Robert Louis Stevenson stated “The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.” The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger Shows this concept to an outrageous point in that itself the main character is continuously contradicting himself. Furthermore in the darkest depths of my soul I wish to believe that people are truly good and in order to believe such a thing I would have to assume the Salinger was not a deranged psychopath trying to usher in a time of Anarchy and destruction. So if that would be the Case then I must assume that his rambling on and on was just coincidently inspiration and cause for the generation of a great deal of deranged fans. Fans such as Mark Chapman the assassin who killed John Lennon and John Hinckley Ronald Reagan’s would be assassin. However if for some reason I am wrong and the Recluse J.D. Salinger was actually meant for his book The Catcher in the Rye, previously banned in America to have such an impact on people as it did then he could possibly have been one of the great authors.
The novel seems to tell of us a human whose spirit is weak and of a person who is confused; a person who just merely survives but is nothing more. The novel tells of a looser who is thrown out of school because the only thing he is capable of passing in is English. The protagonist Holden Caulfield is a student who is just completely lost; He is struggling with everything, school, friends, love, sex and life. He is always calling people phonies “insincere, pretentious, or deceitful people” and he might be correct but the problem is the world doesn’t except people straight out for who they are because its hard to be sincere to one’s self and stay alive. I myself if I were sincere I would be eating Ramen noodles, sleeping and playing video games all day long; which of course is unrealistic like all those who think that they don’t have to work in school they can just get by and play sports for a living. Well simply put Holden’s spirit may be strong enough to say I will not be constrained by society but in all truth he is weak because the true test is to say I am going to make the best out of what I was given. Life has given you lemons make lemonade, if you decide Life as given you lemons and you prefer scotch you will just breakdown and end up in a rest home for therapy narrating a dreary story of how you tried turning lemons into scotch and you got urine instead.
The Catcher in the Rye is narrated in the first person based around a character named Holden Caulfield. Holden is relatively simple but as narrator tries to make himself seem better than he actually is. Holden is a young boy who is mentally unstable, he is constantly fighting everything and is incapable of realizing how hypocritical he is. Calling people phonies, calling movie stars phonies, saying he hates the movies, but goes all the time. He describes others as he sees them due to how he interacted with them. Almost all the characters in the book are narrated with an after view, a view looking back on the situation. Though he may say he is a friend with Stradlater he makes Stradlater out to be a pompous “experiences” Jerk / Jock. Then we learn that Stradlater goes on a date with Jane Gallagher a girl that Holden likes or rather believes he loves, but argues with himself that he doesn’t. Holden’s multi-dimensional personality characterization may be so complex and complete that he actually could be considered having a split personality.
The book is just that a book, a novel laced entirely with metaphors, similes and Symbolism. Some were probably intended to be in there and others were just accidental or there because someone saw them. It is virtually plausible to take any sentence or at the very least paragraph and interpret it to mean something entirely different from what the author wished it to say, which is “the difficulty of literature.” Some symbolism can be found in the encounter we hear of between Carl Luce and Holden Caulfield. Carl Luce was a student in a school that Holden use to go to. Carl Luce was described by Holden as a boy who was three years older than himself and experienced sexually. Carl use to talk to the boys about his experiences and was a database of sexual knowledge. Their encounter summarized is Holden bugging the hell out of Carl to tell him about his recent sexual encounters, and Carl’s girlfriend’s sexual appeal. This is probably a great Symbol for the book because it emphasizes the immaturity in Holden. Not only is he immature when it comes to conversation and what is or isn’t appropriate, but he is also immature sexually at least at the level of knowledge and experience. The third level of immaturity is the general immaturity of mind associated with the actions seen at the bar, which is a leading component if not the premise of the novel. So essentially it just draws you right back in to the main idea incase you have gone off topic.
The dialogue in catcher in the rye doesn’t tell you much about the characters other than Holden. Mainly because there isn’t much for dialogue its more or less Holden rambling on and on telling you what others may or may not have said and or thought.
However because Holden talks for everyone not just himself he manages to allow the reader to know a lot more about him than just what is told straight out. Its from his “dialogues” and monologues that we find out what he thinks; well essentially he narrates as he thinks, which enables you to see him contradicting himself both in what he narrates and what he does. The dialogue is used to show us his immaturity, his believed maturity, his stupidity and all the conflicts he has. The dialogue not description is the main source for determining his inability to cope with reality and deal with it in a proper fashion.
The Catcher in the Rye has a huge amount of conflicts. Usually conflicts are resolved nicely but unfortunately, in The Catcher in the Rye most are resolved in a negative way or aren’t resolved. The Catcher in the Rye’s main conflict is person versus self. This is seen all the time whenever Holden mentions phonies and the does something that he just stated was what made someone a phony. Holden has a conflict where he is incapable of being what he wants to be; this is most likely because he uses a definition for phony so loose that he can apply it to anyone. What he has failed to realize is that many people aren’t as phony as they seem. They live a live in which they are sincere to themselves, even if they seem dishonest to others. Holden does not, Holden lives a life where he criticizes others for being phony but fails to realize, comprehend or at least cope with the realization that he is hypocritical and a phony. The interesting part about this is unlike most works of literature where the conflict is resolved the closest this conflict comes to being resolved is his institutionalization in a home where he may receive therapy. The novel also deals heavily in smaller person versus person in which the outcome becomes one of two things. The first being in the case of Stradlater and Maurice, Holden cant shut up and gets beaten up, followed by the disappearance of the other character, usually do to blatantly avoiding them. The second person versus person occurs with Mr. Antolini, Mr. Spencer, Ackley, and his parents. This one ends simply with him avoiding them as soon as a conflict begins to brew. Mr. Antolini patting Holden as he sleeps ends with Holden out on the street in the middle of the night. Mr. Spencer trying to tell Holden what the right thing to do would be and to work hard ends with Holden walking out in a hidden rage. Ackley just is the opposite of what Holden believes he stands for and when he argues with Holden over sleeping in Ackley’s room Holden decides to leave for the city. Finally we never really meet Holden’s parents because he is constantly avoiding them. All these conflicts with negative resolutions cause The Catcher in the Rye to be the dreary work it is and is probably the cause for it’s following of deranged anarchists.
The Theme for The Catcher in the Rye would have to be the inner struggle with oneself and the belief structure they have created conflicting with reality. The problem is the theme’s message may not be clear to some and may be entirely different all together. The theme of conflict could have been many people deal with the same inner conflicts, and just to persevere. The theme could also have been that failure to stay strong to one‘s self and know how to do so in life will end you in a home for therapy. The problem with deciding the meaning of the theme is that most works are kind enough to blatantly spell it out but The Catcher in the Rye starts where the ending would be and makes the progress of events in the theme difficult cause the series of messages may be out of order with the final piece of the message first.
The book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is supposed to be a great book because it’s supposed “still resonates with the teen experience. Its relevancy is tres solid today.” Now this may hold true for many people. I myself don’t believe that “Its relevancy is tres solid” to the point it can stand against time. One day it will probably fall prey to the internet, which it probably has already begun to deteriorate to. Television and the Internet have begun to wear away the mystery and confusion that leads to wild adventures. One may view all sorts of much wilder things online than could be imagined. So life is taught to extremities now and in the future but this generation still holds on to some of the necessary components of ignorant and naive individuals in order for The Catcher in the Rye to appeal to young people and for young people to sympathize and empathize with Holden’s experiences.
However for the time it was published it reflected life closely, and for half a century after it still held value in the reflection of a young teen’s struggle trying to understand the world. It may grow to be a timeless classic one day like Moby Dick, but like Moby Dick Sympathizing wears away and literature often becomes no more than a form of entertainment. With the exception of the simple classics of horror stories and romance which maybe rewritten for new generations, but the time based exploration of life changes because life changes and position of people in the world changes.
