Rye Essay, Research Paper

Understanding Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger s The Catcher in the Rye

J. D. Salinger s The Catcher in the Rye ( Salinger 1953 ) , is a fresh told in an autobiographical mode which tracks Holden Caulfield on his two twenty-four hours sojourn through 1950 s New York City. This short 20th century novel delves into the underlying jobs that mire Caulfield to the point where it seems he will ne’er come in the grownup universe. Holden & # 8217 ; s misguided morality brings about a dysfunctional personality that begs to be psychoanalyzed, non merely in his interactions with the outside universe, but besides his internal motive and linguistic communication. However, his inability to associate to the remainder of the universe in any mode will go forth the male child everlastingly baffling.

Caulfield s evident virtuousness helps to dissemble his true character. It s non hard to understand why readers have ever ignored Holden s grave lacks as a individual ( Branch 42 ) . After all, & # 8220 ; he is really appealing, on the surface & # 8221 ; ( Costello 95 ) . He & # 8220 ; truly appreciates brief and stray cases of kindness & # 8221 ; ( Lee 263 ) and & # 8220 ; accurately pinpoints phoniness in low and high topographic points ( Edwards 556 ) . Therefore, it is easy to explicate reader s credence of him. Indeed, these people are like Holden himself & # 8211 ; the Holden who can be wilful, contrary, frequently impossible, yet in a mode insistently of his ain devising and at odds with whatever he deems dull or conformist ( Lee 102 ) . Ambivalence is, in fact, feature of Holden, the surest grounds of his mental instability & # 8221 ; ( Furst 76 ) . He is non what he and many readers assume he is: & # 8220 ; an anti-establish figure whose

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disgust is directed at other people ( Edwards 557 ) . Holden does non turn his face into the dawn showing his finding to subvert the businessperson capitalistic society in favour of socialist utopia. Indeed, the whole push of the novel seems to propose there is no societal or political or economic construction that could alleviate Holden of the tragic deductions of his physical, sexual, or emotional nature ( Miller 134 ) . Nay, Holden is more than this. He expresses this through his true ego ( Lee 103 ) which allows him to editorialise gloriously, fire off sentiments & # 8221 ; ( Costello 96 ) , and even, as it appears, brazenly flash his bitterness at all the unlooked to loads of composing autobiography ( Mellard 212 ) . The negative nature of Holden s inner ego is shown through his two roomies, Ackley and Stradlater. Ackley is the negative image of ego & # 8211 ; & # 8220 ; ugly, pimply, self absorbed & # 8221 ; ( Branch 43 ) . Stradlater is the & # 8220 ; somewhat & # 8211 ; merely slightly & # 8211 ; more positive dual & # 8221 ; ( Branch 44 ) & # 8211 ; & # 8220 ; handsome, clever, and featured, albeit every bit egotistic & # 8221 ; ( Mellard 214 ) . Allie is besides idolized by Caulfield s mind as an model theoretical account. Allie is a figure of Holden s self-importance ideal, the moi or ideal ego that is unknown except through the objects in which it is inscribed ( Furst 74 ) . But it is this subconscious which frequently gets him in problem. Holden s phantasies, the merchandise of his graphic imaginativeness, are even more varied and characteristically mix the amusing with the hapless ( Furst 78 ) . However, Holden Caulfield is no buffoon ; nor is he a tragic hero ; he is a 16 twelvemonth old chap whose graphic brush with mundane life is tragically humourous or humorously tragic ( Miller/Heiserman 134 ) . However, the writer clearly suggests that Holden can alter ( Costello 97 ) . The jobs that the writer describes & # 8220 ; may stand for simply one stage of his development ( Furst 74 ) . And, on the grounds of the narrative he tells [ at the terminal of the fresh ] , he no longer has any existent demand of therapy. He would look to be as healthy, as whole, every bit sane as

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anyone might of all time be ( Mellard 225 ) . Thus it appears that the novel is seeking to depict certain go throughing stages of adolescent behaviour ( Baumbach 467 ) .

But, whether Caulfield is cured at the terminal of the novel or non, it is obvious that he struggles with sexual jobs throughout. Holden s job is reflected in his inability to associate sexually to females. But he fools himself. He believes he can non acquire truly sexy with misss he doesn T like a batch, whereas he can non acquire sexy with a miss he does like & # 8221 ; ( Edwards 563 ) . In fact, what he likes about Jane Gallagher is that the relationship with her won T go beyond the manus keeping phase & # 8221 ; ( Lee 114 ) . Furthermore, he is & # 8220 ; truly guiltless & # 8221 ; ( Furst 71 ) and & # 8220 ; his love of Phoebe is touching & # 8221 ; ( Mellard 261 ) , but & # 8220 ; he himself is phony at times, and he has virtually no sexual consciousness & # 8221 ; ( Edwards 564 ) . Holden spends a batch of clip concealing his true feelings, some of which include a broad assortment of sexual perversions, such as & # 8220 ; voyeurism & # 8221 ; ( Lee 115 ) , & # 8220 ; oedipal desires & # 8221 ; ( Mellard 117 ) , and & # 8220 ; perchance homosexualism & # 8221 ; ( Ohmann 32 ) . But despite these wanton desires, Holden has had no serious sexual contact ( Rosen 548 ) . His & # 8220 ; sex-book good manners & # 8221 ; ( Lee 116 ) lead him to & # 8220 ; treat every sexual progress as a bayonet charge by the enemy & # 8221 ; ( Wakefield 73 ) . It besides leads him to desire a kind of & # 8220 ; symbolic emasculation & # 8221 ; ( Strauch 24 ) . Therefore, the writer is proposing that Holden & # 8217 ; s inability to realistically associate to adult females will go forth him everlastingly a virgin ( Bloom 83 ) .

Phallic imagination is besides prevailing throughout the novel. & # 8220 ; At the carrousel Holden thinks of the aureate rings pursued by the kids. The ring is a symbol of phallic plenty and as such is related to the imminency of emasculation & # 8221 ; ( Mellard 259 ) . As is & # 8220 ; Allie & # 8217 ; s broken manus & # 8221 ; ( Strauch 25 )

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which & # 8220 ; is related to emasculation as it is to decease & # 8221 ; ( Mellard 260 ) . Caulfield & # 8217 ; s subconscious desire for & # 8220 ; katharsis through emasculation & # 8221 ; ( Furst 80 ) may be encouraged by the & # 8220 ; self outpouring in the class of the psychological intervention he is undergoing ( Wakefield 74 ) .

Holden & # 8217 ; s inability to associate to the universe is besides apparent in his awkward deficiency of ability to pass on with others. What has made this book such a authoritative among immature readers, particularly those of the babe boomer age is its genuineness of linguistic communication

( Smith 12 ) . But it is that genuineness which makes his address all the more confusing. “Communication is hard, if non impossible for him with others because he inhabits rather a different world” ( Bungert 182 ) . “The really atomization of Holden’s address, his frequent resort to such excusatory estimates as ’sort of’ , ‘and all’ , and ‘I mean’ ; demo his awkwardness in communicating. However, he goes on seeking to speak to people” ( Branch 47 ) . Although in the novel, Holden may be a nice writer, his elocution leaves something to be desired. “Holden’s estimates serve no existent, consistent lingual function” ( Gallic 248 ) . They “simply give a sense of diarrhea of look and diarrhea of thought” ( Goodman 21 ) . Often, “they signify that Holden knows there is more that could be said about the issue at manus, but he is non traveling to trouble oneself with it” ( Hassan 278 ) . “Holden’s twentieth-century prep-school slang, despite its automatic and somehow guiltless lewdnesss and its hackneyed mintages besides manages to pass on thoughts and feelings of a quite complex kind within its aggressively delineated boundaries. [ Holden ] has a deep concern with ethical rating in his linguistic communication, and it is the footing of the tenseness that lies in the instinctively compendious idioms” ( Kaplan 32 ) . Even the “plentitude of incomplete phone calls that pervade the novel” ( Carpenter 314 ) shows his inability to pass on ; it ne’er becomes clear “whether the calls

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intentionally terminal in failure or whether the male child merely has bad fortune & # 8221 ; ( Chugnov 184 ) . Either manner, Caulfield will stay verbally isolated in the foreseeable hereafter ( Heiserman/Miller 28 ) .

Merely Salinger will of all time wholly understand all of the character & # 8217 ; s complexnesss and defects. He penned Holden Caulfield to be intentionally puzzling ; to hedge all efforts to trap him down to one stereotype. Salinger himself became a hermit after composing this book and the reader can merely presume that some of Salinger & # 8217 ; s ain personal jobs are mirrored in his portraiture of Holden. Because of this, merely through more scholarly analysis of The Catcher in the Rye, can one hope to hold a better comprehension of Holden.

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