Page 72 - Knighted_Issue2.0

I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in
this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's
around-nobody big, I mean-except me. And I'm standing on the
edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch
everybody if they start to go over the cliff- I mean if they're
running and they don't look where they're going [ ... ] That's all I'd
do all day. I'djust 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 (191).
Throughout the text, Holden expresses an admiration for children, as they have not yet
been corrupted by commercialism and the materialistic values of the adult world. Here, he
reveals his fantasy for protecting children from corruption: Holden has equated the field of rye
with innocence and the cliff with blind corruption. In a space free from adults, children can
frolic and innocently enjoy nature; however, if they fall from the cliff, they will lose
themselves to blind corruption. Instead of conforming to societal expectations and assuming
the role of hunter/conqueror, Holden wants to be the catcher in the rye. Holden wishes to act
as a mediator between humanity and nature, and prevent future generations from obsessing
over the material while carelessly polluting and robbing nature of its resources.

While Holden accurately recognizes the value of all organisms and the damaging effect
of urbanization, he does not offer a solution to humanity's errors. It is important to note that
ecocriticism is not a nostalgic or romantic movement. Wang and Zhang state: "Ecocritics should
resist the illusion of totally returning to the good old days when human and nature lived in
complete harmony. Rather, they should attempt to make a change in consciousness, seeking
all sorts of creative literary works for a different way of viewing nature which may save