“Where Did the Ducks Go?”

In Salinger’s, the Catcher In the Rye, Holden wonders several times about the ducks in Central Park and where they go when the lake freezes over. As early as his conversation with old Spencer, he curious as to whether the ducks fly away or if someone loads them all up in a big truck and takes them someplace else. Why is this so important to him? At first, I didn’t catch on about the duck query until the conversation with the cab driver. Now that I’m re-reading, I’m noticing that he brings it up a lot.

Personally, I think that his own aimlessness has run so far ahead of Holden that he can’t help but wonder about trivial bs. Holden is aimless, that much is true. I think it’s more than that. His mind is so far removed from resolving his adrift-ness that he takes joy in wondering about nothing in particular.