The Ducks and Fish in The Catcher in the Rye
Essay dealing with the symbolism of Holden's inquiry of the ducks and fish in Central Park
In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield strikes up a conversation with a New York cab driver about the fish and ducks in Central Park. He asks specifically about what they do during the winter. Many of Holden?s innermost thoughts come to the surface as he searches for answers concerning his own life and growing up. The cab driver?s responses tell us that Holden?s attempt to find his way in a difficult world is not completely hopeless, but that he must be more broadminded about other people and their thoughts and feelings in order to make his own life more bearable.
Holden is constantly worrying about growing up; he wants to know if the turbulence of his teenage years will ever end. He also wants to know if he has to get through those years by himself or if anyone will help him get through them, if someone will stand beside him to be a friend and advisor. The questions he asks Horwitz, the cabbie, about the lagoon near Central Park reveal these thoughts:
?Well, you know the ducks that swim around in it? In the springtime and all? Do you happen to know where they go in the wintertime by any chance? ? I mean, does someone come around in a truck or something and take them away, or do they fly away by themselves?go south or something?? (81,82)
Holden is asking if someone will come in the winter and help the ducks go south where it is warm, peaceful, and untroubled, or if they will have to do it by themselves. He had already thought about to the ducks quite and bit and even asked another cabbie about ?those ducks in that lagoon right near Central Park South?(60) but did not get an answer. Although Holden is probably aware that the birds fly south by themselves, he is trying to reassure himself that someone will come to assist and guide him through hard times and help him live in a difficult world.
Horwitz answers Holden?s questions about the ducks and fish by telling him that Mother Nature will take care of everything. Mother Nature is really Holden?s mother. Sometimes it seems that she does not care, like during wintertime, but she is still there, ever caring, just like Holden?s mom. Ever since the cold, hard times after Holden?s brother Allie?s death, she has not really shown her love to Holden because she is still mourning for Allie but she still cares about him tremendously and wants to help him just as Mother Nature cares for the ducks and fish during wintertime. Horwitz helps to enlighten us:
?Listen,? he said. ?If you was a fish, Mother Nature?d take care of you, wouldn?t she? Right? You don?t think them fish just die when it gets to be winter, do ya?? (83)
Horwitz is challenging Holden to dare to think that his mother does not care for him, to dare to think that he is alone and that he will not make it. Holden?s mother, wishing to show Holden her love, buys him a pair of skates. Holden imagines his mother buying the skates and ?asking the salesman a million dopy questions?(52), trying to get the kind that would make her son happy. She is trying to make up to him the love that she has failed to show him since Allie?s death but she is still grieving over it and cannot live life as she used to. For her it is still wintertime.
Horwitz also calls Holden?s attention to the fish in Central Park; they cannot fly away south, so instead they live manage to live in the winter just as Holden must live in this confusing, insensitive world. Holden, doubtful whether anything could live in the winter, questions how they manage to live through it. Horwitz answers in the manner of a typical New York cabbie:
?Their bodies for Chrissake?what?sa matter with ya? Their bodies take in nutrition and all, right through the ? seaweed and crap that?s in the ice. They got their pores open the whole time.? (83)
Horwitz is telling Holden that the only way to manage to make it during the hard times of winter (or teenage years) is by opening yourself up, whether it is to seaweed or ?crap?. Even the ?crap? (the stupid, phony things that people say) can be good for you. Stupid ideas can even lead to good ideas. Holden just needs to be receptive to both so that he can live his life contently in this upside-down world.
Holden?s plight, his search to find himself in a difficult world, is very evident in this scene with Horwitz. We see how Holden could make himself happy. Although Holden does not realize the full significance of Horwitz?s responses, we realize how wise they are. We begin to see that Holden?s effort to discover himself is not quite as impossible as he makes it seem, that he can make it through the years adolescence and grow up to be a happy, open-minded young man.
