the museum- the catcher in the rye

In the book 'The Catcher in the Rye' The scene with Holden at the museum of natural history. In this scene Holden finds himself visiting the Museum of Natural History. While he is there, he notices an exhibit with indians and eskimos. In this particular exhibit, the indians are seen weaving and the eskimos are canoeing on a stream. While Holden is thinking very deeply about this exhibit he notices some thing about the statues. He finds that no matter when you come or how many times you visit, The statues never change. He sees that the expression on their faces always remains the same and that they are always doing the exact same thing every single time that you come to visit. He loves how predictable the museum is and he finds him self wishing that he could live in a world like that of the indians and eskimos in the Museum of Natural History. He wishes that like their world, his could be predictable and never changing. He admires their world and wishes that he could live in a world that is similar to theirs. This scene is kind of depressing in a way because it shows exactly how afraid Holden truly is of change and of growing up into an adult. He is so scared of change that he would rather live in a world with no change what so ever than the world he lives in. He has become so bitter towards his world because he is so afraid. I feel bad for Holden in this scene because it shows how terribly afraid he really is. I think that in a world where there is no change at all, things would get very boring. Everything would always be the same and very predictable. There would be no suprises and nothing to make things interesting. Even though this world would feel like a heaven for Holden, in my opinion, I think that it would get very dull and I would rather just deal with what ever change comes my way.


Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, 2001. Print