Back to My Homepage 1