Chapmanesque—Reasons to Jeer, Reasons to Cheer
The year is 1951 and J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye has officially been published as a novel. It had come out serial style over 1945 and 1946, but the controversial coming-of-age novel centered around Holden Caulfield wasn’t available until the first year of the second half of the 20th Century.
If you’re not familiar with the scandalous story, it’s centered around a teenage boy who has been kicked out of his prestigious boarding school in Pennsylvania for failing every class but English class.
There’s an encounter with a lady-of-the-night and her…supervisor…as well as a drunken fight, a bit of rejection and a very poor decision to break into his parents’ apartment so he can see his younger sister.
The title comes from Holden’s mishearing of Robert Burns’ poem “Comin’ Through the Rye” where Holden sees himself as a hero, saving children running through a field of rye before they fall off a cliff, making himself the (as you’ve guessed it) ‘catcher in the rye.’
He’s battling with the fact that he’s growing up and the only way he can find value is by saving all the kids from growing up, ironically, the very thing he’s yet to do.
Once his sister tells him the line from the Robert Burns poem actually says, “when a body meet a body, comin’ through the rye,” Holden begins to cry because it’s all just too much.
It’s, like, nothing can go right, like the world is against him. The systems and institutions in place are teaming against him, keeping him down.
Reread, Revisit, Reconsider
I first read Salinger’s book in 2001 as a junior in high school—that’s the 16/17 year age. I was quickly struck at how misunderstood Holden was.
His teachers failed him. They were forcing him to fit in a box, to be yet another brick in the wall, a follower of uniformity.
Sure, he had a filthy mouth and made some questionable decisions, but it was just him lashing out at the hurt he felt over missing his older brother as well as his younger sister.
His friends, who were liars and cheaters, only used him and intentionally kept him from finding happiness.
I mean, his parents sent him away to a boarding school, for heaven’s sake! Did they not want him at home? Was he so bad that his parents wanted to get rid of him?
He was, dare I say it, truly a victim.
I read it again a decade later as a wisened 27-year-old adult with a Bachelor’s of Arts in English Literature under my belt. I felt that I truly knew what I was talking about, and I couldn’t wait to revisit Holden’s world to reinforce my position of Holden vs Everybody.
That’s when I realized something. Holden was still that rash, teenage boy. I had grown up, and he hadn’t.
He still held the position that the world was against him, and I couldn’t help but wince each time he dove head first into another sordid decision.
Down with the Phonies!
Throughout the novel, Holden keeps projecting his disdain towards everyone who is fake, everyone who is dishonest, everyone who is a hypocrite. He’s realized these adults will only let you down, so why do they even try to make you think they’re on your side?
One of the only adults he talks to in a trustworthy manner is his former English teacher to warns him that he’s heading straight for a world where hate is so prevalent that you can find any reason to hate anyone and feel completely justified in doing so.
“It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college.”
The contempt he held for the rest of the world who failed to live up to who they claimed to be festered in Holden’s mind, spreading like a cancer to his heart and his soul.
In a world where Holden holds people to a yes-or-no standard, where his truth of the day is the only truth that matters. There is no gray in his black-and-white microcosm.
Holden can’t see that he’s just as flawed as those he condemns. He gets to be judge and jury, and they get to be the condemned.
Because of his self-righteousness, he can’t offer forgiveness to others, and that’s where we pinpoint his inability to enter into maturity.
You see, those who have reached success have come to terms with their many failures, learning and adjusting along the way.
But, those who hold the successful in disdain can only see where they’ve fallen short, exerting the belief that the successful do not deserve their successes but instead should receive their deserved humiliation.
Reason’s got nothing to do with it
When my kids were young, my wife and I started to ease them into the understanding that the world isn’t always the kindest place.
We told them (and still tell them) that there will be people who love you in this world for absolutely no reason, but there will be people who hate you for the very same lack of reason.
Some people won’t only dislike you, but they will actively cheer and celebrate your failures.
And, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, people don’t need a reason to cheer against you.
You’re too tall, or maybe too short.
You’re too white, or too black, or not white or not black enough!
You’re too Jewish, too Christian, too liberal, too conservative.
You’re too loud, too quiet.
Too driven, too lazy.
They’ll cheer against you because you’re an outsider, don’t belong, not one of them, or because you happen to be too close to the show and maybe even could share the same last name.
There’s not a reason out there that’s off limits that people will find to cheer against you.
What we’re tasked with is living in that world, know that we’re not going to measure up (and being okay with that, remember?) and still give them a reason to cheer for us.
Hate is just too heavy to carry
You can’t base your worth off the whims of others, so I’m not saying you have to make sure people sing your praises. In fact, I’m arguing the opposite.
If someone is hell-bent on hating you, guess what…That’s right.
But if they end up hating you because you’re too kind, too forgiving, too much of a listener, too much of an encourager, I think you’re going ok.
Where we tend to hear all the jeers and miss out on the cheers, don’t stop giving them a reason to cheer for you.
Use your energy to truly better yourself, and I’m willing to bet your rising tide may just raise a few ships around you.
In the same way that someone is watching you hoping you fail, someone else may just be watching you waiting to help you celebrate the little wins (and the big ones too).
Oh, and in your efforts to give others a reason to cheer for you, don’t forget to cheer for others. It’s easier to cheer for others than to keep up with all the superficial reasons you don’t like others.
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