Are Kids Falling off the Cliff Too Young?
“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 I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all “(Page 156).
Looking out the window outside my house, I cannot help but think about all the kids in the world who have grown up because of a personal traumatic event. But I also cannot help but think about how Holden Caulfield in J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye has, despite living through all the trauma that has occurred in his life, still not fallen off the cliff. What is most surprising is the fact that Holden is more concerned about being the ‘catcher in the rye’, so other kids don’t fall than watching if he might accidentally fall himself. But thinking about Holden falling makes me think of how he is losing all his innocence and jumping into the blue. How as he falls, he gets hit by daggers that make him grow up. And once Holden reaches the bottom, he is more cautious about where he is going as to not get hurt more than need be.
Written in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye is a novel where we observe a part of Holden Caulfield’s life. We learn about the breakdowns Holden has within the space of a week. We learn that although people are ‘phonies’, there are people in the world who aren’t. Allie is one of these people who is Holden’s younger brother but died of leukemia. Allie is so dear to Holden’s heart that he “[breaks] all the windows in the garage” (Page 34) showing just how traumatic the death is to Holden. Yet it isn’t enough for Holden to fall. Mr. Antolini is a teacher whom Holden trusts until he is “sitting on the floor right next to the couch, in the dark and all, and he [is] sort of petting me or patting on the goddam head” (Page 172). But then there is James Castle who “[jumps] out the window. I [am] in the shower and all, and even I could hear him land outside. But I just thought something fell out the window, a radio or a desk or something, not a boy or anything. Then I [hear] everybody running through the corridor and down the stairs, so I put on my bathrobe and I [run] downstairs too, and there [is] old James Castle laying right on the stone steps and all. He [is] dead, and his teeth, and blood, were all over the place” (Page 153). Through all these experiences, I could only think of how Holden is still falling off the cliff but not reached the bottom.
But it is obvious that there isn’t only one form of trauma, there are many others. There are children younger than 10 who have fallen off the cliff and taken the role of a parent because of problems at home. Lisa Kiesel is one of these children who is a daughter to a heroin addict mother. By the age of 6, she was forced to take on the role of the parent to her infant brother. Lisa had to grow up younger then she should have, but it was the reality as without growing up, she wouldn’t have learned to do things like “tak[ing] her small brother and kitten into their bathroom and barricade the door to keep them safe” as a result of feeling “a lot of weight on [her] shoulders, like [her] brother could die without [her] there.” When kids grow when they shouldn’t, not only are they unprepared, but the trauma they face affects them for the life ahead of them.
Even in books we read every day, there are kids that grow up way too young. Harry Potter who in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, is thrown into the world of magic where trauma is everywhere. Harry is only 14 and in his first year at Hogwarts when he took on the greatest evil of the magic world. In the world of Harry Potter, Lord Voldemort is the very definition of trauma, yet Harry is able to survive an encounter with him. Not only has this encounter made Harry fall off the cliff, but it has made Harry start thinking and looking at the world in a way that a child shouldn’t. From that moment onwards, while others run, Harry stays behind and looks evil in the eye and doesn’t steer away. This although is a good characteristic for adults, is not something that a young child should have.
Every day since the writing of The Catcher in the Rye, many kids have fallen off the cliff for various reasons because of trauma at an age that should not have been the case. The fact that they’ve entered adulthood way too young results in countless childhood memories lost where they could have been kids, doing what kids do. I mean these are kids, not adults, so why are kids taking the role of an adult? Why are they having to grow up when others don’t? But that is the reality, because instead of being a kid, they’re all grown up, unprepared for what is to come, and their childhood gone. Although we have fallen off the cliff doesn’t mean other kids have to, but what can you do when it’s the result of trauma that gets you to accidentally fall off the cliff.
