In The Catcher in the Rye, the narrative order of the events Holden recounts
is changed. The novel is not a formal autobiography, since Holden, the narrator,
does not go into “ all that David Copperfield Kid or crap”1, in
his story, he insists upon “this madman stuff that happened to me around
last Christmas”2. d2b3br
The novel can be viewed as a flashback (analepsis) explaining how he “
got pretty run down and had to come out here and take it easy”3; up to
the end of the novel, the reader doesn’t quite find out what Holden means
by “ out here”. This device is called by Rolland Barthes the hermeneutic
code - the means by which a mystery is, in this case, postponed by partial answers.
Holden gives the account of this “ madman stuff” that happened to
him by using the Past Tense, but the narration of events is often interrupted
by comments in the Present Tense. He uses the Present Tense to express his views,
to establish zone general truths about himself and the world, as if to underline
the permanence of his judgements and his decision not to give in to the “phoniness”
of society. By the use of the about school and education, about books and writers,
about love and children / about life is general.
Holden Caulfield is the narrator of the novel and he uses the Present Tense
in setting a frame to his story. Then, he shifts to the Past Tense and starts
with a rather formal in media res: “Anyway it was Saturday of the football
game with Saxon Hall”
Salinger allows his center character to tell his “adventures” in
his own way employing a first person narration. Holden does not always function
as a trustworthy narration. He is presented as an imaginative teenager, a compulsive
liar characterized by habitual exaggerations.
Holden gives us a partial view on reality, his view is often a diseases one
and he doesn’t give an objective account of the events. Although his state
of mind makes him see only the filth and perversion around him, his criticisms
are quite often valid.
Salinger uses the limited omniscient view: the reader sees everything trough
Holden’s consciousness. Thus, we speak about internal focalization. Since
there is only one character through whose eyes the events are viewed, the internal
focalization is fixed. Salinger does not use internal focalization rigorously,
since the focalized character’s appearance, behavior and thoughts can
with difficulty be described objectively.
In Holden’s narration, we encounter the traditional formulas used by narrators:
“You remember I said before”, “I’ll just tell you”,
“Some things are hard to remember”.
Salinger uses analepses within the story itself, but these are not formal flashbacks,
since the earlier events come to us in fragments. The fragmented nature of their
presentation is indicative of Holden’s state of mind. There are certain
events that deeply trouble him, that plague his thoughts.
Holden’s flasks remembering the death of his brother Allie and that of
James Castle, his friendship with Jane are that took place before the beginning
of the story. He is troubled by the fate of the ducks in Central Park - these
event appear as recurrent images throughout the novel. Thus, Salinger uses the
technique of having identical phrases, and similar occurences appear from time
in the novel. In describing Jane’s refusal to move her kings when playing
checkers, he uses the iterative: “She wouldn’t move any of her kings”.
He, thus, introduces one of Jane’s favorite habits- a futile gesture which
comes to be a symbol for permanence.
J. D. Salinger uses the repetitive to represent Holden’s obsession with
different things. These obsessions are also rendered by his vocabulary, besides
the recurrent images of the novel.
Holden is deeply troubled by death and, from the beginning to the end of the
novel, this appears under different forms. Death is present at Pencey through
the Ossenburger chemorial Wing named after an undertaker who graduated from
this school and who gave Pencey “a pile of dough”. For Holden, Ossenburger
is the unscrupulous phony interested above all in money: “… he started
these undertaking parlors all over the county that you could get members of
your family buried for about five bucks apiece”5. Stradlater himself calls
the school “a goddam morgue”.
Holden recalls over and over his late brother, Allie, whose death some years
before caused another of his nervous breakdowns. He cannot really accept Allie
lying in that “crazy cemetery”, where “all the visitors could
get in their cars and turn on their radios and all and then go some place nice
for dinner -; everybody except Allie6.
Holden’s obsession with death is present in his language, too; on almost
every page of the novel there appear the words “kill” or “dead”
or phrases analogous to them: “You were supposed to commit suicide or
something if old pencey didn’t win”, “I nearly got killed”,
“That killed me”, “She kills me”, “That kills
me”.
Holden derives comfort from the dead: among the few people he likes there is
James Castle, who chose to die rather than go back on his word.
At the beginning of the novel, the narrator establishes some facts of the story
foreshadowing the end of the novel (prolepses). The reader knows that something
unpleasant is going to happen to Holden.
As for the category of duration, in The Catcher in the Rye, the dialogue and
the descriptive pauses function in both ways: they advance the unfolding of
the events or they add extrainformation without contributing to the progress
of the events. The description of the football game with Saxton Hall is a means
of setting the scene and the atmosphere of the novel without giving further
information as to what happened to Holden. The dialogue between Holden and Mr.
Spencer, with its frequent repetition of “how are you…”, “how’ve
you been…” and “how’s…”, underlines the
failure of the characters to make a true communication. On the other hand, from
Holden’s description of. Mr. Spencer in his home, we may infer the weakness
and inability of the teacher to help Holden. “What made it even more depressing,
old Spencer had on this very sad, ratty old bathrobe that he was probably born
in or something. I don’t much like to see old guys in their pajamas…Their
bumpy old chests are always showing”7.
This is also the case with the description of Mr. Antolini. Although Holden
is attached to the teacher, he drops some hints about Mr. Antolini being “more
witty than intellectual about being “ a pretty heavy drinker” and
about his smoking “like a field”, snowing that Antolini himself
is caught in the “fall” and hence he is unable to be a “catcher”
for Holden.
Holden/s dialogue with the nuns doesn’t advance the story, it helps to
reinforce some qualities of Holden, which his eccentric behaviour conceals,
- such as compassion, love for literature and kindness.
The “semes” converging upon Holden are scattered throughout the
text and the character is thus gradually constructed. The reader is not given
a “static” portrait of Holden. It is characteristic of Salinger
that the reader learns very little about the character’s physical appearance.
With Holden, we know only some facts about his growth: “…I grew
six and half inches last year. That’s how I practically got t.b. …
I’m pretty halthy, though”8
Since Holden does not always function as a trustworthy narrator, there is often
a discrepancy between his opinions on himself and his actions. The reader himself.
Despite his constant swearing throughout the novel, he exhibits warmth and much
common sense. His hatred of movies is also misleading, because through his continuous
role acting be proves to be a telented performer. His hatred of the world around
turns out to be deep involvement; “About all I know is, I sort of miss
everybody I told about. Even old Stradlater…”9.
With Holden’s language, Salinger gives the reader an accurate impression
of the speech of a teenager in the 1950’s. The fact that the language
is colloquial and slangy gives an air of realism to the novel and it also reflects
the situation Holden is in: he acts impulsively and often he fails to analyse
the implications of his actions. The frequent use of “and all”,
“I really did” emphasizes his basic insecurity as if he feels he
has to repeat everything he says before anyone will believe him; he must also
insist on the truth of his statements. His language is also suggestive of his
sense of isolation.
Much of the humour of the novel resides in the use of teenage slang “She
was about as kindhearted as a goddam wolf”, “I kept holding into
the phone, sort of, so I wouldn’t pass out”, “… I’m
sort of glad they’ve got the atomic bomb invented. If there’s ever
another war, I’m going to sit right the hell on top of it”.
On the other hand, his blasphemous language supplies a religious context, suggestive
of one of the major symbols in the novel, that of the fall:” He told me
he thinks you’re a goddam prince…”, “Goddam book”,
“I was pretty goddam fed up by that time”, “ It’s supposed
to be religious as hell”.
The Catcher in the Rye shares characteristics of the so-called “scriptible”
modern text since it gives the reader the possibility to view the novel in different
ways. The novel can be read as the acount of the nervous braakdown of a hypersensitive
adolescent; one may see in it the thwarting effects on youthful idealism of
a society based on mendacity, or it may be integrated in the trend of the symbolic
American novel dealing with the Quest and Initiation and with the Fall-the reverse
of the American dream.
The narrator of Franny is outside the story; it is an effaced narrator telling
the story of some other people. In the first part of the short story, the narrator
is an omniscient one. By this device, Salinger sets the scene for the meeting
of the two levels and begins the story in media res; from the firstsontence
we learn that some important event is going to take place, becauseiit is a “big
weekend”. The second sentence introduces his characters and, as if using
a camera, he draws nearer and nearer to Laee Coutell. Using traditional devices,
Salinger draws the “portrait of Lane”. Significantly, he insists
only upon the way he is dressed, without ever describing his face. The “semes”
converging upon Franny and Lane are scattered throughout the text and, like
with Holden, the characters are gradually built up.
In his short stories, dialogue and gesture are the means of characterization.
At the beginning of the story, Salinger uses a kind of stratagem as if to delude
the reader: he draws Lane’s portrait by merely describing how he is dressed,
insisting on some of his gestures that suggest detachment: “Abruptly,
and rather absently, he took…”.
Alfred Kazin in his essay J. D. Salinger: Everzbody’s Favourite makes
the observation that for Salinger “gesture is the essence of the medium”10.
The short story can present the character itself only by gesture, because it
does not offer space enough for the development of the character.
Salinger prepares the reader for the later insensitivity of Lane by the description
of his gesture at the restaurant, where taking a sip of his Martini, he looks
“around the room with an almost palpable sense of well-being at finding
himself … in the right place with an unimpeachably right-looking girl”11.
His gesture shows him to be one of those elaborately up-to-date and anxiously
sophisticated people whom Franny resents. On Franny’s arrival he tries
to clear his face of truth of his feelings for Franny, like that of “his
arm that shot up into the air”. He cannot accept love in its unspoilt
reality. Being concerned with appearances, he makes a gesture to conceal his
uneasiness, when their meeting, turns out to be disappointing and disturbing,
by adjusting “his expression from that of … discontent to that of
a man whose date has merely gone to the john”12.
Up to a point in the story, Salinger relies upon intrusive authorial comment
to condition the reader’s attitude towards Lane. Then, he employs the
more effective device of allowing Lane to break into Franny’s joyous account
of sharing the pilgrim’s adventures with comments showing that he is not
touched, interested or even really listening. There is no real talking only
about their own hobby-horse. In their dialogue, there is an exchange of words
that seemingly run parallel, underlining their impossibility to communicate.
Although Franny tries to keep up her relationship with Lane, Salinger makes
it clear that it is something that she imposes upon herself. There is an alternation
of enthusiastic statements followed by statements which underscore it: “I’ve
missed you! The words were no sooner out than she realized that she didn’t
mean them at all”13.
The introduction of Franny’ letter makes a contrast ti Lane’s self-passessed
appearance. Salinger does not draw a formal portrait for Franny, the traits
and characteristics converging upon the name are diffused all over the text.
The writer’s deep the interest lies in the psychology of his characters,
in the spiritual values for which they stand. Nevertheless, there are hints
to her beauty and to her belonging to the sophisticated stratum of society,
to Lane’s pleasure in seeing her way of dressing, witch is “ not
too categorically cashmere sweater and flannel skirt”14.
While with Lane Salinger suggests detachment aloofness Franny’s letter
shows her to be deeply involved with life. The letter functions as an external
analepsis making the connection between the present state of their affair and
the past characterized by Franny’s infatuated love. Her soul is deeply
use of such phrases as “ kindly have the kindness”, “every
single minute”, “I love you, I love you I love you”. Franny’s
remark “Let’s try to have a marvellous time this weekend”
ironically contrasts to the scenes to follow.
The story may be read as the breaking down of Franny Glass’s conscious
self-delusion concerning her opinion of Lane and her feelings towards him. For,
at the very start of the story, Franny takes Lane’s gesture of self-indulgence
for what it is. “But by some old, standing arrangement with her psyche
she elected to feel guilty for having seen it”15, she sentences herself
to listen to Lane’s ensuring conversation with a special “semblance
of absorption”.
Franny is not one clearing her face of affection, but her gestures disclose
her drifting away from Lane: she gives him a little “pressure of simulated
affection”. Her troubled state of mind is suggested by the recurrent image
of “perspiration” on her forehead: Salinger conveys her state f
mind by using the repetitive. In setting the scene of the short story and introducing
the characters, he uses the iterative, although it is not marked by “would”
or “used to”, here it shifts into the Past Tense.
By his use of dialogue, Salinger adheres to dramatic representation, he tells
his story more directly with the help of narrative of speech.
There is an alternative combination of calogue (narrative of speech) and a commentary
to the narrative of speech and it may also make the story advance.
Salinger comments on Lane who “couldn’t let a controversy drop until
it had been resolved in his favour”16, adding sopme further information
to the development of the story.
The writer makes shifts from the omniscient point of view to a limited omniscient
point of view when the two characters reveal themselves through dialogue and
when he presents his protagonists as they see each other.
Salinger makes use of the reported or direct discourse, which is generally marked
by declarative introductions like; “Franny said”, “Franny
shook her head”, “Lane stated”, he asked”, “he
said”.
Zooey begins, as Salinger puts it, “with that ever fresh and exciting
odium: the author’s formal introduction”17.
J. D. Salinger characterized the narrator of the story as “wordy and earnest
… but rather excruciating personal”18 . He devises a curious game
of the narrator withdrawing into the story and becoming a person merely mentioned
by the other characters. From the 1st person of the introduction, there is a
shift to an omniscient 3rd person narration.
The narrator commenting pon himself is Buddy Class Franny’s writer brother,
who prefers the term “prose home movie” for short-story. He players”
and giving a brief characterization of each. “The leading lady”
is a sophisticated, languid type and, as the reader learns about it, later in
the story, she turns out to the Franny.
The other lady of the “prose home movie” is the Class children’s
mother, whom Buddy has photographed in her old housecoat. “The leading
man” is Franny’s gifted actor brother Zooey Glass.
The narrator also comments upon the language they use and which is “ a
kind of esoteric family language, a sort of semantic geometry in which the shortest
distance between any two points is a fulish circle”19.
The story proper begins with Salinger’s manual in media res: “Ten-thirty
on a Monday morning in November of 1955…”20.
Using Salinger’s words, the short story is excruciatingly personal, there
is no organic connection between what the writer intends to convey and the means
of presentation. Many of his critics have pointed out that in ger’s words,
the short story is excruciatingly personal, there is no organic connection between
what the writer intends to convey and the means of presentation. Many of his
critics have pointed out that in Zooey there is not much presentation of character.
Warren French quotes John Updike who said that “a lecturer has usurped
the writing stand”21.
Warren French further states that the public has been right in his enthusiastic
reception of Zooey’s general message about the advisability of improving
one’s self rather than criticizing others and that the reviewers have
been right in their reservations about the craftsmanship of the presentation.
It is a tale in which the author “shows” too little and talks too
much.
In the introductory part, Salinger uses the free indirect dicourse and then
makes the shift to a third person narration with an omniscient point of view.
Unfortunately, his ideas are not organically linked to the presentation of event,
character and narrative of speech. He merely renders his iceas by a tiresome
monologue carried forth by Zooey.
To convey the message of the story, the writer uses the repetitive; Zooey expresses
his ideas on knowledge, on society, on Franny and on himself by over repeating
them.
The long accounts of the family’s eccentricities serve as analepses to
incorporate into the story the background of this imaginary family -; the
Glasses; Buddy’s letter written to Zooey which is reproduced to full extent
serves the same purpose.
Seymour: an Introduction and Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters are 1st person
monologues filled with confidential asides that “acquaint the reader more
with the narrator than with his subjects”22.
The purpose of Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters is not so much to tell a
story as to present a “memorable” character -; Seymour -;
in a favourable light. Curiously, the reader learns not so much about Seymour,
but about Buddy, the narrator, who is present in the story as a participation
character.
Seymour appears only in the conversation of others. The flshbacks have a fragmented
character because the other protagonists’ rememberings are combined with
entries from Seymour’s diary.
The story is rather a philosophical dialogue between the personal who fight
over the interpretation of Seymour’ character. Hie character is not convincingly
drawn, the reader remains questioning the validity of Buddy’s admiring
opinion on his brother.
Beneath the extreme length and the wordiness of the story, some structure is
discernible, through which the principal events of Seymour’s wedding day
are rendered.
Seymour: an Introduction is an attempt to break down the aesthetic distance
between writer and reader. Warren French considers that a reason for it is the
writer’s wish to establish a kind of relationship that will make the reader
share the experience, but an experience in itself. Salinger tries to bring the
reader completely into action, but, as with Zooey and Raise High the Roofbeam,
Carpenters, on gets the impression of a long, tiresome lecture. The semes converging
upon Seymour are difficult to put together by the reader, because most of them,
such as his poetic genius, his quality of a seer, lack evidence.
Only in the fifth section does the writer revert to the traditional short story
form to explain some of Seymour’s endearing characteristics, such as indifference
to the material aspects of life and his ability to do without sleep nights on
end when absorbed in a problem. In the works, Seymour appears to the reader
as “an emotional superman who has risen so far above self as to destroy
himself rather than compromise with society or destroy others”23.
Critics do not rank Raise High the Roofbeam Carpenters and Seymour : an Introduction
as serious art, because they do not help the reader to understand his experience,
but, seek to replace it.
Salinger exhibits his craftsmanship in the short story, where, opposed to a
leisurely sense of suggestion, there is a need “to fill in each inch of
canvas, each movement of his scene”24.
Due to their dramatic quality, the burden of meaning in his short stories is
carried by the dialogue and by the gestures of the characters.
Most of Salinger’s short stories start with a sentence arousing the reader’s
curiosity: “There were ninety-seven New York advertising men in the hotel,
and … the girl in 507 had to…”, “ It was almost three
o’clock when …” or “When the phone rang, the grey-haired
man…
In A perfect Day for Bananafish, Muriel’s portrait is drawn by emphasizing
apparently unimportant details concerning her behavior. The "semes"
of her moral portrait are relatively organized on a few pages so that the render
can infer some characteristics of the person described. Muriel belongs to the
tough-minded category among Salinger’s personal, Since we learn about
her that “She used the time” and that “She was a girl who
for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing”.
In J.D.Salinger's short stories there is little action, it is through dialogue
that the story advances.
Through Muriel’s conversation with her mother, the reader gets some information
about Seymour as he is seen by the “phonic” : a mentally ill person
who, by his disconcerting behavior, foreshadows the fact that he may lose control
of himself.
Seymour reveals himself in the dialogue with Sybil, and his tale of the bananafish
becomes the symbol of his own entrapment not only by the entrapment not only
by the world around him, but by his own persnality, as well. Like all over in
Salinger’s work, his nice characters derive confort and relief from the
company of children. His erotic trifling with the gold-haired little Sybil is
not one more neurotic symptom, but an attempt to escape from sexual bondage
to the freedom of love.
Eloise of Unvle Wiggily in Cnnecticut reveals herself as being “hard as
nails” not by what she does, but by she says. Here,, dialogue also has
the function of an analepsis: we learn about her past, about her late lover
Walt who comes to represent the nice world.
The transcription of telephone calls may become suggestive of moral collapse
of a man completely overwhelmed by the phony world, as in Pretty Mouth and Green
My Eyes. Clay’s also depicted by the brief conversation with Sergeant
X. In this case, analepses are inserted into the dialogue giving explanation
about past events: Sergeant X’s nervous braakdown or corporal Z/s sadistic
killing of the cat.
Many critics have revealed the dramatic quality of Salinger’s short stories.
A Perfect Day for Bananafish has the tight, three - act structure of a play.
In the realistic first act, we witness the telephone conversation of the Young
wife with her mother; the second act is fanciful and it shows Seymour on the
beach with a small girl. The rapidly moving third act is divided into two scenes
: in the first one, Seymour accuses the woman in the elevator of staring at
his feet and the second scene ends with Seymour firing “a bullet through
his right temple”25.
The classical dramatic unities are to be recognized in Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut:
the action. takes place in a single afternoon .
Salinger’s handling of the dialogue is traditional, he often breaks up
dialogues by narratior-comment, expanding it into a slowed-down scene.
As compared to The Catcher in the Rye, the style of the short stories is by
far more distant; Salinger uses the omniscient third person narration. As to
perspective, he employs nonfocalization, since the narrator knows more than
his characters. If we consider the narrator’s situation, most of the stories
are told by an absent narrator and the narrative is ulterior.
The narrator may also be present as participating character as in For Esmé-
with Love and Squalor and De Daumier -; Smith’s Blue Period. In the
first part of For Esmé with Love and Squalor, Salinger uses the iterative
to describe the American soliers and to suggest the atmosphere of the short
story: “ … when we spoke to each other out of the line of duty,
it was usually to ask somebody if he had any ink…”26. The isolation
of the American soldiers is underlined by their being “letter-writing
types”, which also following the D-Day landings.
The story proper has the role of an analepsis when viewed from the prologue.
It gives the circumstances under which the narrator came to know Esmé,
to whose wedding he now received an invitation. The flashback of the narrator
gives insight both into “love” and “squalor”. Love and
sympathy are embodied by Esmé, who struggles not only for Sergeant X’s
soul, but also for her brother Charles’s who has lost during the war the
parental guidance capable of redeeming him from his animalistic egotism.
The first part of the story is told by using the reported discourse; the narrator
tells the story of his encounter with Esmé as something very close to
him. In the second part, there occurs a change of pronoun: Salinger shifts from
the “I” of the prologue and the first part to a 3rd person narration
to achieve distance from the squalor he has to depict.
In most of his short stories, the phony wold is more vividly described, since
it is the one that really exists. The filth and the decay of this world (Uncle
Wiggily in Connecticut) are suggested by the use of relevant adjectives: Mary
Jane, Eloise’s friend, looks “fouled”, the lunch is “burned”,
the snow is “soiled”.
The order of events retold is not changed and it generally functions in the
traditional way. Nevertheless, the abrupt ending of A Perfect Day for Bananafish
transgresses the code of action. With Seymour committing suicide, the expectation
of the reader are transgressed causing surprise, the more so as in the story
there is no gradation of the events to a climax. Seymour’s tale of the
bananafish, who died because of their gluttony, is the only foreshadowing of
his death. It is a completive prolepsis, because it fills in advance a later
ellipsis, it gives some explanation about Seymour Glass’s motives to kill
himself.
The mystery of these motives is not completely resolved within the story and
besides this there are several other mysteries : Seymour had apparently driven
his car into a tree, there some hints about his asking Grany about her passing
away, and about something he did to some “ lovely pictures from Bermuda”27.
We may also apply what Roland Barthes calls the referential code to. The Catcher
in the Rye and to Salinger’s other works.
Throught this code, Salinger gives general knowladge about it. The way of life
presented in the novel is that characteristic of the 20th century America comprising
elements, people entangled in the race for money, banks, hotels, martinis, preocupation
with sex and sexual perversion, the loosening of the bond betweenparents and
children.
Salinger’s works convey the moon of the American youth in the forties
and fifties with precision underlining “the phenomenon of social immaturity”
28, the desire not to brow up.
That is why the writer consistently sets the world of grownups in opposition
to the world of the child with its sincerity, purity, goodness and lack of concern
for self.
The Mainstream journal observed that in the fifties “ to contrast coldness,
alienation, and conformity with love was tantamount to a revolutionary act”29.
Notes
VI CONCLUSIONS
“Although The Catcher in the Rye appeared in 1951, the season of its success
is not yet over.
the seasoI. of its suecess is not gat oger. It has becone a. standard agaiust
Ivhich nsIv nflIels about guuaIatars are , IIetIsursd. Its 1I gsa,rI-oId hsro
is one of tkIe 20tI' centurg fiIures, lost, frzghteI.ed, lanslg in 'zi.g TwIorld, firying to. finI out Iho
he is and IQhsre hs is. .II e hero is aIIkIrd, Iorried* uncertsin, and intelligent,
psrceQtive. Tha gtorg ia intensel,Y funI'I. I Z.:Iiages ).
Ihere is a faslin.g in I quarters thIt altogether too sIuch fuss is beiI rnads sbottt I'erome DaIrid Sslinger. In Ise work,. ths
stxtI of tha parts adds ttp to- mors than the Irholc. If there is a I Salinger
cult tt, the hostils a.s sell as the friendlg criticism are caught up in it.
I aSalirIgIer cult I' ®Iista, haIeIs9er, t,.Is;e I'act ilI.ustratas ths
aItthor''s gower to
Iive rsaiitg to lais ersattIrss, ts invent chIracters who enter thc reader's
mind, and there sssuI a Iife ©f their oI:
I.IIingIrIa cIcters sIcist in e soaistg Irhere thsg aIre ' not roIxadedI fiQtioesI. . cII.tiIa, with thair enIriroIrnt, their ftiIdaI aI fass, thsir poIiticarI thIfr IobaI, their pasgchologfcai aaae b.iIrtories, anci their saz live®. aI.l in pi'aceItI,
satys henrg EIIIald.
Ixe Catcher in the Ite is s Iyria monologztd, in Ihich wmII I th® coIplete feeliIs of an essantiallg atatic charscter ara gradusZlg revealed. I'Jhat Salinger hae sesn in tne Atnerican II.fe is the eIordiruI.ry
tension it sets up betIeen th® passioxI to understand and svoluate our eIrrpariancs for aurselve srId auI naed
to belartg to s co:mnunityI, that ia usualI energetic in imposinI its un:IQrstanding
ancl valuag on its indiIIririua7.s.
IsliIgerts c.zaractQrs give the readst a feeling of his awn sen.sitivitIt to
c©espsrI.a:te z°or thsir la.ck of crsatad deIasit they eIa.st outsids
the cnsrrIsd circle of the Irall-adI tIst®d, a:I,c3. thair cries for love
aId o..Iciarsta IdiI go tIheard.
5alIIer's novel is his nost ambitiaus gressnte.tion of aspects of contemporarg aI.isnation, his :nost succsasful capture of an bmerican
audisnce. Ins noval is the bog,s coIent, hI.If-humarous, half-agoniIirIg, concerIng
hILs o.t tsrIpt to raco,pture hia identitg, aIId his hopcIs for belonI;I.ng,
bg pZaying g man--abaut-toIn far a lost I partiai:i.yI trafic, certaIinly frenstic
Ireek-I.md. GiIaplin-.lfka iIcicionts, and half-amItsinI, haif-dasparate dial.ogIzes
Ireep the storg aiIIaya hovefrirsg in ambivslIce bstIeew comedy and trs,gedy.
YII a ahsracter s.pproachQs iIopelsaeness, he is gettj.ng thsre by the route-
of the ecsaicI,
The aovk proteItts against 'cIoth acadaIrnie and sa. iai caIf'ormI.tg. But It
daIsaI it srgcte tor I I£oldsn ahara IsI ects tha notion of a conIentfonaI.
fItturs,I in' I.tch heI Imril.i Irark in
I, I't'ics: meke s lot of IoIeg,I IIi.d;e iIt caba; plaIr bridge and go to thav
m4vias* :I,oebsv seps: "Y'eI dan·t iiIe nIr schooZaI You don·Wika
a-mIltart tIiiiIeI: XIut IdonII": 2he crieIraItersI trdIleIr are rdthin=
' Iot Ii'thaut . Wis : is theI diagIosis tor the II .If`evsrI, s disoaIa®
Iith tao sgItoma : a kind at iIcapacitg to pIe onaIs eIaotions, and ths ahronic
aezIcitiIritI or asnse of lossI sioZden nas no capacity to purga his sensationa. iIe is
59biorIn up lika a bolloon, or Iike a iIanana-fish, :vith hia merIories. Iith
tim gooI. thin,gs he reraembers, hs retains thsaad thinIs a,I sIll .- until,
az'Itsr a poi.IIt, nothing is coraplet::ld Ioad or bad, but simplI retained
and chsrishs:l. as part of hinself, subperging mim Iith the IeiIht of the accumulated
burden. n :Ihat is un.beazIable is not tha.t some people are iIad, but that iIperiencs is flesting. IrerIthiI must ba retained". `.I.I'b,e
iI:za,ge iIIolden has of himelf, tnat of IaQinI tha catcher iIz ths rtJe, is
the ;IeiIfeat :.etaphor .Ior this ob,jective. Iie aIan.t.I to guard t Ie cIIildren
.from falliI off ''tIza Idge'I; likeprise, he tries to Iusrd each eIperiencs
f`rom I"a.llixzg into o'oliovion. ;Iith this iserspective, 'ae fails to
discrir.Ite betwaen f.Inportant and unimportaut eIpariences, tc dstermine Ivhich
to retain and whI.ch to rejectI Ihis is s psyIchological conflict 'crstweeI
the desira to participats an3 thg need to Iithdrr from society. Iis is 8 Ioneonformist,
but a paraIi.Ireed one. Ihe haro ie casrisd alorIg in tbs iloI his oIrn' psIche,
:zeither touIard nflr aIrag trom axIythiI. iis dsifta I.I2 a couree more or
less parall©l to that of Icisty, alt errIstsly temptsd axld rrIpelled,
IIe.if iIlinsd to participats, hs.lf fncliIed to vIithdr8aI. IiolderIfs trs,gee'Iy
I.s that he hea Izo I°eal idaals of his oI to substitute for thg phprIy
idsals og ao4isty, his trus problem i.Is tiIt he triss to be sinasre in an.
izusinaers Iorl.d. Holden iI outeido ot hiIself, loo'lIg foac . othere. He knowIs
tiaat the othsre areI I uet aI ghaI aIc ths °Iriasn ISeaII, and he also
I tba,t hs fa being ae bit oIf' pInI himself; he rsaliaee hs is in a bad I,T*
but doeI..npt knos what to do about it. some critics conderwrI Iolden tor Inot
I.iking aIthin;g", but he doee he liiIes the onlg thI.ngs - reallI Iorth
likirII; because he is sincere, in.e will not rIsttl® for Isas. Ie aook
s£:acIs tIsa grot3gonI,st Is dile:Ima of nescI;iI people aIIIa yot not
:Ii2tiI; thsI s..nd iIolden cannot hrsak coIpletely a:Iay from vrlIat iIe knoIrs
is phoIy. Tha casual phrIa 'Iif Irou Ia nt to knoI tIIe truthr·, Ihicrs
3Ialden often ropaats, suggests tbat in his IorlI. very few people do. yhe languags
is an suthss:tic srtistic rendering of a tyIro of iI.forI, cvlloquial, teoI,ge
iI:,IsrI.caII cIrs.Z sf QecI. . lt is 3trong.ly typical, yet oI''tan soIasIbat
iII:iividual; it cruI.e and slaIy, iIprecise, ii:zite,tive, yet ocIasioIlly
iIsgiItiva alI,d affected tcsIrarI. stIWs,rdization. 'cIy t:Is strosI;; efforts
of achools. Ie lanrIua;s :IIa.s not II I.Iit :en for ivssl£, but as a
ps.st of a gr@ater -.Iha'1 a, I·Ie Iok is tha Irork of a corIsorvative
:rhfl is not izrIerestsd in overthrocIing exIstiI,g institutiorzs, bItt in Irroviding
a deceut Iwrld for sensitive youtlIs, Iho ars not stroIg-willed snough: ta flaunt
trId.ition. ibe stI of sueh a boyI·s cQItzIg reluetarItlg and paizIxlly
tv tsrms Il.th societyI - this is Is;'I ingsr·s satiricai pratest agaiuact
thosa Iho threatsn tI tranquilitI and ordsr ot the Irorld, iIt order to I'gst
aomsmhere". He canIt aecspt dgInamic world-shakerss who are too atroI motivatad
by r,Iateris.listic gosis. :ie Iants a cizaractar Irho haa an r eIIraordirIaz-,I
capscitg to "ga somewharsI, and choosIs nat to ues it. The tsndeacy of
the iook i.a to disaoutrage a fruetrated yotIh·s hoge tIt hs may improve
his situation bg flightI" TIaixI and Salinger gsFve us two books; in them
i884 and 1951 speak to us in the idiom ani accent of tao ;IouthI'ttl tragelers
Irho have earned their passports to literary immortality.