6. Why is the significance of the museum?

In the novel The Catcher in the Rye the author describes Holden as someone who just doesn't want to grow up. "Certain things,” he says, “you ought to be able to stick…in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone" (16.25). In this quote Holden is making a connection between the Indian Room at the museum where the displays always stay the same but the children who are always visiting on field trips are changing. In the novel Holden seems to be very straightforward when it comes to talking about the connection with the children changing, but there’s also a time that he is less straightforward. In the novel Holden says that, while the displays stay the same, a person is different every time he comes back to visit. It’s not always age that changes, it's the changes you go through in order to become an adult. So I think he's talking more about the changes in qualities of youth and innocence than he is about the physical aspect, for example; hearing parents fight, or seeing a gasoline puddle. These are all examples of awareness, of mental growth, not so much of physical ageing.