If the ducks in Central Park represent Holden’s fear of change, then the Museum of Natural History represents the comfort he takes in the idea of constancy or stasis. He has been visiting the museum ever since he was a child, and though he himself has changed, he knows he can count on the displays staying the same. In this way, then, the Museum of Natural History becomes one small aspect of his life that isn’t subject to the relentless march of time.
The Museum of Natural History Quotes in The Catcher in the Rye
The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. You could go there a hundred times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you.