From J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, is Holden the catcher in the rye or is he being caught? If the latter, then who is catching him?

Holden wants to be the life-saving catcher in the rye, but he is the one who is actually caught by his sister Phoebe. Ever since his brother Allie's death, Holden has been falling off of a metaphorical, mental and emotional cliff. He is the one who needs help. He can't succeed in any school that he attends, he practices a lot of self-destructive habits, and he rages fiercely against growing up and becoming a phony.  Sometimes, people who experience traumatic events are not able to deal with them in a healthy way. This is Holden's problem because back in the 1940s and 1950s, people didn't talk about their issues publicly. As a result, Holden felt as if he didn't have anyone to turn to after his brother died. Then, as he experiences failure after failure, Holden begins to lose the ability to deal with reality in a healthy way. He therefore determines to run away for good, but it is his little sister Phoebe who saves him from himself and his self-destructive ways. Phoebe saves her brother by packing a suitcase to go with him when he runs away for good.

In chapter 25, Holden tells Phoebe that she can't go with him because she has to be in her school play. She refuses to go back to school. He finally tells her he's not going to run away after all and he will go get his suitcases at the train station to prove it, but she says the following:

"I said I'm not going back to school. You can do what you want to do, but I'm not going back to school . . . So shut up" (208).

Holden is shocked that his little sister said "shut up" to him. She has never done that before, so it gets his immediate attention. It's as if she swore at him and that makes him realize that if he leaves, then it will mess up his sister.

He decides to take her to the zoo, and then buys her a ticket to ride a carousel to make things better for her. After giving him the silent treatment for awhile, Phoebe asks Holden if he will really stay home with the family and not run away. When he tells her that he will stay, she gives him a kiss and puts his red hunting hat on his head. This makes Holden completely happy and helps him to fulfill his promise not to run away. Because of Phoebe's stubborn behavior, and because of the love he has for her, Holden decides to stay home. This decision is the first step that he takes towards healing because it is after this that he goes to a mental hospital in California. If it weren't for Phoebe, he may have ended up in worse trouble by trying to life live on his own as a teenager.