麦田守者公霍尔顿物形象分析黑体二号居中单倍行距
摘
霍尔顿塞林格著名文学作品麦田里守者里公时美国年轻代表物显易见形象鲜活霍尔顿时代读者带深深震撼文着重分析研究霍尔顿性特征公处现实社会矛盾立假模假样部说中典词语公常词语文霍尔顿矛盾性格立角度两方面性特征进行分析包括性中反叛性坚守纯真追求幸福崇高愿时探究公霍尔顿矛盾性格形成成社会环境教育环境两维度解读期探索性格形成根源
读者够更深入解公第二次世界战美国社会现状作品背蕴藏深意文霍尔顿具代表性物形象作深刻剖析
关 键 词 纯真性格分析假模假样反叛
Abstract
Holden is the young protagonist of the famous literary works The Catcher in the Rye which is written by Salinger At the same time Holden also represents the youth of American at that time It is obvious that the vivid image of Holden profoundly impacts all its readers This thesis will focus on analyzing the personality characteristics of Holden The real society in which the protagonist lives is contradictory and antagonistic Phony is a classic words in the novel and it is also commonly used by the protagonist It vividly described social hypocrisy and ugliness in the eyes of Holden This article will analyze Holden’s contradictory character from two aspects including the rebelliousness in his personality and his noble ideals of defending for purity and chasing happiness Meanwhile this paper also explores causes that formed Holden’s contradictory personality by analyzing social and environmental factors aiming to find out the root of his character
In order to give the reader a deeper understanding on the protagonist the social situation of the United States after in the Second World War and the profound meaning behind the works this article makes a profound analysis on the representative image of Holden
Key words Purity personality analysis phony rebel
Contents
摘 ⅰ
Abstract ⅱ
Contents ⅲ
Chapter One Introduction 2
11 Holden Caulfield 2
12 The Author and the Significance of the Novel 2
Chapter Tow Holden—the Innocent image in The Catcher in the Rye 2
21 Holden — A Young Man Loving Pure Childhood Time 2
22 HoldenA Patron God for Children 2
221 The Ideal Eden 2
222 A Catcher 2
Chapter Three A Rebel Resenting the World 2
31 A Rebel against Mundane Affairs 2
311 A Rebel against the School 2
312 A Symbol for the Rebel— Red Hunter Cap 2
32 Evading in the Revolt 2
33 Growing in the Revolt 2
Chapter Four The reasons of Contradictory character 2
41 The social environment 2
42 The education environment 2
Chapter Five Conclusion 2
Bibliography 2
Acknowledgements 21
Chapter One Introduction
11 Holden Caulfield
The hero in The Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield was a middle school student who was born in a rich middleclass family He was only 16 years old but he was taller than normal teenagers of the same age He always wore a cap and trench coat every day Holden did not like studying at school and was expelled from school three times Although he was expelled for failing four of his five subjects at the end of one semester he didn＇t feel sorry After fighting with his classmates he didn’t dare to go home Then he found a small hotel to live in for one day And he saw some men and women with disordered life there There was a man who wore women clothes each of his postures made Holden feel sick He would hang out in clubs every time he felt bored He was annoyed when returning back to the hotel So he agreed with Maurice’s advice to work as an elevator worker since Maurice would find a prostitute for him But when the prostitute came he felt nervous and scared and finally had to give five dollars to the prostitute The next day Holden donated 10 to two nuns while wandering in the street Holden went skating with his girlfriend Sally after watching a match When he saw Sally’s insincerity Holden felt bad Holden didn’t want to go home or continue to go to school Therefore he decided to make a living in the west and pretended to be a deaf and dumb to live his rest life But before leaving he would like to see his sister So he called her Having waited for her for a long time he saw his sister Phoebe arrived dragging a big suitcase full of her clothes She was determined to go with her brother to the west Finally because of his sister’s persistence he had to give up his plan to the west
12 The Author and the Significance of the Novel
The Catcher in the Rye is one of the greatest works of modern literature The author Jerome David Salinger wrote this novel whiling publishing some short novels However it had made significant impact on the society and literature of America The Catcher in the Rye was popular among American teenagers because it reflected their inside feeling Critics believed it was the best initiation novel They considered that the novel had some similarities with Huckleberry Finn a masterpiece of Mark Twain After it published The Catcher in the Rye directly influenced creating novels of this kind
I just wanted to be a catcher in the rye is its symbolic image representing the whole meaning of the novel Salinger hoped to have such a dream that he could accompany the growth of children Holden’ hunter red hat another profound meaning of the image consistently existed through the whole novel The hero would like to be the catcher in the rye and then he would be responsible for the safety of children and alert like a hunter His hat stood for his ideal and responsibility and also the harbor of body and mind Later he gave the hat to his most beloved sister hoping that she could approve with his thoughts and actions
Chapter Two Holden—the Innocent Image in The Catcher in the Rye
21 Holden — a Young Man Loving Pure Childhood Time
It can be known from the novel that Holden did not like the hypocrisy of society and looked forwards to chase the purity of childhood As long as purity is mentioned it will make the pure world occur to our mind In this novel the pure world was demonstrated by the representative characters The first one was Alley who was Holden＇s younger brother He loved Alley for the reason that Alley was his brother as well as because his chasteness and wisdom As Holden remembered he slept in the carbarn at the time when Alley died So he always thought that he should be responsible for Alley’s death Because he was particularly sad his fists fiercely broke the glass window Additionally he also had the mind that he would die too There is another detail that also could found he loved Alley very much he had been keeping Alley’s baseball glove As Stradlater＇s request Holden created an article whose content is concerning about the gloves He often talked to Alley and it seemed that his younger brother still stayed beside him As Phoebe asked Holden about what kind thing and person he liked it often easily made hime to has his cute brother in mind He knew that Alley had died but he was the symbol of purity in his heart
Holden exerted all his energies to conrcern with Phoebe when faced her He looked forward to defend her innocent and pure heart As he was swallowed by the hypocritical people as well as society and even as he almost lost hope for everything then he entered Phoebe’s room He told her that he was afraid he would not have an opportunity to see her any more before his death At the time he made up his mind to go to the West he said goodbye to Phoebe He was almost insane when he found the obscene words on the her school walls It was very has for him to imagine
that if students see these kinds of words what would appear in their mind Phoebe had expressed her willing to company with him but he refused frankly He looked forward her keeping a positive and optimistic attitude towards her life One time she just said a simple words shut up which surprised him a lot
In Holden＇s mind when encounter troublesome things he would think the little girls wearing skating shoes wew very lovable Here the word lovable was employed to describe the world in opposition to hypocritical As to the meaning of lovable it contained the quality of sincerity and innocent and all of them were illustrated by children Holden had encountered two nuns both of them were quite nice because they put all their heart and soul to help others which was different to his aunts who would not do good things In addition his aunt would never appear before the public without making up However the nuns were not do the same so they were the symbol of adult＇s purity What＇s more there were a lot of other things occured in his mind every now and then for example his girlfriend Jane Richard who spoke unconstrainedly in oral class the changeless duck the fish in lake as well as the relic in museum and even a hunter＇s red cap all of which transmitted intrinsic signals in his subconsciousness In Survey of Contemporary American Novel proposed by Huang Tiechi who argued that the signals just keeps two information the first one is that Holden loves purity and keeps chasing it and also looks forward to keep innocence as children the other is changeless and freezing things and they all demonstrate his intelligence and dignity (Huang 2000 7)
22 HoldenA Patron God for Children
As Holden had fight against the ugly world he felt quite tired and he had disappointment about the corruption and mendacity in the society He desired to run into the real Eden at which place he could live with purity and honesty
221 The Ideal Eden
As to Holden the ideal Eden was a pure and innocent place for children Holden agued the world he lived in were full of wicked and brutal things and the people were all lousy Therefore he preferred to isolate himself from the hated world and people Different with the inveracious and wicked adult world children＇s simplicity made him be pleased and comforted To him together with children was very important to him as well as his dream about childhood was significant to him The children world was as clear as crystal and it was a world filled with love and warm could be found everywhere Holden kept the ideal it s
hould protect children from disturbing so that they can keep the pure and real nature of human
It is the ideal Eden that made Holden to become a protector to protect the good nature of children In the adult world dismay and corruption were here and there So in Holden’s mind the single thing that worth him to do is to make all his effort to protect children from not to be influenced and try his best to maintain their innocent nature Anyway I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all Thousands of little kids and nobody’s aroundnobody big I meanexcept me And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff What I have to do I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliffI mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them That’s all I’d do all day I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all（Salinger 1951173）His biggest wish was to defend purity and children He believed that people were naive and pure when they were children before decaying by adult
There was no doubt that the ideal Eden was equivalent to a faultless Holy Land
222 A Catcher
Holden created by the author was test himself and his life concept again Finally Holden started to clearly make up his thoughts—a bit incoherently it was true—concerning the thing he was willing to do in his life His hope is to be the catcher who can defend children and their purity He struggled to protect naive children from being disturbed by decadent adult world He thirsted for philosophical meaning of his life which keeps a primary moral aim overpassing the reality and practice The task was as important as a savior He didn’t mean to be sacrilegious intent but his only hope was to keep human away from wickedness The point of view of Holden was that all the unhappy features of a child were because he or her touch the adult world too early Therefore he longed for children to maintain purity and never involving in adult world Therefore Holden preferred to become a catcher in the rye so that he could save a lot of pure and naive children from the edge of cliff
It can be seen from the novel The Catcher in the Rye that the author assure us that Holden has the noble dream to seek for universal fraternity and spirit He acted as a mutineer to the society what’s more he also manifested as a catcher protecting purity and children from the evil adult world In addition the purity that the children owned was one of the most distinguished nature of human
Holden’s career was significant because it was good for children as well as for the whole world It was no doubt that Holden should get the greatest compliment to some extent
Chapter Three A Rebel Resenting the World
31 A Rebel against Mundane Affairs
From the novel it can be recognized that people had the right to obtain education right For the purpose of achieving success all people tried their best to pursue knowledge He despised those around him for example his father his brother and others Here giving an example to illustrate The father who is making a lot of dough and plays golf and plays bridge and buys cars and drinks Martinis and looks like a hotshot（Salinger 1951 172） His brother was quite clever D B he chose the way to Hollywood and looked forward to earn money by creating scripts In addition Anto Nepali married a old woman who had a lot of treasure Holden hated all things like those Therefore he started to fight against the real world and hoped to have a wonderful life as he want
311 A Rebel against the School
In the first part of the novel it described that Holden was weeded out of Pencey because he fail one course out of five ones However he hadn’t as the school’s stipulated time in fact he left school in advance which was his own way to revolt against the school On his own initiative he left school because of his own willing but not because of outside driving He was reluctant to make effort to learn which clearly demonstrated he revolted against the educational system at that time
From some details in the story they could also manifest Holden’s rebellion characters Here giving an example once he had visited his teacher Mr Antolini who compared and analyzed the difference between immature and mature man and gave him the significant suggestions but not suicidal suggestionWhat was Holden’s response to the sincere advice He had no interests in listening to suggestions of the teacher since he only cared for himself Holden didn’t accept the roles in the world by the constructive way on the contrary he rebelled against the school and the family even the world with the immature attitude
Additionally he displayed the revolt mood through the words of counterlegitimate and countercultured For instance it appeared frequently in his words damn goddamn ass old and so on These words appeared with extremely high frequency It seemed as if Holden was degenerating The implied meanings in these words are his attitude to the society and they also expressed he was disgruntled and sad His weird words and action made him out of the standards rule of society
312 A Symbol for the Rebel— Red Hunter Cap
As to the red hat from a hunter it was an unique symbol of the whole novel The cap stood for Holden’s passive attitude and quality towards a lot of unhappy things in life He bought it at the time he was repelled in school and he had mentioned that if he did not want unhappy things to happen he would wear it
The hunter cap had particular meaning in his dormitory He said he knew it was hateful to wear the peak to back but he liked to do it like that（Salinger195145）After struggling with Stradlater he displayed his behavior in an idiosyncratic way again When he left Pencey he wore the cap again and place the peak behind which manifested his joyfulness and deliberateness He often explained that he liked it that way and highlighted that he just liked to do as that from which it could be seen that demonstrated his choice explicitly and also displayed that he rebelled against the social rule and norm He made effort to express his wish by unnormal way He looked forward to be himself and had to manifest him in the hypocritical and insincere world
Generally speaking the action of rebellion had agitative feature It was no doubt that this kind of behavior had unique and particular meaning
Therefore when recognizing the real society was impacted by decadent things Holden revolted at once While his defiance was too negligible hard and slow to be caught in mire The more he rebelled the deeper he would be caught until to be swallowed
32 Evading in the Revolt
There was such a description in the novel Holden wandered outside for three days and nights observing and found the adult world was filled with wickedness insincerity and evil He was sensitive but was not recognized by the society He did not wants to live lonely and hoped to get
understand from the noisy world therefore he tried to employ adult communication mode to talk with other people It was the fact that he was eager to be understood and loved Holden still kept an overwhelming dream like a lot of children as well as adult and need to pay attention
Holden usually appeared in a lot kinds of public places and used phone to invited peoples including taxi driver and strangers However the results are usual out of his expectation because he was refused or had no common words Here giving an example from the novel to demonstrate After leaving hometown Holden met Mrs Morrow He used lie to make her laugh but they were glad The other example was about a prostitute He called her but never felt any sexual desire In fact his three days experience was the effort he made to try to be understood and to acquire communication He often looked forward to talk with people because he was too lonely and desired and catched all opportunities to communicate With the more unpleasant communication the more he was dissatisfied He intended to revolt however the fact was that he had no choice but to accept the world but try to escape from it however he had to compromise once again He even kept the mind that he was a man who could not hear and speak because he could not communicate with others in a long time The world was repelling him and there was full of loneliness in his heart which alert him must be phony as others as well as doing phony things He made planed for his future life he imaged he would do a work in gas station where he does not need to think about the type of work or nobody know him where he does not need to hear and speak but just get information from the customer’s piece of paper（ Salinger1951198）
So it can be easily found that his decision and action had very closely relationship with the real life and world despite he could not found hope in the society he lived in Analyzing from this aspect it could be seen that he accept and understand about the real world and it was reasonless to escape from the society He finally went to a distant place in silent He had no other choice but to do like that
Holden＇s final purpose was not to keep away from people and live in a distant place The truth was that he experieced had fight between the idal and reality for the aim to find a suitable place But after encountering more and more failure he recognized that no matter what he did it would be no use There was no such an ideal place in real world Wang Lihong was a famous reviewer and he once said Holden just had two choice one was to accept the real society the other was to be insane In the real world he had no choice but to accept the reality Wang also gave an example to argue his point of view Holden went back to school in Sept and attempted to integrate i
nto the society again (Wang 2006180) As Wang＇s opinion he chose to compromise totally
33 Growing in the Revolt
In his novel JD had created two lovely roles who were Holden and Phoebe and they two were like angles They possessed good qualities like kindness honesty and courage They had sympathy with others and in particular had the character of rebellion They also get rid of the common norms of the society and finally developed their own thought His younger sister Phoebe was the only one who Holden could talk about his ideal with It was also Phoebe roused Holden’s heart by her loveliness and wisdom Holden had experienced three days and nights seeking for communication from which knew how to revolt against reality as well as recognized the important meaning of growth There was detail description in 25th chapter of his book Holden sat on a bench and after a while he watched his little sister riding wooden horse and playing with other children Meanwhile the children revolved again along with music And he thought that they all were making effort to get the gold ring including Phoebe he worried she may fall off but he still kept silence and did nothing （ Salinger1951211） At the beginning Holden took care of Phoebe as parents however he recognized that the best parents should allow kids to do something they want and try to take adventure Therefore Holden believed it was important for children to attempt to tough new things which may have some risk After realizing that he just watched Phoebe grabbing the golden horse by herself tightly and did not disturbed her Here the character’s conflict was manifested that is to say he reluctant to accept the adult life but he had to grow up and learned to be mature He was not a child any more and would be adult soon even though he thought the adult world were decadent If he want to grow up quickly he had to take adventure with enough courage Then he made effort to know the world and to accept it This was a very necessary course he had to learn He finally knew that if there was happiness there was also sorrow and the same as beauty and ugliness which he learned from Phoebe So he believed that if the children wanted to grab the gold ring adult should allow them to do and just keep silence they may fallen off but it was not good for adults to stop them
(Salinger1951211) Since then he had been more and more mature The merrygoround was like life as it revolved the life also continued Every body was revolved around the center axis There was a academic article about this novel and it made conclusion that Holden was not the only man who doubted and dissatisfied with real society but if the jockey could follow the rules and adjust himself then heher would be safe on the wooden horse in spite of everything outside (Kong 2001 72)
Time after time Holden finally recognized that he longed for peace and solitude
Chapter Four The Reasons of Contradictory characters
41 Social Environment
Holden met his brother’s exgirlfriend when he drank in Greenwich Village and talked with his brother about who was a talented writer His brother had published a good short story But later he began to write some vulgar plays for Hollywood because of money The exgirlfriend pleased Holden and wanted to make up his brother Holden felt disgusted and depressed about his brother who was full of wit submitted to the lure of money No ordinary people would like his brother’s exgirlfriend nor would artists like his brother who worked for money The whole society was full of materialism Even the art was filled with the worship of money Holden’s disgust and frustration showed his contempt of adult world which was mired in materialism
Holden met Sarne at the night of his traveling He sympathized with Sarne who gave in herself to vice due to the burden of life Sarne was confused angry with him beating him and even ransacking him She was the image of a social victim Though she had accepted the rules of the society where people were only interested in their own interests without caring about others as much as themselves Holden had sympathy for her He once again felt the indifference of society and the distortion of human nature Therefore every time Holden approached to people he could not build an effective communication with them Holden was banished from the world before he refused the world So he expressed himself in a distorted way He was cynical sarcastic liking lying speaking nonsense teasing and even insulting others He often felt that he was a terrible liar a madman and a fool After he gained insight of the distortion of the adult world and also his own spiritual distortions it seemed that escape was the only choice for Holden However reality let him know that you will never find a comfortable quiet place because there is no place like this
42 Educational Environment
The school where Holden studied had a high reputation in the educational field which should provide a good education and healthy growth for students On the contrary there were a lot of unhealthy social trends Everyone around Holden was a hypocrite Reading books and learning knowledge were only to get advanced in the society so that in the future they can buy a goddam Cadillac What students did was talking about women alcohol and sex Obviously such school was not an ideal place for Holden He looked down upon those hypocrites who were senior students and hated those classmates who followed them which made him unfit to the surroundings No one could really understand his rebellious character
Andolini is one of the most important figures whom Holden visited after he left school He used to be Holden’s teacher Holden considered him as the best teacher he had in his life and respected his brave and righteous deeds Therefore after Holden suffered a series of defeat he came to Antonelli’s apartment with confidence and imagined to get understanding and consolation But the teacher who once left him a good impression told his students the sign of an immature man is that he is willing to die bravely for his cause and his mark a mature man with difference that he prefers to live humbly for his cause It was clear that Holden was immature in his mind and he himself was mature From the perspective of the adult world the advice Antonelli gave to Holden might make sense But it couldn’t release Holden’s confusion He was lonely and painful because he didn’t want to live humbly like most people Even his most respected and trusted teacher educated him to be a person like that He was very confused very disappointed especially when he woke up from his sleep and found that his teacher might be a gay He then immediately found an excuse and escaped away from Antonelli’s house All his hopes vanished what the world gave him was only despair
Chapter Five Conclusion
In the novel the author showed us a subtle rebellious and quite selfconscious teenager who found his own identity from the external society however in which he found him was inconsistent with
the society in reverse
In the novel Holden stood for a revolt to real society and stood in the opposite position to combat mendacity and smuttiness He was tired of and even and dismayed about the decadence and fraud In the process of rebelling the already built life values in the adult society he recognized the real meaning and significance of life As a representative young man he loved and had a sensitive feeling for the modern world Meanwhile he was an adolescent concatenating these in childhood and adulthood Therefore he manifested naivety sincerity and honesty were needed In his heart Childhood was the most wonderful time in his life What’s more he desired enter a real Eden at that place all people could pursue naive and genuine life His willing is to become a catcher in the rye Without any doubt it was a particular noble work for him Generally speaking in this novel Holden was designed as rebellion to the society and dream pursuer at the same time
In a word through depicting Holden Caulfield’s feeling to the society the author vividly presented social problems at that time At the same time Holden is a typical adolescent of the time in America No matter in the past or at present his particular figure brings people to have a deep thought about their life and society
Bibliography
[1]GeismarMaxwell American ModernsFrom Rebellion to Conformity New York Hill and Wang 1998
[2]Hassan Ihab Radical Innocence Studies in the Contemporary Novel New Jersey Princeton University 1997
[3]Salinger JD The Catcher in the Rye Boston (Little Brown and Company edition) 1951
[4]Peter Shaw New Essays on The Catcher in the Rye London Cambridge University Press 1999
[5]塞汉 霍尔顿—美国文学中哈克·贝里·费恩似物 蒙古学学报 6 (2000)167169
[6]常耀信 美国文学选读 南开学出版社 1990
[7]黄铁池 代美国说研究 学林出版社 20006
[8]孔秋梅 爱唤爱—麦田里守者’公心态转变 齐齐哈尔学学报 9（2001）：7172
[9]钱满素 美国代说家 中国社会科学出版社 1997
[10]塞林格 ［美国作家］著 施咸荣译 麦田里守者 译林出版社 19989
[11]尚晓进 精神危机救赎 英美文学研究丛 2（2000）：196209
[12]施咸荣 美国年轻代声抗议—国外塞林格麦田里守者评 浙江文艺出版社 19989
[13]王立宏 霍尔顿：位震撼心悲剧物 学术交流 2006 第2期
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have helped me during writing this thesis
Firstly I acknowledge my supervisor Professor LIAO Li who has offered me great help and valuable suggestions for this paper I really have learned a lot from her instruction While preparing for this thesis Ms Liao offered me quite a lot of reading resources and advice to me which inspired me a great deal Every time I had questions on my paper she always patiently helped me solve my problems and gave me useful suggestions to get improved and do better I will never forget Ms Liao’s help
Secondly I would also like to thank my roommates they showed me great concern and offered me many resources for this paper They were so considerate that they help me not only with my thesis but also my life which made me completely focus on my paper
In addition I would like to thank my beloved parents who have always been helping me out of difficulties and support me without any complaints
Finally I am also grateful to other people who have ever helped me with this thesis
Without their help the completion of this thesis would be impossible Here I would like express my sincere gratitude to all of them
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摘
霍尔顿塞林格著名文学作品麦田里守者里公时美国年轻代表物显易见形象鲜活霍尔顿时代读者带深深震撼文着重分析研究霍尔顿性特征公处现实社会矛盾立假模假样部说中典词语公常词语文霍尔顿矛盾性格立角度两方面性特征进行分析包括性中反叛性坚守纯真追求幸福崇高愿时探究公霍尔顿矛盾性格形成成社会环境教育环境两维度解读期探索性格形成根源
读者够更深入解公第二次世界战美国社会现状作品背蕴藏深意文霍尔顿具代表性物形象作深刻剖析
关 键 词 纯真性格分析假模假样反叛
Abstract
Holden is the young protagonist of the famous literary works The Catcher in the Rye which is written by Salinger At the same time Holden also represents the youth of American at that time It is obvious that the vivid image of Holden profoundly impacts all its readers This thesis will focus on analyzing the personality characteristics of Holden The real society in which the protagonist lives is contradictory and antagonistic Phony is a classic words in the novel and it is also commonly used by the protagonist It vividly described social hypocrisy and ugliness in the eyes of Holden This article will analyze Holden’s contradictory character from two aspects including the rebelliousness in his personality and his noble ideals of defending for purity and chasing happiness Meanwhile this paper also explores causes that formed Holden’s contradictory personality by analyzing social and environmental factors aiming to find out the root of his character
In order to give the reader a deeper understanding on the protagonist the social situation of the United States after in the Second World War and the profound meaning behind the works this article makes a profound analysis on the representative image of Holden
Key words Purity personality analysis phony rebel
Contents
摘 ⅰ
Abstract ⅱ
Contents ⅲ
Chapter One Introduction 2
11 Holden Caulfield 2
12 The Author and the Significance of the Novel 2
Chapter Tow Holden—the Innocent image in The Catcher in the Rye 2
21 Holden — A Young Man Loving Pure Childhood Time 2
22 HoldenA Patron God for Children 2
221 The Ideal Eden 2
222 A Catcher 2
Chapter Three A Rebel Resenting the World 2
31 A Rebel against Mundane Affairs 2
311 A Rebel against the School 2
312 A Symbol for the Rebel— Red Hunter Cap 2
32 Evading in the Revolt 2
33 Growing in the Revolt 2
Chapter Four The reasons of Contradictory character 2
41 The social environment 2
42 The education environment 2
Chapter Five Conclusion 2
Bibliography 2
Acknowledgements 21
Chapter One Introduction
11 Holden Caulfield
The hero in The Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield was a middle school student who was born in a rich middleclass family He was only 16 years old but he was taller than normal teenagers of the same age He always wore a cap and trench coat every day Holden did not like studying at school and was expelled from school three times Although he was expelled for failing four of his five subjects at the end of one semester he didn＇t feel sorry After fighting with his classmates he didn’t dare to go home Then he found a small hotel to live in for one day And he saw some men and women with disordered life there There was a man who wore women clothes each of his postures made Holden feel sick He would hang out in clubs every time he felt bored He was annoyed when returning back to the hotel So he agreed with Maurice’s advice to work as an elevator worker since Maurice would find a prostitute for him But when the prostitute came he felt nervous and scared and finally had to give five dollars to the prostitute The next day Holden donated 10 to two nuns while wandering in the street Holden went skating with his girlfriend Sally after watching a match When he saw Sally’s insincerity Holden felt bad Holden didn’t want to go home or continue to go to school Therefore he decided to make a living in the west and pretended to be a deaf and dumb to live his rest life But before leaving he would like to see his sister So he called her Having waited for her for a long time he saw his sister Phoebe arrived dragging a big suitcase full of her clothes She was determined to go with her brother to the west Finally because of his sister’s persistence he had to give up his plan to the west
12 The Author and the Significance of the Novel
The Catcher in the Rye is one of the greatest works of modern literature The author Jerome David Salinger wrote this novel whiling publishing some short novels However it had made significant impact on the society and literature of America The Catcher in the Rye was popular among American teenagers because it reflected their inside feeling Critics believed it was the best initiation novel They considered that the novel had some similarities with Huckleberry Finn a masterpiece of Mark Twain After it published The Catcher in the Rye directly influenced creating novels of this kind
I just wanted to be a catcher in the rye is its symbolic image representing the whole meaning of the novel Salinger hoped to have such a dream that he could accompany the growth of children Holden’ hunter red hat another profound meaning of the image consistently existed through the whole novel The hero would like to be the catcher in the rye and then he would be responsible for the safety of children and alert like a hunter His hat stood for his ideal and responsibility and also the harbor of body and mind Later he gave the hat to his most beloved sister hoping that she could approve with his thoughts and actions
Chapter Two Holden—the Innocent Image in The Catcher in the Rye
21 Holden — a Young Man Loving Pure Childhood Time
It can be known from the novel that Holden did not like the hypocrisy of society and looked forwards to chase the purity of childhood As long as purity is mentioned it will make the pure world occur to our mind In this novel the pure world was demonstrated by the representative characters The first one was Alley who was Holden＇s younger brother He loved Alley for the reason that Alley was his brother as well as because his chasteness and wisdom As Holden remembered he slept in the carbarn at the time when Alley died So he always thought that he should be responsible for Alley’s death Because he was particularly sad his fists fiercely broke the glass window Additionally he also had the mind that he would die too There is another detail that also could found he loved Alley very much he had been keeping Alley’s baseball glove As Stradlater＇s request Holden created an article whose content is concerning about the gloves He often talked to Alley and it seemed that his younger brother still stayed beside him As Phoebe asked Holden about what kind thing and person he liked it often easily made hime to has his cute brother in mind He knew that Alley had died but he was the symbol of purity in his heart
Holden exerted all his energies to conrcern with Phoebe when faced her He looked forward to defend her innocent and pure heart As he was swallowed by the hypocritical people as well as society and even as he almost lost hope for everything then he entered Phoebe’s room He told her that he was afraid he would not have an opportunity to see her any more before his death At the time he made up his mind to go to the West he said goodbye to Phoebe He was almost insane when he found the obscene words on the her school walls It was very has for him to imagine
that if students see these kinds of words what would appear in their mind Phoebe had expressed her willing to company with him but he refused frankly He looked forward her keeping a positive and optimistic attitude towards her life One time she just said a simple words shut up which surprised him a lot
In Holden＇s mind when encounter troublesome things he would think the little girls wearing skating shoes wew very lovable Here the word lovable was employed to describe the world in opposition to hypocritical As to the meaning of lovable it contained the quality of sincerity and innocent and all of them were illustrated by children Holden had encountered two nuns both of them were quite nice because they put all their heart and soul to help others which was different to his aunts who would not do good things In addition his aunt would never appear before the public without making up However the nuns were not do the same so they were the symbol of adult＇s purity What＇s more there were a lot of other things occured in his mind every now and then for example his girlfriend Jane Richard who spoke unconstrainedly in oral class the changeless duck the fish in lake as well as the relic in museum and even a hunter＇s red cap all of which transmitted intrinsic signals in his subconsciousness In Survey of Contemporary American Novel proposed by Huang Tiechi who argued that the signals just keeps two information the first one is that Holden loves purity and keeps chasing it and also looks forward to keep innocence as children the other is changeless and freezing things and they all demonstrate his intelligence and dignity (Huang 2000 7)
22 HoldenA Patron God for Children
As Holden had fight against the ugly world he felt quite tired and he had disappointment about the corruption and mendacity in the society He desired to run into the real Eden at which place he could live with purity and honesty
221 The Ideal Eden
As to Holden the ideal Eden was a pure and innocent place for children Holden agued the world he lived in were full of wicked and brutal things and the people were all lousy Therefore he preferred to isolate himself from the hated world and people Different with the inveracious and wicked adult world children＇s simplicity made him be pleased and comforted To him together with children was very important to him as well as his dream about childhood was significant to him The children world was as clear as crystal and it was a world filled with love and warm could be found everywhere Holden kept the ideal it s
hould protect children from disturbing so that they can keep the pure and real nature of human
It is the ideal Eden that made Holden to become a protector to protect the good nature of children In the adult world dismay and corruption were here and there So in Holden’s mind the single thing that worth him to do is to make all his effort to protect children from not to be influenced and try his best to maintain their innocent nature Anyway I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all Thousands of little kids and nobody’s aroundnobody big I meanexcept me And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff What I have to do I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliffI mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them That’s all I’d do all day I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all（Salinger 1951173）His biggest wish was to defend purity and children He believed that people were naive and pure when they were children before decaying by adult
There was no doubt that the ideal Eden was equivalent to a faultless Holy Land
222 A Catcher
Holden created by the author was test himself and his life concept again Finally Holden started to clearly make up his thoughts—a bit incoherently it was true—concerning the thing he was willing to do in his life His hope is to be the catcher who can defend children and their purity He struggled to protect naive children from being disturbed by decadent adult world He thirsted for philosophical meaning of his life which keeps a primary moral aim overpassing the reality and practice The task was as important as a savior He didn’t mean to be sacrilegious intent but his only hope was to keep human away from wickedness The point of view of Holden was that all the unhappy features of a child were because he or her touch the adult world too early Therefore he longed for children to maintain purity and never involving in adult world Therefore Holden preferred to become a catcher in the rye so that he could save a lot of pure and naive children from the edge of cliff
It can be seen from the novel The Catcher in the Rye that the author assure us that Holden has the noble dream to seek for universal fraternity and spirit He acted as a mutineer to the society what’s more he also manifested as a catcher protecting purity and children from the evil adult world In addition the purity that the children owned was one of the most distinguished nature of human
Holden’s career was significant because it was good for children as well as for the whole world It was no doubt that Holden should get the greatest compliment to some extent
Chapter Three A Rebel Resenting the World
31 A Rebel against Mundane Affairs
From the novel it can be recognized that people had the right to obtain education right For the purpose of achieving success all people tried their best to pursue knowledge He despised those around him for example his father his brother and others Here giving an example to illustrate The father who is making a lot of dough and plays golf and plays bridge and buys cars and drinks Martinis and looks like a hotshot（Salinger 1951 172） His brother was quite clever D B he chose the way to Hollywood and looked forward to earn money by creating scripts In addition Anto Nepali married a old woman who had a lot of treasure Holden hated all things like those Therefore he started to fight against the real world and hoped to have a wonderful life as he want
311 A Rebel against the School
In the first part of the novel it described that Holden was weeded out of Pencey because he fail one course out of five ones However he hadn’t as the school’s stipulated time in fact he left school in advance which was his own way to revolt against the school On his own initiative he left school because of his own willing but not because of outside driving He was reluctant to make effort to learn which clearly demonstrated he revolted against the educational system at that time
From some details in the story they could also manifest Holden’s rebellion characters Here giving an example once he had visited his teacher Mr Antolini who compared and analyzed the difference between immature and mature man and gave him the significant suggestions but not suicidal suggestionWhat was Holden’s response to the sincere advice He had no interests in listening to suggestions of the teacher since he only cared for himself Holden didn’t accept the roles in the world by the constructive way on the contrary he rebelled against the school and the family even the world with the immature attitude
Additionally he displayed the revolt mood through the words of counterlegitimate and countercultured For instance it appeared frequently in his words damn goddamn ass old and so on These words appeared with extremely high frequency It seemed as if Holden was degenerating The implied meanings in these words are his attitude to the society and they also expressed he was disgruntled and sad His weird words and action made him out of the standards rule of society
312 A Symbol for the Rebel— Red Hunter Cap
As to the red hat from a hunter it was an unique symbol of the whole novel The cap stood for Holden’s passive attitude and quality towards a lot of unhappy things in life He bought it at the time he was repelled in school and he had mentioned that if he did not want unhappy things to happen he would wear it
The hunter cap had particular meaning in his dormitory He said he knew it was hateful to wear the peak to back but he liked to do it like that（Salinger195145）After struggling with Stradlater he displayed his behavior in an idiosyncratic way again When he left Pencey he wore the cap again and place the peak behind which manifested his joyfulness and deliberateness He often explained that he liked it that way and highlighted that he just liked to do as that from which it could be seen that demonstrated his choice explicitly and also displayed that he rebelled against the social rule and norm He made effort to express his wish by unnormal way He looked forward to be himself and had to manifest him in the hypocritical and insincere world
Generally speaking the action of rebellion had agitative feature It was no doubt that this kind of behavior had unique and particular meaning
Therefore when recognizing the real society was impacted by decadent things Holden revolted at once While his defiance was too negligible hard and slow to be caught in mire The more he rebelled the deeper he would be caught until to be swallowed
32 Evading in the Revolt
There was such a description in the novel Holden wandered outside for three days and nights observing and found the adult world was filled with wickedness insincerity and evil He was sensitive but was not recognized by the society He did not wants to live lonely and hoped to get
understand from the noisy world therefore he tried to employ adult communication mode to talk with other people It was the fact that he was eager to be understood and loved Holden still kept an overwhelming dream like a lot of children as well as adult and need to pay attention
Holden usually appeared in a lot kinds of public places and used phone to invited peoples including taxi driver and strangers However the results are usual out of his expectation because he was refused or had no common words Here giving an example from the novel to demonstrate After leaving hometown Holden met Mrs Morrow He used lie to make her laugh but they were glad The other example was about a prostitute He called her but never felt any sexual desire In fact his three days experience was the effort he made to try to be understood and to acquire communication He often looked forward to talk with people because he was too lonely and desired and catched all opportunities to communicate With the more unpleasant communication the more he was dissatisfied He intended to revolt however the fact was that he had no choice but to accept the world but try to escape from it however he had to compromise once again He even kept the mind that he was a man who could not hear and speak because he could not communicate with others in a long time The world was repelling him and there was full of loneliness in his heart which alert him must be phony as others as well as doing phony things He made planed for his future life he imaged he would do a work in gas station where he does not need to think about the type of work or nobody know him where he does not need to hear and speak but just get information from the customer’s piece of paper（ Salinger1951198）
So it can be easily found that his decision and action had very closely relationship with the real life and world despite he could not found hope in the society he lived in Analyzing from this aspect it could be seen that he accept and understand about the real world and it was reasonless to escape from the society He finally went to a distant place in silent He had no other choice but to do like that
Holden＇s final purpose was not to keep away from people and live in a distant place The truth was that he experieced had fight between the idal and reality for the aim to find a suitable place But after encountering more and more failure he recognized that no matter what he did it would be no use There was no such an ideal place in real world Wang Lihong was a famous reviewer and he once said Holden just had two choice one was to accept the real society the other was to be insane In the real world he had no choice but to accept the reality Wang also gave an example to argue his point of view Holden went back to school in Sept and attempted to integrate i
nto the society again (Wang 2006180) As Wang＇s opinion he chose to compromise totally
33 Growing in the Revolt
In his novel JD had created two lovely roles who were Holden and Phoebe and they two were like angles They possessed good qualities like kindness honesty and courage They had sympathy with others and in particular had the character of rebellion They also get rid of the common norms of the society and finally developed their own thought His younger sister Phoebe was the only one who Holden could talk about his ideal with It was also Phoebe roused Holden’s heart by her loveliness and wisdom Holden had experienced three days and nights seeking for communication from which knew how to revolt against reality as well as recognized the important meaning of growth There was detail description in 25th chapter of his book Holden sat on a bench and after a while he watched his little sister riding wooden horse and playing with other children Meanwhile the children revolved again along with music And he thought that they all were making effort to get the gold ring including Phoebe he worried she may fall off but he still kept silence and did nothing （ Salinger1951211） At the beginning Holden took care of Phoebe as parents however he recognized that the best parents should allow kids to do something they want and try to take adventure Therefore Holden believed it was important for children to attempt to tough new things which may have some risk After realizing that he just watched Phoebe grabbing the golden horse by herself tightly and did not disturbed her Here the character’s conflict was manifested that is to say he reluctant to accept the adult life but he had to grow up and learned to be mature He was not a child any more and would be adult soon even though he thought the adult world were decadent If he want to grow up quickly he had to take adventure with enough courage Then he made effort to know the world and to accept it This was a very necessary course he had to learn He finally knew that if there was happiness there was also sorrow and the same as beauty and ugliness which he learned from Phoebe So he believed that if the children wanted to grab the gold ring adult should allow them to do and just keep silence they may fallen off but it was not good for adults to stop them
(Salinger1951211) Since then he had been more and more mature The merrygoround was like life as it revolved the life also continued Every body was revolved around the center axis There was a academic article about this novel and it made conclusion that Holden was not the only man who doubted and dissatisfied with real society but if the jockey could follow the rules and adjust himself then heher would be safe on the wooden horse in spite of everything outside (Kong 2001 72)
Time after time Holden finally recognized that he longed for peace and solitude
Chapter Four The Reasons of Contradictory characters
41 Social Environment
Holden met his brother’s exgirlfriend when he drank in Greenwich Village and talked with his brother about who was a talented writer His brother had published a good short story But later he began to write some vulgar plays for Hollywood because of money The exgirlfriend pleased Holden and wanted to make up his brother Holden felt disgusted and depressed about his brother who was full of wit submitted to the lure of money No ordinary people would like his brother’s exgirlfriend nor would artists like his brother who worked for money The whole society was full of materialism Even the art was filled with the worship of money Holden’s disgust and frustration showed his contempt of adult world which was mired in materialism
Holden met Sarne at the night of his traveling He sympathized with Sarne who gave in herself to vice due to the burden of life Sarne was confused angry with him beating him and even ransacking him She was the image of a social victim Though she had accepted the rules of the society where people were only interested in their own interests without caring about others as much as themselves Holden had sympathy for her He once again felt the indifference of society and the distortion of human nature Therefore every time Holden approached to people he could not build an effective communication with them Holden was banished from the world before he refused the world So he expressed himself in a distorted way He was cynical sarcastic liking lying speaking nonsense teasing and even insulting others He often felt that he was a terrible liar a madman and a fool After he gained insight of the distortion of the adult world and also his own spiritual distortions it seemed that escape was the only choice for Holden However reality let him know that you will never find a comfortable quiet place because there is no place like this
42 Educational Environment
The school where Holden studied had a high reputation in the educational field which should provide a good education and healthy growth for students On the contrary there were a lot of unhealthy social trends Everyone around Holden was a hypocrite Reading books and learning knowledge were only to get advanced in the society so that in the future they can buy a goddam Cadillac What students did was talking about women alcohol and sex Obviously such school was not an ideal place for Holden He looked down upon those hypocrites who were senior students and hated those classmates who followed them which made him unfit to the surroundings No one could really understand his rebellious character
Andolini is one of the most important figures whom Holden visited after he left school He used to be Holden’s teacher Holden considered him as the best teacher he had in his life and respected his brave and righteous deeds Therefore after Holden suffered a series of defeat he came to Antonelli’s apartment with confidence and imagined to get understanding and consolation But the teacher who once left him a good impression told his students the sign of an immature man is that he is willing to die bravely for his cause and his mark a mature man with difference that he prefers to live humbly for his cause It was clear that Holden was immature in his mind and he himself was mature From the perspective of the adult world the advice Antonelli gave to Holden might make sense But it couldn’t release Holden’s confusion He was lonely and painful because he didn’t want to live humbly like most people Even his most respected and trusted teacher educated him to be a person like that He was very confused very disappointed especially when he woke up from his sleep and found that his teacher might be a gay He then immediately found an excuse and escaped away from Antonelli’s house All his hopes vanished what the world gave him was only despair
Chapter Five Conclusion
In the novel the author showed us a subtle rebellious and quite selfconscious teenager who found his own identity from the external society however in which he found him was inconsistent with
the society in reverse
In the novel Holden stood for a revolt to real society and stood in the opposite position to combat mendacity and smuttiness He was tired of and even and dismayed about the decadence and fraud In the process of rebelling the already built life values in the adult society he recognized the real meaning and significance of life As a representative young man he loved and had a sensitive feeling for the modern world Meanwhile he was an adolescent concatenating these in childhood and adulthood Therefore he manifested naivety sincerity and honesty were needed In his heart Childhood was the most wonderful time in his life What’s more he desired enter a real Eden at that place all people could pursue naive and genuine life His willing is to become a catcher in the rye Without any doubt it was a particular noble work for him Generally speaking in this novel Holden was designed as rebellion to the society and dream pursuer at the same time
In a word through depicting Holden Caulfield’s feeling to the society the author vividly presented social problems at that time At the same time Holden is a typical adolescent of the time in America No matter in the past or at present his particular figure brings people to have a deep thought about their life and society
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[4]Peter Shaw New Essays on The Catcher in the Rye London Cambridge University Press 1999
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Acknowledgement
I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have helped me during writing this thesis
Firstly I acknowledge my supervisor Professor LIAO Li who has offered me great help and valuable suggestions for this paper I really have learned a lot from her instruction While preparing for this thesis Ms Liao offered me quite a lot of reading resources and advice to me which inspired me a great deal Every time I had questions on my paper she always patiently helped me solve my problems and gave me useful suggestions to get improved and do better I will never forget Ms Liao’s help
Secondly I would also like to thank my roommates they showed me great concern and offered me many resources for this paper They were so considerate that they help me not only with my thesis but also my life which made me completely focus on my paper
In addition I would like to thank my beloved parents who have always been helping me out of difficulties and support me without any complaints
Finally I am also grateful to other people who have ever helped me with this thesis
Without their help the completion of this thesis would be impossible Here I would like express my sincere gratitude to all of them
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