the catcher in the rye is an American novel about a teenager boy goes through adventure in America during the 1950s

1. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE
BY J.D.SALINGER
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LITERATURE
BBL: 5301
WEEK 3 (PART 2)

2. MAJOR THEMES , METAPHORS AND
ALLUSIONS
 Holden Caulfield has been in conflict with himself and
emotionally estranged from society since the death of
his youngest brother, Allie. His attempts to endure the
subsequent ravages of his pain and the effects of his
alienation from an adult world set him on a quest for
his own survival.
 He tells more of his story “about the madman stuff”
that happened to him :around Christmas”(3), a pattern
emerges and his desire for preservation rather than for
change becomes more evident.

3. MAJOR THEMES , METAPHORS AND
ALLUSIONS (CONT.)
 In New York, Holden looks for Phoebe in the
Museum of Natural History in order to give her the
phonograph record “Little Shirley Beans” (149)
 The museum has been a refuge for him, evoking
not only nostalgia but also fulfilling a dire need for
motionlessness.
 This interest has provided a respite against his
necessary move into what he regards as a phony
and corrupt world that contrasts with the innocence
and beauty of childhood.
 In fact, Holden’s name suggests his desire to hold
back or even to hold on, and his conduct reflects a
major theme in The Catcher in The Rye: the
preservation of innocence.

4. MAJOR THEMES , METAPHORS AND
ALLUSIONS (CONT.)
 That Holden finds too little innocence in the world and fears
further loss of it is evident. Yet, he frequently reveals much
more about himself than he realizes or intends. His response
to the news that Stradlater has a date with Jane Gallagher, a
young woman Holden respects and idolizes, is particularly
telling. Holden’s own experience with Jane, however, has not
been sexual, and his recollections of his moments with her
are innocent.
 Jane is perhaps more of an ideal for Holden than she is a
person- a metaphor for the innocence he reveres and seeks
to preserve. Although he speaks often of his intentions to get
in touch with her, he would prefer to keep her in his mind-
over whish he maintains control and where he can stop time,
as death has stopped it for Allie- preserving his ideal Jane
forever along with her innocence and goodness.

5. MAJOR THEMES , METAPHORS AND
ALLUSIONS (CONT.)
 Although Holden’s desire to protect innocence from the
corruption of the world attests to his goodness, or even
saintliness, his desire nevertheless becomes an
obsession that leads not only to painful alienation but
also to neurosis. The task he has for himself is an
impossible one, driving him to renunciation, thoughts of
self-destruction and ultimately, a dark abyss of symbolic
death. In innocence lies the much needed cure for the
sickness from which Holden suffers, and in innocence
he finds honesty, authenticity and, above all, the
regenerative power of love, another of the major
themes of The Catcher in The Rye.

6. MAJOR THEMES , METAPHORS AND
ALLUSIONS (CONT.)
 When Holden’s increasing despair and feelings of
alienation move him ever closer to destruction, he
always reaches to innocence, to childhood, and, in the
later stages of the novel, to Phoebe, the embodiment
of childhood innocence.
 Although the mere thought of Phoebe had been
sufficient to revitalize Holden in Central Park, the
reality of seeing her in their parent’s apartment is a
much stronger medicine. Watching her sleep, he
illustrates even more convincingly the theme of the
regenerative power of love when he exclaims, “I felt
swell, for a change. I didn’t even feel like I was getting
pneumonia or anything any more. I felt good for a
change” (207)

7. MAJOR THEMES , METAPHORS AND
ALLUSIONS (CONT.)
 The most memorable passage in this scene, the one
that provides the title of the novel, also demonstrates
that Holden is still a victim to suffering that inhibits his
own ability to love.
 As Phoebe points out, though Allie can be loved, he is
dead. She says to Holden, “You don’t like anything
that’s happening”(220). He is unable to satisfy the
“happening” criterion. He wants to deny what is
“happening,” deny change, and arrest time in order to
preserve innocence.
 Neither can Holden tell Phoebe what he wants to be.
The profession of law might be all right, if one “saves
innocent guys’ live all the time” (223), but that is not
what lawyers do.

8. MAJOR THEMES , METAPHORS AND
ALLUSIONS (CONT.)
 A “catcher in the rye” saves people when he prevents
little children from falling over a cliff, and that is what
Holden wants to be, although he knows “it’s crazy”
(225)
 To experience the effects of the regenerative power of
love, Holden must fully acknowledge his sickness, that
he is ‘one of the falling and unable to catch’ himself.
 The ‘fall’ is, of course, a major image in The Catcher in
The Rye, and from the beginning of the novel Holden
tends toward falling.
 Many readers agree that Holden’s fall is necessary
before any process of healing can take place.

9. THEMES FROM THE CATCHER IN THE RYE
 The opening scene of the novel shows Holden
estranged from a society to which he is expected to
adapt and adjust
 He is being expelled from [Pencey Prep, and the first
physical place in which he describe himself is high
upon Thomsen Hill, where he stands alone while
“practically the whole school” (5), except him, is at the
football game.
 Like so many other literary characters estranged from
society, from Hamlet to Huck Finn, Holden is unable
to communicate with those from whom he is
distanced.
ALIENATION

10. ALIENATION
 Holden is also consistently frustrated by his inability to
make himself understood. Attempting to tell his history
teacher about his failure at Pencey, he acknowledges that
he cannot communicate with him, “He wasn’t listening. He
hardly ever listened to you when you said something”(15)
 Holden’s inability to communicate with the adult world
adds distance to his separation and emphasizes his ever-
growing conviction that he does not want to join it.
Loneliness is always a component of alienation, and
Holden is lonely.
 At this most depressed moment, Holden resigns himself to
isolation forever and prepared to run away to remote
woods, where he will cease all attempts at
communication, pretending to be a deaf-mute. Phoebe, of
course, is the cause for his reconsideration and eventual
salvation.

11.  In reaction to “phoniness,” Holden searches for authenticity.
Charles Kaplan identifies some of the forms of this
phoniness as “hypocrisy, ignorance, indifference,[and]
moral corruption.”. Holden objects to unauthenticity
primarily because it is a pretense that signals insensitivity,
lack of caring, and, most important, absence of love.
THE SEARCH FOR
AUTHENTICITY

12.  Holden’s rejection of phoniness and his search for
authenticity are inextricably bound up with his
search for love, and the obstacles that confront and
impede him in this search aggravate his
neurosis.ion, the nation has glorified
 Holden does not merely want people to be kinder to
others, important as that may be. He wants their
motives to be pure as well. As he tells Sally Hayes
during his passionate “fed up” (169) conversation
are motivated to study, the nation has glorified the
automobile; his fellow students are motivated to
study not because they love learning but because
academic achievement is necessary in order to own
a Cadillac.
THE SEARCH FOR LOVE

13.  Holden opposes material values because they draw on
what little store of love there is in the world and “expend it
on ‘things’ instead of people.”
 Salinger emphasizes this point most forcefully in the
character if an actual prostitute in the novel, Sunny, whose
love is entirely phony. The sex that she sells has no link to
love. She is a pretender, with a tiny, child-like voice that
still bears traces of the innocence she has abandoned.
 Holden sees even the love of God lost. The
commercialism of the Christmas season, the time in which
the novel is set, shows no connection with the essence of
the season.
 “You could tell,”Holden says, “they could hardly wait to get
a cigarette or something”(178)
THE SEARCH FOR LOVE

14.  Although Zen has been acknowledged as an influence in
Salinger’s later work, it is present also in The Catcher in
The Rye, adding another dimension to Holden’s quest for
love. In particular, Zen informs the final scene of the novel.
 “As Holden sits in the rain watching his sister in the
carousel, he transcends all previous happiness and
attains a state of ecstasy and enlightment.
ENLIGHTMENT

15.  Donald Barr calls such moments in Salinger’s fiction the
“mystical” glimpsing of God behind the identities of this
world.” Holden has come to the conclusion of his search
for love and likewise to the conclusion of his efforts to
affect the world by his actions.
 Holden has finally attained a state of enlightment like
that mentioned in a Zen poem showing how the “split”
mind, like Holden’s cures itself by letting go, accepting
the world’s natural way, and acknowledging that “sitting
quietly, doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows
by itself”
ENLIGHTMENT