Holden also struggles with family and class expectations. Like Salinger, his socioeconomic background is at least upper-middle class. His family and culture expect him to be reasonably successful at a prestigious prep school and move on to the Ivy League. Holden can't see himself in that role, so he seeks escape, but his plans are spontaneous fantasies that cannot work. First, he wants to run off with Sally Hayes and maybe get married. This frightens the practical, unimaginative Sally, who is more interested in social status than she is in Holden. Later, Holden decides to flee to the West where he will live as a deaf mute, ideal because he wouldn't have to talk with people. Holden is a romantic but a negative one. His imagined ventures are escapes from reality rather than ascensions toward a goal. The one exception is a beautiful but hopeless dream. When asked by Phoebe what he would like to be, Holden rejects standard choices such as a lawyer or a scientist. He says he would like to be "the catcher in the rye," standing by the edge of a cliff and keeping children, playing in an adjacent field of rye, from falling off.
Holden's alienation is disenchantment mingled with hope. He sees ugliness all around him, but he also sees beauty. The 6-year-old boy singing "If a body catch a body coming through the rye" as he marches down the street is, for Holden, a symbol of authenticity and possibility. He feels less depressed as he watches the boy. The sight of Phoebe on the carrousel is a kind of epiphany (a clarity of insight). It is one of those moments that he would like to keep forever. On the carrousel, there is movement, but the carrousel never actually goes anywhere: just round and round with Phoebe in her blue coat. It is beautiful, and, for a moment, even Holden feels joy.
