Transcript An Introduction toThe Catcher in the Rye

An Introduction toThe
Catcher in the Rye
By J.D. Salinger
J.D. Salinger
•Alienation
from society is
a major theme of Jerome
David Salinger’s work and
no less a force in his own
life. He seems determined
to retreat from society and
has succeeded in
obscuring most of his
private life.
•Born
January 1, 1919 to the family of a
prosperous Manhattan food dealer, Salinger had
one older sister. He was educated in New York
City except for the last two years of high school.
These final years were spent at Valley Forge
Military Academy in Pennsylvania.
•Information about his first six years after
graduation is vague. Salinger may have visited
Europe and is known to have studied sporadically
at New York University, Ursinus College, and
Columbia University, concentrating on writing
courses. During this time, Salinger published
several short stories in popular magazines.
•Drafted
in 1942 and trained
in England, Salinger
participated in the D-Day
invasion. He continued to
write during this period and
more stories appeared in
print. There was also an
alleged marriage to a
Frenchwoman, which
supposedly ended in
divorce in 1947.
•Salinger
moved to rural
New Hampshire and lived
as a recluse. He only saw
local youngsters, whose
company he enjoyed.
Although the success of his
one novel, The Catcher in
the Rye (1951), brought him
unwanted attention, he kept
the public eye at bay by
refusing all visitors.
However, whenever he was
trapped, he offered
conflicting information and
often totally false
biographical data.
•In
1955, Salinger wed an Englishwoman,
Claire Douglas. The Salingers lived in
Cornish, New Hampshire, in a fenced-off,
isolated farmhouse with their two children.
Salinger used a nearby concrete bunker as
his writing office. Although the marriage
ended in divorce in 1967, Salinger remained
in Cornish. He continued to refuse all
contact with society, communicating with the
world only through his published works,
even up to his death in 2010 at the age of
91.
The Philosopher:
•In
Salinger’s work, contemporary society is
permeated by hypocrisy, injustice, and a lack of
love. In this world of artificiality and indifference,
Salinger’s sensitive characters invariably suffer.
•One of the few saving graces in Salinger’s corrupt
world is the purity of childhood. Yet this beautiful,
desirable, pristine innocence is short lived. And
since childhood innocence is corrupted by
passage into adulthood, Salinger offers little hope
for a meaningful existence.
•Yet
even the changes of
maturation can be dealt with
if the character develops an
all-encompassing love. In a
climactic moment in The
Catcher in the Rye, Holden
is transformed as he
watches Phoebe on a
carousel. Through love, he
is at last able to accept the
inevitability of change and
forgive the wrongdoing of
others.
•Some
readers object that
Salinger’s message is
based on negative,
reactionary attitudes. For
example, Holden’s ideals
are defined by his disgust
with evil, rather than his
reverence for good. Yet,
when faced with such
overwhelming corruption
and such varied reasons for
despair, even cautious
optimism and the chance for
salvation is cheering.
The Technician:
•Salinger
is a writer, first and last. He adamantly
rejects the role of a public figure. He also rejects
the position of teacher, refusing to talk about his
writing or instruct others on his methods.
•Although Salinger had retreated from the world,
his work offers great immediacy and reality. This is
partly due to his stylistic gift for recreating idiomatic
expression. In addition, his ability to capture the
motivations and desires of the soul show that he
has an intuitive grasp of the human character.
is Salinger’s only novel. He considered
himself a short story writer. He has written one
collection entitled Nine Stories (1953) and three
novelettes—Franny and Zooey, Seymour: An
Introduction, and Raise High the Roofbeam,
Carpenters—issued as a single work in 1963. He
also published approximately twenty other
magazine stories.
•Although his output seems meager, Salinger’s
widespread popular and critical acclaim make
every effort seem more valuable.
•The fact that The Catcher in the Rye continues to
sell over a quarter of a million copies annually in
the U.S. alone testifies to Salinger’s continuing
popularity.
•Catcher
•The
novel offers realism in
its use of language, its use
of social criticism where it is
due, and its presentation of
real problems which
adolescents face in the
process of achieving
maturity. The book also
offers romanticism in its
view of the innocence of
childhood, its quest for truth,
idealizing the past, and its
emphasis on individual
discovery and growth.
•Salinger
utilizes a frame story structure. The
outside frame is Holden’s talking to a
psychoanalyst: the inside story is Holden’s own
narrative, with flashbacks of the events, the
“madman stuff” that has led to his arrival at a rest
home in California.
•Since this narrative is in first person,
autobiographical and episodic, it is picaresque.
•It is psychological in that the events narrated are
accompanied be Holden’s thoughts. It is also a
quest narrative in which Holden seeks to discover
truth, values, and, ultimately, himself and his place
in the world.
•The
Catcher in the Rye
is a coming-of-age
story. Like Huckleberry
Finn, A Separate
Peace, Lord of the
Flies, and The Great
Gatsby, Catcher implies
that a loss of innocence
is essential if a child is
to become an adult.
This process is painful,
but inevitable.
•Other
critics have
categorized Catcher as
a picaresque novel—a
book dealing with the
adventurers of a
wanderer. Still others
see Holden as a Christ
figure, lunatic—even
Peter Pan. The diversity
of views only increases
the novel’s literary
merit.
Criticism & Controversy:
•The
Catcher in the Rye is not without its
detractors and critics. They attack the book’s use
of colloquial slang, its cynical central character as
an inappropriate role model, and its use of
profanity and seedy scenes.
•While these are points to consider, a thorough
and objective analysis of the book as a whole can
lead to the conclusion that the book is a balance
between Realism and Romanticism with Postmodernism ideas that is designed to encourage
readers to form their own opinions in relation to, in
juxtaposition with, Holden’s opinions.
•Still
today, The Catcher in the
Rye is one of the most frequently
banned books.
•It is in the sense that it teaches
without preaching that Catcher is
perhaps the best book in the 20th
century to address the adolescent
stage of human development and
may explain its enduring
popularity and controversy.
•Holden Caulfield is such a
composite sketch of an American
teenager that nearly all readers
identify with or see some of their
friends reflected in different
aspects of Holden’s character.
•Young
readers see in
Holden Caulfield a little bit
of what they are, while
older readers see in
Holden a bit of what they
once were.
•Ultimately, we all know
that in some way, Holden
is one of us.
Catcher & John Lennon:
•On
December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon
outside his Dakota apartment building.
•He was carrying a copy of The Catcher in the Rye with him at the time
of the murder and even sat down and read a few pages following the
shooting, while waiting for the police to arrive.
•He was obsessed with the book and Holden Caulfield and believed
that the book expressed who he was. He thought of himself as a
catcher in the rye and thought he needed to kill John Lennon, who he
saw as a “phony”.
•Part of his statement following the murder is as follows:
Then this morning I went to the bookstore and bought The Catcher
in the Rye. I’m sure the large part of me is Holden Caulfield, who is the
main person in the book. The small part of me must be the Devil.
•Creepy, huh?
Some Values & Themes in
Catcher:
•The need for inner direction and commitment to action
•A sensitive awareness of life’s compensations: a
necessary balance of sympathy and rejection, joy and
sorrow
•The recognition of superficial standards of behavior; the
challenge of seeking positive change in one’s moral
environment
•The ability to feel compassion and to expect justice for all
•The therapeutic worth of honesty in communication with
others; the treatment of every person as an individual
•The learning of universal love and empathy in one’s
individual struggle against hypocrisy and worldly corruption
Dominant Symbols in Catcher :
•The
carousel
•The red hunting cap
•The catcher’s mitt
•The ducks in Central Park pond
•The Museum of Natural History
•Pencey Prep