J.D. Salinger Essay Essay, Research Paper

Salinger & # 8217 ; s kids, as they appear in assorted novels and short narratives, portray the ailments of modern society through their artlessness and spiritualty, their honestness and sometimes, fickle behavior. They are frequently as delicate and uneven as they are intelligent and endearing, and the lewdnesss of life tend to overpower them at times. My purpose is to demo how Salinger uses the same technique over and over in his work. That is the usage of kids with all the artlessness and idealism of young person, to picture the falsity of modern society. Through these kids and immature grownups, from Holden and Franny, to small Esme, Ramona and Teddy, along with others, Salinger tells a narrative of the human status that is witty and humorous, but at the same clip frequently tragic.

Holden Cauflield who is the chief character in Catcher in the Rye and Franny Glass of Franny and Zooey are similar characters is many ways. They are of a similar age and are really sensitive to what they call the & # 8216 ; phoniness & # 8217 ; of the universe around them. An illustration is when Holden goes to a saloon called Ernie & # 8217 ; s which was run by Ernie, some large ace piano participant. Holden describes him as being, & # 8220 ; a terrific prig and he won & # 8217 ; t barely even speak to you unless you & # 8217 ; re a large shooting or a famous person, & # 8221 ; every clip he would complete a vocal, & # 8220 ; old Ernie turned around on his stool and gave this really bogus, low bow. Like as if he was a helluva low guy. & # 8221 ;

Franny describes what she calls a & # 8220 ; Wally Campbell & # 8221 ; type of individual. & # 8220 ; they & # 8217 ; re traveling to draw up a chair and straddle in backward and get down crow in a awfully quiet, insouciant voice & # 8211 ; or call dropping in a awfully quiet insouciant voice. There & # 8217 ; s an unwritten jurisprudence that people in a certain societal or fiscal bracket can name-drop every bit much as they like every bit long as they say something awfully belittling about the individual every bit shortly as they & # 8217 ; ve dropped his name & # 8221 ;

Salinger makes us like these immature characters. They become beloved to us even though they are eccentrics to state the least. Franny with her changeless repeat of the Jesus supplication, and Holden with his unusual escapades in New York City. But both are sensitive and look to be fighting with life and Salinger emphasises their sensitiveness by contrasting them with insensitiveness. In Franny & # 8217 ; s instance it & # 8217 ; s her egoistic male child friend, Lane, who likes nil better than to speak about himself, and in Holden & # 8217 ; s instance the traditions and lip service of elect private schools and New England society. His school slogan was & # 8220 ; Since1888 we have been modeling male childs into splendid, clear thought immature men. & # 8221 ; Holden & # 8217 ; s positions are as follows, & # 8220 ; Strictly for the birds. They don & # 8217 ; t do any curse more casting at Pencey than they do at any other school. & # 8221 ; He speaks of a affluent alumna of Pencey named Ossenburger who made his luck in the project concern. When he donated a big amount of money to the school, he appeared on campus and was treated like royalty. Holden found this hypocritical and refers to him as a hypocrite stating, & # 8220 ; I can merely see the large hypocrite asshole switching into first cogwheel and inquiring Jesus to direct him a few more stiffs. & # 8221 ;

Could Salinger have used grownups as efficaciously? I think that his usage of the immature makes a better impact because of their fresh mentality and the blunt artlessness of the words they use. Their deficiency of edification gives belief to their antipathy for lip service, for International Relations and Security Network & # 8217 ; t edification itself a signifier of lip service?

This usage of kids in his work continues through most of Salinger & # 8217 ; s short narratives. The kids aren & # 8217 ; t ever the chief characters here, but are still built-in in doing his point. In A Perfect Day for Banana Fish, Seymour & # 8217 ; s last happy minutes are spent with a immature kid on the beach. It is this interaction with the immature miss that gives us our lone penetration into Seymour & # 8217 ; s character. Throughout the narrative she is the merely 1 he talks to demur the lady in the lift merely before he dies. Through these conversations and the gaiety between them, Seymour gives us the feeling that he is a sweet, caring adult male. The artlessness of this small miss deeply contrasts the character of Seymour & # 8217 ; s married woman who we know by Seymour & # 8217 ; s irony is shallow and unreal, & # 8220 ; The lady She may be in any one of a 1000 topographic points. At the hair dresser & # 8217 ; s. Having her hair bleached mink. Or doing dolls for hapless kids, in her room. & # 8221 ;

Another one of Salinger & # 8217 ; s short narratives, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut uses the surface-to-air missile

vitamin E technique, but in this instance it’s the relationship between a girl and her female parent. This relationship is anything but good. Because of a past calamity Eloise, the female parent, has become an ineffective and cold female parent to her immature girl Ramona. Ramona is non truly typical of most of Salinger’s other kids. She is withdrawn, short sighted and given to intrude picking but she is an guiltless kid, and a victim of her mother’s dejecting life-style. She is a adult female who has known personal letdown and hasn’t been able to lift above it. Her life is false and her base on balls clip is gossip and imbibing. We merely acquire a glance of the miss she one time was at the terminal of the narrative, when she staggers into Ramona’s sleeping room and weeps over her bed. “She picked up Ramona’s spectacless and, keeping them in both custodies, pressed them against her cheek. Tears rolled down her face, wetting the lenses. “Poor Uncle Wiggily” she said over and over again.” This shows Salinger’s technique one time once more, of the usage of a kid to maximize the impact of his authorship.

Esm, in For Esm with Love and Squalor, is one of my favorite Salinger kids. She makes an feeling on Sergeant X early in the war when they foremost run into. Although merely 13, she tries to be really grown-up. She uses grownup type linguistic communication. When asked to sit down she says & # 8220 ; Thank you. Possibly merely for a fraction of a minute & # 8221 ; and subsequently & # 8220 ; Usually I & # 8217 ; m non awfully gregarious. & # 8221 ; Esm is really protective of her younger brother Charles, and although her long conversation with Sergeant X is diverting, it is besides traveling. Her farewell words to the Sergeant are & # 8221 ; I hope you return from the war with your modules intact & # 8221 ; . As it turns out, he doesn & # 8217 ; t. Sergeant X ends up in a bad mental province after the war, and is earnestly concerned about his recovery. What seems to salvage him is a bundle from Esm that contains a missive and her male parent & # 8217 ; s ticker. This nexus with a kid he met merely briefly, provides the strength he needs to acquire good. It reminds him of the goodness and compassion that still exists in the universe all through the words of a kid.

Teddy is another really interesting character. He is a kid prodigy and mysterious, and the topic of scientific surveies and has an unusual relationship with his parents and reasonably good everyone else of normal intelligence. Salinger seems to utilize him to portray the inanity of life. Whether Salinger is a truster in eastern faiths or non, I don & # 8217 ; T know, but Teddy follows this doctrine. He believes that you live once more and once more, reincarnated until your psyche is eventually mature plenty to decease. Unlike westerners who believe that decease is the worst thing that could perchance go on in 1s life, Teddy believes this to be false. He says in one of his interviews about decease, & # 8220 ; It & # 8217 ; s cockamamie I could travel down the stairs to the pool, and at that place might non be any H2O in it What might go on, though, I might walk up to the border of it, merely to hold a expression at the underside, for case, and my sister might come up and kind of push me in I could fracture my skull and decease outright That could go on, all right. What would be so tragic about it, though? What & # 8217 ; s there to be afraid of, I mean? I & # 8217 ; d merely be making what I was supposed to make, that & # 8217 ; s all, wouldn & # 8217 ; T I? & # 8221 ; Merely subsequently do we gain that this is precisely how Teddy dies. Again Salinger brings all these positions and thoughts of decease and faith to visible radiation through a kid as opposed to some kind of priest or Buddhist monastic.

These are non the lone kids Salinger used in his work, but they were the 1s who most appealed to me, and better yet provided strong features which backed my thesis. He uses the kids as his interpreters to the jobs and rough world of modern society. I believe that this quotation mark from The Catcher in the Rye is an appropriate summing up, and an illustration of the artlessness of kids, and the fugitive nature of that artlessness which Holden brings to visible radiation. Possibly falling off the drop is symbolic of loss of artlessness. & # 8220 ; I keep visualizing all these small childs playing some game in this large field of rye and all. Thousands of small childs, and cipher & # 8217 ; s around, cipher large, I mean & # 8211 ; except me. And I & # 8217 ; m standing on the border of some brainsick drop. What I have to make, I have to catch everybody if they start to travel over the drop & # 8211 ; I mean if they & # 8217 ; re running and they don & # 8217 ; t look where they & # 8217 ; re traveling I have to come out from someplace and catch them. That & # 8217 ; s all I & # 8217 ; d do all twenty-four hours. I & # 8217 ; d merely be the backstop in the rye and all. & # 8221 ;