The ducks in the Central Park Lagoon are very symbolic, and they play a large part in Holden’s mind and personality. He brings them up in chapter one by saying, “I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go? I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.” The ducks in general bring out the innocent child side in Holden. His youthful wondering makes him seem like a cute little boy again. It is a nice change of pace when Holden talks about the ducks because he is usually so “mature” and negative in his thoughts. However, when he thinks or talks about the ducks in the Central Park Lagoon, the reader experiences almost a flashback, or at least a completely different Holden. Obviously, the ducks fly south for the winter thus exhibiting a large change. The ducks and pond are also very symbolic but in subtle ways. For example, Holden describes the pond as being “frozen in some parts and not frozen in some parts.” It is a bit of a stretch, but I believe that this could be a metaphor for how Holden’s life and personality is. Some aspects of his life are mature, or frozen such as in the pond, and other aspects are immature, or not frozen. Salinger slipped a lot of tiny little metaphors like that all relating to the main conflict of Holden’s bridging the gap between maturity and immaturity. That is another reason why I like this book. The little details that are hard to pick out add to the story to make it great.
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