Language, Voice, and Holden Caulfield - The Catcher in the Rye Part 1: CC English Literature #6 - YouTube (2)

But at the end of the novel, Holden says to Phoebe, "Listen, do you want to go for a walk?"

It takes her a while – they start out walking on opposite sides of the street – but they do go for a walk.

Holden finally does get listened to.

Maybe you realize that as you're reading and maybe you don't, but it works on you unconsciously regardless.

And so, moments later, you feel something welling up inside of you as Holden writes,

"I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around.

I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth.

I don't know why.

It was just that she looked so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all.

God, I wish you could have been there."

Look at the phrases that get repeated there: "So Bronte happy" and "kept going around and around."

Some say that Holden never changes in this novel, but I think he does right there at the end.

The boy who wants nothing ever to change becomes "so damn happy" when he sees his little sister going around and around.

When Holden stops thinking of time as a line toward corrupt adulthood and starts imagining it as a circle where one goes around and around, in a journey to and from innocence that lasts throughout life, he can finally be so damn happy.

Yes, Holden never really gets anywhere.

And yes, nothing much happens.

He just keeps going around and around.

But that doesn't mean nothing changes.

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