Salinger's The catcher in the rye (Reader's Guides)

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Author: Sarah Graham

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SALINGER'S THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

CONTINUUM READER'S GUIDES

Achebe's Things Fall Apart - Ode Ogede William Blake s Poetry - Jonathan Roberts Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales - Gail Ashton Conrad's Heart of Darkness - Allan Simmons Dickens's Great Expectations - Ian Brinton Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby - Nicolas Tredell Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman - William Stephenson


SARAH GRAHAM

continuum

Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 11 York Road London SE1 7NX

80 Maiden Lane Suite 704 New York NY 10038

www.continuumbooks.com © Sarah Graham 2007 First published 2007 Reprinted 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Sarah Graham has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

EISBN 9780826491329 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Graham, Sarah. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye / Sarah Graham. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-9131-2 ISBN-10: 0-8264-9131-6 ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-9132-9 (pbk.) ISBN-10: 0-8264-9132-4 (pbk.) 1. Salinger, J. D. (Jerome David), 1919- Catcher in the Rye. I. Title. PS3537.A426C3273 2007 813\54—dc22

2007008254

Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

vii

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

1 19 31 79 93

Contexts Language, Style and Form Reading The Catcher in the Rye Critical Reception and Publishing History Adaptation, Interpretation and Influence

Further Reading Index

109 111

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the people who have contributed to the completion of this book in various ways. The opportunity to discuss The Catcher in the Rye with students over several years has been very useful. I have appreciated the friendly, encouraging atmosphere created by colleagues in the Department of English and in the Centre for American Studies at the University of Leicester. In particular, I would like to acknowledge with many thanks the significant support offered by Dr Emma Parker, whose feedback on this project has been invaluable. As always, I could not do without the love and encouragement I receive from my family and friends. This book is dedicated to P. P., with all my love.

vii

CHAPTER 1

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When J. D. Salinger published The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, he could not have foreseen that it would become one of the best known and most popular novels to emerge from post-war America, and make him internationally famous. Although he published his last new fiction in 1965, public interest in Salinger has continued, in spite (and because) of his decision to withdraw from his career as a publishing author. Salinger's absence from the public eye has not stopped Catcher from finding new readers every year: it has sold millions of copies, been translated into many languages, and consistently appears near the top of polls of favourite novels, alongside other key texts of American literature like F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925) and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). However, Salinger's novel has attracted controversy as well as acclaim: although popular, it has been removed from many high school reading lists for fear that its expletives, sexual content and the 'anti-social' behaviour of its protagonist may corrupt young readers. Set in 1949, Catcher tells the story of the two days just before Christmas that 16-year-old Holden Caulfield spends in New York after he has been expelled from his boarding school, Pencey Prep. As he wanders around the city he reflects on his past, his family and friends, drinks, smokes and thinks about sex, a subject that frightens and fascinates him. He is angry, melancholy and alienated, and shares his feelings with the reader in a unique voice. Although it is perhaps not difficult to see why parents


might be doubtful about Holden's suitability as a role model, it is important to acknowledge that he is sensitive and kind as well as rebellious, with a keen sense of right and wrong. In many ways Holden is a product of his time and place - although he is sometimes read as the archetypal adolescent, a universally recognizable teenager - and he faces the uncertainties of being young in post-war America with insight and anxiety. This chapter places the novel in context by offering a brief biography of the author, including information about his other work, and exploring the society of the time. SALINGER'S LIFE AND CAREER

Jerome David Salinger, nicknamed 'Sonny' by his family, was born in New York on 1 January 1919. His father, Solomon, made a good living importing luxury foods from Europe and had moved his wife Miriam and daughter Doris to New York from Chicago before his son was born. Sol's growing business success in the 1930s, despite the constraints of the nation's economic slump, enabled Salinger to move from state to private school when he was 13. Although he enjoyed writing and drama, he had little academic success at his new school, McBurney, and was asked not to return at the end of his second year there. Concerned that his son was more interested in acting than business, Sol sent him to Valley Forge Military Academy near Philadelphia, a school that prioritized discipline and physical activities. Perhaps surprisingly, Salinger performed well in this environment: Valley Forge may share some aspects with Pencey Prep (not least the cannon on the hill that symbolizes the school's traditional values), but Salinger seems to have been a happier, less wayward student than Holden Caulfield. This is not to deny that Catcher is, in some respects, autobiographical: during the several years that he took to complete the novel, Salinger referred to Holden more than once as a version of his younger self (Hamilton 1998: 66). After Valley Forge, Salinger drifted. He knew he wanted to be a writer, but Sol wanted him to join the import business. To appease his father, Salinger went to Europe to gain business

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experience, a trip he summed up in a biographical note written to accompany one of his earliest publications: He visited [. . .] Vienna when he was eighteen, winning high honors in beer hoisting. In Poland he worked in a ham factory and slaughterhouse and on returning to America [. . .] he attended Columbia, and studied with Whit Burnett's shortstory group. (Alexander 1999: 72-3) Salinger's writing teacher became his first publisher when his story The Young Folks' appeared in Whit Burnett's journal, Story, in 1940. From then on, Salinger was 'intent on placing his work in magazines' (Fosburgh 1974: n.p.), and his work was published regularly in prestigious American titles such as the Saturday Evening Post. However, the magazine every American short-story writer of the time wanted to appear in was The New Yorker, which had a reputation for publishing the bestfictionby the most famous names in literature. Salinger had a story accepted by The New Yorker when he was only 22, a significant achievement. Disappointingly, this success was marred by events beyond Salinger's control. The New Yorker had agreed to publish a story titled 'Slight Rebellion off Madison', which featured a new character named Holden Caulfield. Home from school for Christmas, Holden goes on a date with his girlfriend Sally. The story suggests that Holden is a conventional upper middle-class Manhattan adolescent, until his 'slight rebellion': he urges Sally to run away with him and live in a cabin in the countryside, but she refuses because 'You can't just do something like that' (Salinger 1946: n.p.). Many of the events in the story appear in Catcher, but one significant difference between the two is that the story has an omniscient (an all-knowing third-person) narrator, while the novel uses the instantly recognizable voice of Holden in the first person. The New Yorker planned to run 'Slight Rebellion' in December 1941, but on the 7th of that month, Japanese forces attacked the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the United States abruptly entered the Second World War. Perhaps The New Yorker felt that Salinger's


story was too light for such a sombre time; whatever the reason, they postponed publication. By the time the story finally appeared (in December 1946), references to Holden Caulfield had been made in stories Salinger had published in other magazines, not least 'I'm Crazy' (1945), which, narrated by Holden himself, describes his last day at 'Pentey' Prep, from which he has been expelled. The story is dominated by Holden's description of his elderly teacher Mr Spencer, whose advanced age obviously disgusts him. Holden then goes home to his little sisters, Phoebe and Viola, and prepares to face his parents' disappointment. Like 'Slight Rebellion off Madison', much of 'I'm Crazy' survives more or less intact in Catcher, including many incidents that the novel expands upon. Both stories are funny and touching, like all of Salinger's best work, but the latter has the advantage of featuring Holden's narrative voice, which many consider to be Salinger's greatest achievement as a writer. Participation in the war brought huge changes to American society, and transformed Salinger's life when he was drafted in spring 1942. After training in various locations in the USA he became a member of the Counter Intelligence Corps and was transferred to England in early 1944 to prepare for D-Day, the invasion of occupied Europe by American, British and Canadian forces. Salinger's active service was dangerous and exhausting; many of his comrades were killed or badly injured in the long battles of 1944 and 1945 in Western Europe that contributed to the German surrender. Salinger's work continued to appear in American magazines and his stories of this time were, unsurprisingly, concerned with war and soldiers' experiences, expressing admiration for the men involved, if not for the conflict itself. During this period, Salinger began to establish a cast of characters that he developed across hisfictionand through which he could, apparently, represent himself: some of his wartime publications feature a soldier named John 'Babe' Gladwaller, who has the same Army serial number and rank as J. D. Salinger. Babe, like Salinger, has a miserable time on battlefields in France; his friend Vincent Caulfield and Vincent's brother Holden are also enlisted. Babe survives the war, but Vincent is killed at Hurtgen

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Forest in Germany (where Salinger saw action) and Holden goes missing in the Pacific. Salinger's characters in this era do not have consistent biographies: in Catcher, Holden's brother is called D. B., not Vincent (although both characters are writers) and Holden himself is too young to have fought in the war. After Catcher, Salinger dropped his Caulfield and Gladwaller characters and focused his writing on the extensive Glass family, constructing a dynasty whose biography tallies across several stories. In these later works, Salinger appears to depict himself in both Buddy Glass, a writer, and in his brother Seymour, a soldier so traumatized by his wartime experiences that he commits suicide. Although a collection of Salinger's post-war short stories was published in 1953 (as Nine Stories in the USA and as For Esme With Love and Squalor in Britain), he has never permitted his wartime or pre-war stories to be reprinted; in fact, he took legal action against an unauthorized anthology {The Complete Uncollected Short Stories) that appeared in the USA in 1974. Salinger rarely agrees to interviews, but following this incident he contacted a New York Times reporter to explain that he wanted his early stories to 'die a perfectly natural death', claiming that they 'were not worthy of publishing' (Fosburgh 1974: n.p.). Despite Salinger's explanation, many readers would much prefer to keep all of his work alive, evidenced by the fact that the publisher sold 25,000 copies of the illegal anthology in two months. By 1965 Salinger had published one novel {The Catcher in the Rye), five long stories ('Franny', 'Zooey', 'Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters', 'Seymour: An Introduction' and 'Hapworth 16, 1924') and 30 short stories, of which only eight have been collected (one of the Nine Stories was new for the collection). References have been found to several other stories which have either been lost or absorbed into published work. This publication history means that much of Salinger's reputation rests on his novel about Holden Caulfield (1951) and the longer stories concerned with the Glass family (1955-65). His work prior to the publication of A Perfect Day for Bananafish' (1948) in The New Yorker is increasingly difficult to locate. While the period between hisfirstpublished story and 'Bananafish' is only a matter of eight years, it creates a significant gap in readers' knowledge of


Salinger's work. More significant still is the silence that began in 1965 after the appearance of 'Hapworth 16, 1924' in the New Yorker, the story that is, to date, Salinger's final publication. Despite great success with his short stories, Salinger struggled with Catcher for several years and began to doubt that he would ever finish it. He claimed to be 'a dash man not a miler', meaning that he was more comfortable with the short story (the 'dash') than the novel form (the 'mile'), and maintained that 'it is probable that I will never write a novel' (Hamilton 1998: 94). After ten years, however, The Catcher in the Rye was finally ready for publication in July 1951 and it stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for the rest of the year. It was a success almost in spite of Salinger's efforts: he was reluctant to undertake publicity for the novel, disliked the bright red cover (an image of a carrousel horse) and accompanying author photograph, and tended to fall out with his publishers, apparently distrusting their motives. Although some later paperback editions would have even more gaudy covers, Salinger eventually managed to have all of his work produced in plain jackets without any notes, reviews, or author photograph. Nothing about the presentation of the work advertises, describes (or distracts the reader from) the text within. Despite Salinger's apparent lack of enthusiasm, the novel was reviewed widely in the USA, principally because of his status as a New Yorker writer, and received much praise. Unusually for a first novel, Catcher was the 'Book-of-the-Month' Club's choice for summer 1951, guaranteeing substantial sales. Salinger's response to Catcher's positive reception was ambivalent: he commented in 1952 that he 'enjoyed a small part of it, but most of it I found hectic and professionally and personally demoralizing' (Hamilton 1998:121), though it is not clear why he reacted this way. The novel sold well and, once it appeared in paperback in 1953, made Salinger famous, especially among young adult readers. Catcher and the later Glass family fiction express challenging ideas about life in modern America that struck a chord with post-war youth hungry for new perspectives. Before long, Catcher was appearing on university reading lists, and by the late 1950s the first serious critical essays on the novel were appearing in literary journals. In the more than 50 years since its publication,

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millions of copies of the novel have been sold worldwide and the flow of detailed analysis has been more or less constant. Although Salinger continued to publish fiction for 14 years after Catcher, the frequency decreased dramatically, and his final story appeared after a six-year silence. He retreated from the public eye, refused to give interviews and moved out of New York to Cornish, New Hampshire, where he bought a remote farmhouse in which he has lived ever since. He married Claire Douglas in 1955 and had two children with her (Margaret and Matthew) but they divorced after 12 years; Margaret has written a memoir of her life, Dream Catcher (2000), which offers some insight into her father's personality, not least the traumatic impact of his war experiences. In 1972 Salinger had a relationship with a young writer, Joyce Maynard, who describes her life with him in her memoir, At Home in the World'(1998). Aside from these texts, very little is known about Salinger and rumours about him - from the plausible (he continues to write but chooses not to publish) to the bizarre (he and the equally reclusive author Thomas Pynchon are the same person) - haveflowedfreely since he ceased to make public statements about his life and work. POST-WAR AMERICA: SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Although Catcher is understood to be a novel that captures the unease of American society in the 1950s and articulates the emerging phenomenon of adolescent identity, the novel is in many ways a product of the 1940s. It is set in 1949 and draws on 'Slight Rebellion off Madison', which Salinger had completed before he joined the Army in 1942. The Second World War so dominates the decade that the post-war 1940s tend to be forgotten, but those years saw the beginning of social changes in the US that would shape the 1950s and 1960s. America's participation in the war pulled the country out of the 'Great Depression' (the economic crisis that had a profound effect on society in the 1930s) and by 1945 the US was prosperous. Deploying the atomic bomb at the end of the war not only presented 'a dramatic image of American power to the world' (Henriksen 1997:15), forcing Japan to surrender, it also took the


world into a new age. The horror of conventional warfare (which had taken 35 million lives in the Second World War alone) had now been superseded by the threat of atomic war. Holden assumes that such a disaster is inevitable and expresses both his anti-war feelings and his preoccupation with death and suicide when he comments, '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' (Salinger 1994a: 127). By the time that Catcher was published in 1951, the United States was enmeshed in the Cold War. Although the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had been an ally to the US against Nazi Germany, post-war America was anxious about Communist ideologies that were taking hold in Eastern Europe and China and the possibility that the Soviets would develop atomic weapons, which they achieved in 1949, ending America's nuclear monopoly. Despite the ever-present threat of a Third World War, the Cold War against the Soviet Union concretized rapidly. This was an ideological, rather than a physical, conflict based on American hostility to Communism, the antithesis of its capitalist principles. Holden's anti-war beliefs and hatred of phonies can be related to the ethos of post-war America, which was pre-occupied with matters of secrecy and security. Government policies focused on identifying anyone who might betray the nation. The 'House UnAmerican Activities Committee' (HUAC) had been established in 1937 to identify 'subversives', principally Communists, within Federal government, union-organized workforces and, most famously, Hollywood, on the basis that anti-American propaganda might infiltratefilms.Those brought to trial by the HUAC were asked to testify about their allegiance to Communism and name other sympathizers: such accusations, even if untrue, ruined many people's careers. From 1950, the HUAC's work was supported by the rise to prominence of Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose obsession with identifying subversives without much regard for facts has made 'McCarthyism' a synonym for persecution and government-sponsored repression. McCarthy's so-called 'witch trials' were satirized in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible (1953), which drew an analogy between

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the self-serving deceptions of Puritanism and the betrayals provoked by the HUAC's interrogations, but the danger of being associated with Communism was well-established. For example, while the campaign for the racial desegregation of schools was given legal power by the 'Brown v. Board of Education' decision (1954), progress towards equality for African Americans was often undermined by propaganda that associated a desire for civil rights with the 'evil' of Communism: thefilm/ was a Communist for the FBI (1951) 'shows the [Communist] Party taking credit for race riots' (Whitfield 1996: 21). However, the association of civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr with Christianity both reflected the high level of church-going among African Americans - mirroring the post-war rise in church-going among white Americans - and distanced the civil rights movement from damaging associations with secular Communism. A key aspect of Catcher's impact in the early 1950s is that it presents a rebel against the status quo as its hero, critiquing the equilibrium that government policy was struggling to maintain. The fears provoked by the Cold War produced a conservative ethos in American society in the 1940s and 1950s, supported by an economic boom that was especially beneficial to middle-class white Americans. More people than ever before were able to buy their own home and car, and many moved to the new suburbs which grew up as a result of the post-war surge in homebuilding. The ideal of the time was to re-establish the conventional family that had been disrupted by the war, with a father who went out to work and a mother who stayed at home and raised the children. These values constituted a significant change from the previous decades of the twentieth century: 'Now, there was little encouragement for women seeking professional careers and [. . .] quite deliberate discouraging of it' (Halberstam 1993: 589). Six million American women had entered the wartime workforce, but when peace came, men needed jobs and so women were encouraged - byfilmsand magazines as well as government and employers' policies - to return to domestic life; to consume, that is, rather than produce (Tallack 1991: 287). Although as many as eighty per cent of women reportedly tried to keep their jobs, by


1947, female employment had dropped to the 1940 level (Tallack 1991:287). The message to women in the post-war years was that work was unwomanly: 'true' women stay at home to raise children, manage the house and purchase goods. Women who worked were castigated, famously in Philip Wylie's Generation of Vipers (1942), for raising juvenile delinquents, while Farnham and Lundberg's social study, Modern Woman: The Lost Sex (1947), contended that women could only be fulfilled by motherhood. Feminism, wrote Farnham and Lunberg, is 'a deep illness' and education for women could only bring trouble: 'the more educated a woman is, the greater chance there is of sexual disorder' (Halberstam 1993: 590). In Catcher, Holden's girlfriend Sally, interpreting his desire to escape as simply an urge to travel, tells him 'we'll have oodles of time to do all those things - all those things. I mean after you go to college and all, and if we get married and all.' (Salinger 1994a: 119). Her comments suggest she is an archetypal feminine figure of her moment: for example, her use of a childish word ('oodles') makes her seem immature intellectually and emotionally; she assumes that Holden will go to college (and she will not) and that she will marry, even if she does not marry Holden. Sally is comfortable with her assumptions about her future and the novel portrays her as attractive but unimaginative, with the conventional ambitions of a woman of her class, time and place. She accepts that 'gender, not talent' (Halberstam 1993: 589) is the required qualification for a career, whereas Holden recognizes and rejects exactly this passive acceptance of social norms in women and men. Holden is not alone in his perception that limited gender roles are unsatisfactory, as key texts of the period by Betty Friedan and Sylvia Plath confirm. While many women were content with the era's emphasis on domestic life, others felt dissatisfied with a social model that repressed any ambitions they may have had for education and a career. Betty Friedan's famous study of middle-class American women in the 1950s, The Feminine Mystique (1963), revealed that many women who believed that they ought to be happy with a life focused on marriage, children and home actually felt 'a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning [. . .] 10

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the problem that has no name' (Friedan 1965: 13-17). Although the rise of Second-Wave Feminism (the movement that brought issues of sexual inequality to public attention) is principally associated with the revolutionary era of the 1960s and 1970s, it is fair to attribute its earliest stirrings to those women who identified and challenged the inflexible gender roles of the post-war period. Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar (1963) similarly communicated the debilitating inequalities of the era as Esther Greenwood, Plath's clever, witty protagonist, struggles to form relationships and forge a career as a writer in a society hostile to such ambitions. The pressures of conformity were felt by men as well as women, although what was expected of men may have allowed a little more freedom than women were usually permitted: they should marry, father and provide for children (although not actively participate in their care) and pursue a career, ideally in a large company offering a 'job for life' and prospects for promotion. To reject a steady career was as unthinkable for a man in the post-war years as choosing not to marry was for a woman and, indeed, marriage was also crucial to a man's career progress, as it implied a reliable character who fitted the norm in terms of values, ambitions and sexual identity. In his conversation with Sally about escape, H olden displays his reluctance to conform to a future in which: I'd be working in some office, making a lot of dough, and riding to work in cabs and Madison Avenue buses, and reading newspapers, and playing bridge all the time, and going to the movies and seeing a lot of stupid shorts and coming attractions and newsreels. (Salinger 1994a: 119-20) Here Holden disparages a model of masculine prosperity considered ideal by many; despite the implications of Salinger's earlier story, it is more than a 'slight' rebellion for a man of his class and time to reject such privileges. Conformity of the kind that Holden denigrates was variously encouraged and critiqued by popular social studies of the period, books published by academics for ordinary readers that offered guidance on - or condemned - modern lifestyles. While Dale 11


Carnegie's enduring How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) advised men on how to make a success of their lives, studies like David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd (1950) and William A. Whyte's The Organization Man (1956) suggested that conventional modern life might be having a negative impact on men, encouraging unthinking submission to the norm and sapping the kind of individuality that American society might require in order to progress. Riesman complained that 'Both rich and poor avoid any goals, personal or social, that seem out of step with peer-group aspirations' (Riesman 2001: 305), a loss of freedom that is socially as well as personally damaging. Similarly, Whyte contended that those who 'belong' to (rather than simply work for) an organization, even though they may use negative terms like the 'rat race' and bemoan their lack of freedom, are encouraged to believe that the 'ultimate need of the individual' is 'belongingness' (Whyte 1956:7), a concept entirely antithetical to individualism. Holden wants to belong in the sense that he wants to feel connected to those he loves, but he rejects conformity, a rebellion symbolized by his red cap, which would normally only be worn on a hunting trip. Holden's narrative shows that he is preoccupied by sexual issues as well as gender: he finds sex mysterious and frets about his lack of experience. The lack of clear information about the sexual practices of ordinary Americans was highlighted by the furore provoked by Alfred Kinsey's studies, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female (1953). Based on interviews with hundreds of ordinary men and women, Kinsey's work suggested that the monogamous, heterosexual model promoted as the ideal and norm did not correlate with many people's experiences. Kinsey's statistics suggested that, for example, 37 per cent of the total male population had 'at least some overt homosexual experience' between adolescence and old age (Kinsey 1948: 650) and that 67 per cent had some experience with prostitutes (Kinsey 1948: 597). Public hunger for information about such previously unspeakable topics is reflected in high sales of the books: in the case of both the Male and Female studies, more than 185,000 copies were in print ten days after publication. While outraged critics complained that 12

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Kinsey'sfindingssuggested that American morality was akin to the 'worst decadence of the Roman Empire' (Halberstam 1993: 280), many readers found great reassurance in these non-judgemental studies, which contributed to a new (and eventually more liberated) view of American sexual identity. Popular culture, especially television, encouraged conformity during this period. When television arrived in the US, it rapidly became a national pastime: in 1950, there were 7 million televisions in the US; by 1960 90 per cent of American homes had a set (Gidley 1993: 225, 232). Programme content tended to be conservative, affirming rather than challenging the key values of the era: long-running situation comedies like Father Knows Best (1954-62) and Leave it to Beaver (1957-63) promoted the supposedly ideal lifestyle of the newly prosperous suburban viewer, with minor crises causing amusing (but temporary) disarray in stable families that fitted the socially-approved model. Catcher, however, is set just before television took over the nation, when the dominant form of mass entertainment was cinema. Holden claims that the 'movies' 'can ruin you. I'm not kidding' (Salinger 1994a: 94), because he views their representation of experience as 'phony' to a dangerous degree, but he obviously watches many films, referring in Catcher to musicals, romances and thrillers. During the 1950s, cinema represented the rise of the teenager, both infilmsabout adolescents and infilmsthat targeted the new teenage audience. Adolescence had been recognized as a specific social category in the US since at least the 1900s, but the 1950s saw the phenomenon of the 'teen-ager' (as the word was originally spelled) forcefully established. High-school students were excluded from the armed forces during the war, and post-war prosperity allowed young people to have spending power. These two factors created a peer-group culture in which young people looked to each other (rather than parents or parent-figures) for advice about how to live. Clothes, records, cinema, eating out and magazines were all important aspects of teenage culture, which was rapidly commodified. While their parents bought and furnished houses, teenagers expressed their separateness from adults with their purchases. Thomas Hine contends that 'From the moment the word "teenager" was coined [. . .] it described 13


both an incipient social problem and an economic opportunity' (Hine 1999: 225): teenage consumers were desired and feared. Social studies suggested that teenagers could be a disruptive force that was difficult to control: 'juvenile delinquents' who did not attend school, committed crime, had sex outside of marriage, drank under-age and were generally adrift from home and family values were perceived by some commentators to be a menace in post-war America that rivalled Communism. Severalfilmsof the era explored the teenage experience and its impact: in The Wild One (1953), Marlon Brando's character Johnny Strabler, a motorcycle gang leader, famously responds to the question, 'What are you rebelling against?', with a casual, 'What have you got?'. Suggesting an incomprehensible urge among adolescents to damage decent, harmless people, the film seemed a shocking verification of existing fears about the young. James Dean's portrayal of disturbed good boy Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) suggested, by contrast, that adolescents need traditional parental role-models to keep them out of trouble; this conservative ideology does, at least, shift blame away from the teenagers themselves. Indeed, as Peter Biskind notes, in Rebel it is the parents 'who are the delinquents' (Biskind 1983: 201). This is more radical than prevalent attitudes of the time which suggested that parents played no part in how their children (mis)behaved. Set in affluent suburbia, one of thefilm'skey assertions echoes Catcher's suggestion that the middle classes are, despite their privileges, as likely to produce socially disruptive and unhappy children as any other class. Catcher was not a typical best-seller in 1951: the most popular novels of that year were all concerned with war, not least James Jones's From Here to Eternity, which became a hugely successful film in 1953, Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny and Nicholas Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea. Although Jones's novel criticized the army 'for crushing the spirit of individuality' (Whitfield 1996:61), a position that echoed the anxieties of social commentators about the negative impact of corporate culture, others, such as Wouk's, negotiated issues of honour and discipline conventionally associated with military life. Unsurprisingly, many other novels of the war and post-war years praised the valour of servicemen, and in 14

CONTEXTS

this context, Holden's anti-war stance - 'if there's ever another war, they better just take me out and stick me in front of a firing squad' (Salinger 1994a: 127) - is a serious challenge to common values of the time. When the US became engaged in the conflicts in Korea (1950-53) and Vietnam (1957-75), anti-war activism among young people increased and in this sense Holden's response to the Second World War anticipates that of future generations. The legacy of the World War was a more restricted society than had been seen in America for many years. Women and African Americans lost many of the freedoms brought by the war, homosexuals were vilified and even heterosexual white men, while still the most powerful sector by far, saw their options limited as conformity and assent became the approved means of maintaining the nation's safety and prosperity. However, although individualism, free thought and alternative lifestyles were discouraged, opposition can still be discerned in the period and strengthened as time passed. The 1960s would be the decade of radical activism in America, when a variety of groups demanded the right to be recognized and treated fairly, some encouraged by the work of social commentators like Friedan and Kinsey, others by activists for racial equality, but the 1950s saw the early stages of these campaigns for civil and human rights. Holden Caulfield's was not the only dissenting voice in postwar American art. The group known as the 'Beats' (or 'Beat Generation') - the most famous of which were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs - produced experimental writing that detailed their drug-taking, unconventional relationships and journeys around America. Kerouac began to write his novel On the Road (1957), probably the most famous 'Beat' text, in 1951. This suggests that, like Catcher, its origin can be found in the unusual character of the post-war years. The Beats emphasized the strong link between their lives and their work: their complex and innovative writing expressed their rejection of conformity and materialism. A novel less well-remembered but hugely influential in its moment is Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (1955): its white, middle-class and deeply dissatisfied protagonists, Tom and Betsy Rath, mirrored the experiences of 15


many young Americans. Their reality is the stifling normalcy that Holden anticipates. Despite their material advantages, the Raths find their suburban lives frustratingly narrow: 'I don't know what's the matter with us. [. . .] We shouldn't be so discontented all the time', comments Betsy (Wilson 2002: 3). Though ultimately reconciled to their situation, the Raths represent those who, although privileged, dream of finding a more meaningful way to live. For some artists, experimental forms as much as content expressed new responses to American society. Rebellion was evident in the work of abstract painters such as Action' artist Jackson Pollock, who became as much a cult figure as James Dean when he died young. In music, the influence of African American forms was crucial: swing jazz mutated into the faster bebop, and rock and roll combined rhythm and blues with country music to create the music of the rebellious young, a connection confirmed by the use of Bill Haley's 'Rock Around the Clock' on the soundtrack of another of the era'sfilmsof teenage rebellion, The Blackboard Jungle (1955). Poets of the 'New York' school, like Frank O'Hara, wrote in a conversational style, peppered with many references to the culture of the time. Later in the decade, the 'Confessional' group of poets emerged: their challenge to the repressions of 1950s society was to draw on the troubles of their own lives to create poetry that bluntly explored taboo subjects such as depression, suicide and sexual issues. The calm surface of 1950s America hid turbulent undercurrents. In his assertion that the era was characterized by 'a sense of the counterfeit, the deceptive, the fraudulent, the artificial and the imitational [. . .] the decade was itself a forgery' (Hendin 2004: 21), Frederick Karl highlights the relationship between image and reality in post-war America. This perception of pretence and dishonesty is in accord with Holden's sense that he lives in a 'phony' society, peopled by superficial hypocrites. Although he is often understood simply as the ultimate example of teenage discontent, a privileged youth rejecting an unexciting but comfortable future, the context of the post-war years suggests that Holden voices feelings of dissatisfaction shared by many Americans. As John Updike says, Salinger'sfictionoffers 'revelations' that present an 'expansive, post-war sense of American 16

CONTEXTS

reality' (Greiner 2006: 115). Holden's willingness to confront taboo subjects and the novel's social criticism offers post-war America an unexpected image of itself. This explains why The Catcher in the Rye was a controversial text in its own moment and remains so in some quarters today.

17

CHAPTER 2

LANGUAGE, STYLE AND FORM

The Catcher in the Rye is Salinger's only novel, but he published many short stories before Catcher and several 'long short stories' (or novellas) after it. This chapter examines the novel and short fiction in terms of language, style and form in order to illustrate that Catcher typifies the literary techniques that define his work. Since the early stories are so difficult to find, this discussion is confined to the fiction that Salinger allows in print: the short story collection Nine Stories/For Esme - with Love and Squalor (1953), 'Franny' (1955), 'Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters' (1955), 'Zooey' (1957) and 'Seymour: An Introduction' (1959). His final story, 'Hapworth 16, 1924' (1965), has never been reprinted, so it is not included in this discussion. Salinger's writing has an instantly recognizable style, which is colloquial, humorous and intimate. He achieves this through his idiosyncratic use of narration, dialogue, characterization, use of humour and intertextuality. The form of the fiction mirrors his themes. He often writes about children, typically representing them as the embodiment of innocence and clear-sightedness. His adult and adolescent characters tend to be rule-breakers who, dissatisfied with a superficial and materialistic society, turn to religion, philosophy and literature for comfort. John Wenke observes that 'dead brothers and dead friends [. . .] haunt Salinger'sfiction'(Wenke 1991: 7). Allie Caulfield's death haunts his brother Holden throughout Catcher; in the story Teddy' (1953), it seems certain that someone has died, probably Teddy himself; Seymour Glass commits suicide in A Perfect Day for 19


Bananafish' (1948) and his brother Walt is killed in an accident; Esme's mother has died and her father has been killed in the war in 'For Esme - With Love and Squalor' (1950); in 'De DaumierSmith's Blue Period' (1953), the narrator is thrown into a crisis by his mother's death; Jimmy Jimereeno (although only an imaginary friend) is hit by a car in 'Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut' (1948); and the heroic 'Laughing Man' (1949) dies after many adventures. As this extensive list indicates, Salinger is preoccupied with the psychological trauma of loss and grief, which he communicates through a range of techniques. NARRATION

Salinger makes use of both first- and third-person narration in hisfiction.He often employs unreliablefirst-personnarration to indicate a character's state of mind. A novel with a first-person narrator is inevitably narrow in its perspective: the reader can only know what the narrator chooses to reveal, and has no access to the thoughts of other characters. Conventionally, the use of first-person narration creates a close bond between reader and narrator and a great potential for intimate engagement with the main protagonist. If, however, the narrator is not telling the truth, it is difficult for the reader to judge what is happening in the text. In Catcher, Holden is often inaccurate in his judgements about himself and others, a trait he inadvertently reveals throughout the text. For example, he cannot understand why the women he meets at the Lavender Room treat him like a foolish teenager (Salinger 1994a: 67), even though he is not old enough to order alcohol at the bar, and he denies that he is shouting at Sally despite her requests that he lower his voice (Salinger 1994a: 119). In both cases, the disparity between his perceptions and the evidence provided by other characters suggests a lack of selfawareness that is a product of his poor mental health. Another example of Salinger's use of first-person narrative to reveal a character's blind spots is 'The Laughing Man'. Whereas Holden's misperceptions can be attributed to his grief, in this case the narrator lacks understanding of adult relationships because he is nine years old. He describes the liaison between the leader 20


of his after-school club and his girlfriend Mary, but cannot explain what causes their relationship to end. His comments allow the reader to draw some conclusions (although these are never confirmed). The narrator describes Mary on the last day she spends at the club, sitting 'sandwiched between two nursemaids with baby carriages' and later, distracted by wondering what has upset Mary, he 'bump[s] smack into a baby carriage' (Salinger 1994b: 50-1). Although he notes these facts without comment, their occurrence in the text at this stage implies that Mary is pregnant, a disaster for an unmarried woman in 1928, when the story is set. In both first- and third-person narratives, a typical feature of Salinger's technique is his refusal to offer definitive answers to questions raised by the text, which encourages the reader to participate in the construction of meaning. Doubt about the denouement of the narrative is used to great effect in Teddy', when the events that the gifted boy of the title has predicted (that his little sister may accidentally kill him by pushing him into an empty swimming pool) seem to have taken place, but are not described, leaving the reader to deduce the outcome from the reported 'allpiercing, sustained scream - clearly coming from a small, female child' (Salinger 1994b: 149) that ends the story. The reader must decide whether Teddy has met the death he predicted or has murdered his sister, Booper, as the third-person narration offers no decisive answer. Anthony Kaufman contends that the latter outcome makes 'nofictionalsense' because 'the signals of Teddy's approaching suicide are too strong' (Kaufman 1998:138), but the story's conclusion is ultimately a matter of interpretation. Uncertainty also characterizes the end of Catcher. Holden appears to finally achieve happiness at the carrousel when he realizes that he can cope with the trials of growing up. However, the shortfinalchapter suggests that he has not entirely recovered from his breakdown as he remains unsure about his capacity to 'apply' himself in the future (Salinger 1994a: 192). This makes the close of the novel ambivalent and undermines the impression that Holden has survived his crisis. Furthermore, his otherwise detailedfirst-personnarrative is intriguingly vague on key issues such as the reason for his stay in hospital and what happened 21


after his moment of apparent revelation at the carrousel. By leaving gaps in his narratives, Salinger suggests that meaning is elusive, and underlines the uncertainty of life. Salinger also reveals characters' mental states and generates uncertainty by shifting from first to third person within a story, without explanation. This can have a disorienting effect on the reader, who is left unsure as to whose perspective the text is presenting. In Tor Esme', an unidentified first-person narrator looks back on his Army service in Devon just prior to D-Day, during which he meets 13-year-old Esme. After a break, the story recommences in the third person, describing the situation of Sergeant X in Germany at the end of the war. Plainly, the firstperson narrator and Sergeant X are the same person; this is confirmed by the letter from Esme to X that brings the story to its conclusion. This shift implies that X's traumatized state is too difficult for the initial narrator to describe with the intimacy implied by thefirst-person.X's mind is now as unstable as insecure luggage on an overhead rack' (Salinger 1994b: 77-8) and his anonymity suggests that his identity and happiness have been erased by the war. DIALOGUE

Salinger's work is dominated by dialogue: how a character looks may be outlined briefly and there are often details of clothes and personal habits, such as smoking, but the physical scene itself tends to be barely described. Holden's detailed description of exhibits in the Natural History Museum in Catcher is quite unusual. More typical is the opening of 'Bananafish', which offers substantial information about Muriel's application of nail polish ('she went over the nail of her littlefinger,accentuating the line of the moon. She then [. . .] passed her left - the wet - hand back and forth through the air') but very little about her appearance or the room she is occupying (Salinger 1994b: 1). Typically, Salinger uses speech to communicate a character's mental state. When Lionel, the small boy in 'Down at the Dinghy' (1949), is upset, his speech becomes disjointed: 'Sandra - told Mrs Smell - that Daddy's a big - sloppy - kike' (Salinger 1994b: 63). 22


Lionel knows his father has been insulted but does not realize that 'kike' is an anti-Semitic word. Instead, he thinks that his father has been likened to 'one of those things that go up in the air [. . .] With string you hold' (Salinger 1994b: 64). As this statement illustrates, Lionel's speech flows smoothly when speaking about a subject that makes him feel more relaxed. In Catcher, Holden's repetitive questions about the ducks communicate his fear of loss: 'By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over? Do you happen to know, by any chance?' (Salinger 1994a: 54). Likewise, in 'Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes' (1951), repetition conveys Arthur's anxieties about his marriage: 'Yeah. I know. I know. I don't know, though' (Salinger 1994b: 88). One of the defining characteristics of Salinger's dialogue is unfinished sentences. Like his use of narrative gaps, this encourages the reader to participate in the construction of meaning. In Catcher, the most striking example of what is left unsaid is Antolini's statement 'I'm simply sitting here, admiring - ' (Salinger 1994a: 172) when Holden wakes to find his teacher touching him. The unfinished sentence prompts the reader to imagine how it might end and consider the implications of the unspoken 'you'. In 'Bananafish', Muriel's telephone conversation with her mother offers further examples. Sometimes it is clear what the end of a sentence would be, if it is a familiar phrase: 'I've been worried to - '; 'Muriel, you gave me your word of - ' (Salinger 1994b: 2). These unfinished cliches contribute to the realism in the dialogue, but also invite the reader to provide the words 'death' and 'honour', which, in the context of a story about the suicide of a soldier, are weighted with significance. At other times there is less certainty about how a phrase might end and more comedy as a result. There is also greater opportunity for the reader to infer what the speaker is referring to, as with 'What [Seymour] did with all those lovely pictures from Bermuda - ' (Salinger 1994b: 3). Unexplained and unfinished remarks about Seymour are an effective way of revealing something of his character's eccentricity without making it possible to really know him, which is essential in creating a scenario in which his suicide can be both surprising and believable. 23


The realism of Salinger's dialogue is further established by the abbreviated or coded speech typical between those who know each other well. In Catcher the intimacy between Holden and Phoebe is communicated through her question, 'Oh, why did you do it?', which Holden understands but has to explain to the reader: 'She meant why did I get the ax again' (Salinger 1994a: 151). In 'Bananafish', Muriel's mother says that the family doctor has been told 'everything. [. . .] The trees. That business with the window. Those horrible things [Seymour] said to Granny about her plans for passing away. [ . . . ] - everything' (Salinger 1994b: 3). No further details are needed to understand both that Seymour is a troubled figure who breaks social rules, and that some of his actions are probably quite entertaining, if not to Muriel's mother. Comments are also left unfinished in Salinger's work because characters cut across each other, as in 'Pretty Mouth': 'Arthur, listen, this isn't - ' ' Wait a second - I'll tell ya, god-damn it' (Salinger 1994b: 89). This strategy not only creates realistic dialogue but also emphasizes the difficulties inherent in communication. Salinger evokes the spoken word through his use of italic. In Catcher, Holden's narrative is given nuance by italics on whole and parts of words, as in 'I can even get to hate somebody, just looking at them' (Salinger 1994a: 97). Italic also evokes accent and speech mannerisms, as 'Pretty Mouth' illustrates: 'Use your imagination. The two of 'em probably dragged Joanie bodily-' 'Listen. Nobody ever has to drag Joanie awywhere' (Salinger 1994b: 88). The emphasis provided by italics communicates how willing Joanie is to join in on activities, much to her partner's consternation. Further, accent is used to communicate class status. Although he often uses expletives and colloquialisms, Holden's language is generally presented in standard American English, while the working people he meets, such as cab drivers and Sunny the prostitute, tend to speak in dialect: for example, Sunny says 'I awreddy got it' (Salinger 1994a: 92) and thefirstcab driver refers to 'Ninedieth' street while Holden asks for 'Ninetieth' (Salinger 1994a: 54). In 'Down at the Dinghy', Sandra the housekeeper's accent is evoked by italics and non-standard English: 'it drives ya loony [. . .] Ya can't hear him, ya know' (Salinger 1994b: 56). 24


CHARACTERIZATION

In much of his fiction Salinger uses a familiar group of characters: although the Caulfield family appear in a few early stories and most notably in Catcher, of course - Salinger is mainly preoccupied with the Glass family. In 'Carpenters', Buddy Glass explains that he has six brothers and sisters, the children of Les and Bessie: Seymour, the oldest, then Buddy, Boo Boo, twins Walter and Waker, then Zooey andfinallyFranny. Like Holden's parents, Les and Bessie Glass are only peripheralfiguresand, like Holden, the Glass siblings are far more interested in each other than in their parents or friends. Holden's most significant relationships are with his siblings Phoebe and Allie. Martin Bidney notes that 'In Salinger, life's ineluctable complexity arouses the nostalgia of characters for an idealized childhood' (Bidney 2000: 128) and, for Holden, that ideal is embodied in Allie and Phoebe. Across Salinger's stories, sibling relationships dominate: Teddy has his sister Booper, Esme her brother Charles, Franny and Zooey share the same needs and fears and, like Allie for Holden, Seymour is as much a part of Buddy's life after his death as he ever was. Salinger often encapsulates what is essential about a person in one telling statement. For example, Muriel in 'Bananafish' (1948) 'looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty' (Salinger 1994b: 1), which is all the information that the reader needs to understand that she is popular, pretty, confident, and probably wealthy. Similarly, the hero of 'Daumier-Smith' is 'the hatless type, with a flat, black, not particularly clean, Continental-type pompadour' (Salinger 1994b: 99), communicating that he is young and out of synch with American society, being semi-European in style. In Catcher, Salinger uses specific details to identify types of person. Ernest Morrow is the 'kind of a guy' who 'snap[ped] his soggy old wet towel at people's asses' (Salinger 1994a: 48) and George is 'the kind of a phony that have to give themselves room when they answer somebody's question' (Salinger 1994a: 114-15). In both cases, small details encapsulate the person: Ernest is a bully, George an exhibitionist. 25


Familiarfiguresrecur throughout Salinger's fiction. One such figure is the saint or savant (a person with unusual depth of knowledge and great insight): characters in this category often die young. Another typicalfigureis that of the precocious, clever child (sometimes combined with the role of saint or savant). Children like Phoebe, Teddy and Esme are the embodiment of clear-sightedness, and Salinger's most pointed critique of postwar American values often comes from children, whose innocence implies the truthfulness of their words. Criticizing the shallowness of his society, Teddy, for example, comments that 'it's very hard to meditate and live a spiritual life in America. People think you're a freak if you try to' (Salinger 1994b: 142). Children, even if not gifted with insight (like Sybil in 'Bananafish', the narrator in The Laughing Man' and Ramona in 'Uncle Wiggily'), are sacred figures in Salinger's writing. Another keyfigureis the cynic, a character who often wishes for a return to the innocence represented by children. The last of Salinger's recurringfiguresis the writer. In Catcher, Holden is the cynic, Phoebe the precocious child, Allie the saint and D. B. the writer. The Glass family have all, at some time, been precocious children: as adults, Buddy is the writer, Seymour and Walter the (dead) saints, Zooey the cynic. That neither of the Glass women fit Salinger's usual categories suggests that he is not interested in adult women: Boo Boo is a conventional wife and mother, Franny vulnerable and craving guidance. Indeed, most of Salinger's central characters are male, whether young or old. Many characters are outsiders who experience a sense of difference from the norm, regardless of their age. The adolescents Franklin and Ginnie in 'Just Before the War With the Eskimos' (1948) are, like Holden, Sergeant X, Teddy and most of the Glass family,figureswho set themselves apart from a society they find uncomfortable for a range of reasons: because it is superficial, violent, materialistic, rule-bound or corrupted. Holden certainly feels lonely in Manhattan, but the 19-year-old narrator of 'Daumier-Smith' finds that, in New York in 1939, 'everything I touched turned to solid loneliness' (Salinger 1994b: 99): he feels rejected by society, rather than the reverse and, in that sense, is an unusual character in Salinger's work. 26


Salinger uses characters to embody values that he either critiques or celebrates. In Tranny', Lane is an example of the 'prep school jerks and college jerks' (Salinger 1994a: 76) that Holden despises because they represent the superficiality of post-war America. Franny, in contrast, who is reaching a point where she can no longer tolerate the empty values of her society, is like an older, more world-weary version of Holden. She explains her discontent to an uncomprehending Lane in words that could almost come from Holden: 'It's everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so - 1 don't know - not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and sadmaking' (Salinger 1994c: 18). This echoes Holden's diatribe against society, which leaves his girlfriend Sally as bemused as Lane is by Franny's outburst. More than any other character, Seymour epitomizes the values that Salinger holds most dear. Exceptional in his capacity to find goodness and beauty in what others cynically reject, Seymour is the antithesis of the materialistic, shallow culture of post-war America: a poet in a place and time that does not seem to value high art, a follower of Buddhism and Hinduism in a period of exclusive and overt Christian observance, an enthusiastic follower of writers, artists and philosophers from all over the world in an era of fear and insularity. In this sense, he seems an adult, more intellectually developed version of Allie, the saint-like brother that Holden lost, who wrote poems on his baseball glove. HUMOUR

Humour is one of the defining characteristics of Salinger's work, even though his characters rarely aim to amuse: very often they are serious or tragic figures and their stories are frequently melancholy in subject-matter. Importantly, the writing often combines disturbing content with comedy in a way that does not diminish the impact of either element. For example, the sadness the reader feels at Seymour's death in 'Bananafish' is heightened because his remarks in the previous scene with Sybil have been entertaining, portraying him as a likeable eccentric: his quirky response to her assertion that she 1ike[s] to chew candles' is 27


simply 'Who doesn't?' (Salinger 1994b: 10), and he replies to her observation that his rubber float is deflating with 'You're right. It needs more air than I'm willing to admit' (Salinger 1994b: 8). Thefictiontends to use images and language that are amusing rather than making jokes or setting up conventionally humorous situations and, as with the dialogue, the words often imply more than they state. In 'Uncle Wiggily', a bored and lonely housewife named Eloise, apparently irritated by the physical resemblance between her husband and daughter, wishes for 'a cocker spaniel or something [. . .] Somebody that looks like me' (Salinger 1994b: 17). The implication that Eloise resembles a spaniel is comic, but the statement is also poignant, suggesting the isolation she feels. In 'For Esme', Sergeant X communicates his frustration when he describes his free time during Army training: 'Rainy days, I generally sat in a dry place and read a book, often just an axe length away from a ping-pong table' (Salinger 1994b: 65). 'Arm's length' would have implied cramped conditions; 'axe length' makes clear that X is maddened by the ping-pong table and would like to destroy it. In Catcher, Holden excuses himself from sex with Sunny on the grounds that he has recently had an operation on his 'wuddayacallit - my clavichord' (Salinger 1994a: 87). His amusing malapropism (the reference to an operation indicates that he is alluding to a body part, most likely the clavicle, rather than a type of piano) communicates his panic at the prospect of sex. Once again, this illustrates the techniques that Salinger employs to reveal a character's mental state. TEXTS WITHIN TEXTS

Salinger often includes a range of different texts within his stories. Sometimes these offer alternative perspectives on events and characters as, for example, in 'Carpenters' when Seymour's diary permits the reader new insights into his abandonment of Muriel on their wedding day. The use of texts within the text becomes more common as Salinger's career progresses. In 'Carpenters', Buddy's first-person narrative includes, in full, the Taoist tale Seymour reads to Franny, a letter from Boo Boo to Buddy telling him to attend Seymour's wedding, a quotation from the Greek 28


poet Sappho, from which the story takes its title - 'Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man' (Salinger 1994d: 41) - and substantial sections from Seymour's diary. In contrast, in an earlier text like Catcher, Holden simply summarizes D. B.'s story The Secret Goldfish'. The interweaving of different kinds of texts, some of which have another existence outside the fiction, has several functions. First, allusions to other literary texts illuminate Salinger's themes and concerns. For example, in Catcher, Holden's admiration for The Great Gatsby reflects his concern with the destructive impact of the American Dream. Second, because intertextuality brings the past into the present, it echoes characters' nostalgia, and functions as an antidote to loss. Third, mirroring Salinger's theme of rebellion against authority, multiple texts subvert the dominance of a single narrator. Last, including extracts from earlier and non-Western cultures in a work of popular fiction blurs the conventional boundary between 'high' and iow' culture, and subverts dominant ideas about which kinds of texts are important, reflecting Salinger's critique of dominant American values. As the next chapter will show, this is one of the key themes of The Catcher in the Rye. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What techniques are typical of Salinger'sfiction,and how do they affect the reader's interpretation of the work? 2. Salinger's work often deals with serious subjects - loss of innocence, death, prejudice - but he almost always uses humour in his treatment of these subjects. Is this an effective strategy? 3. What is the significance of children in Salinger's fiction?

29

CHAPTER 3

READING THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

Far from being simply the story of 'this madman stuff that happened [. . .] around last Christmas' (Salinger 1994a: 1), The Catcher in the Rye is a complex and moving insight into many aspects of Holden Caulfield's life. Told in retrospect, the main strand of the narrative moves chronologically, beginning with Holden leaving his school, then spending two days in Manhattan encountering family, friends and strangers. Throughout his description of these few days, Holden recalls people and events from the past, and speculates about the future. He also pauses in his account to consider related issues, including the hypocrisy of his society, his confusion about religion and sex, his family, anxieties about adulthood and death, and the dangers of the movies. This detailed chapter-by-chapter reading explores key scenes, explains significant references and discusses the novel's major themes. The novel seems to fall into four sections of roughly equal length. In the first (chapters 1-7), all the action takes place at Pencey Prep, Holden's school, on the Saturday afternoon and evening that is to be his last day there. The second section (chapters 8-14) is centred on the Edmont Hotel, Manhattan, where Holden spends the remainder of Saturday night. In the third section (chapters 15-20) Holden spends Sunday wandering around the city, encountering friends and strangers in various locations. The fourth section (chapters 21-5) contains three key scenes: Holden and Phoebe at the family apartment on Sunday night, Holden's visit to Antolini in the early hours of Monday 31


morning, and Phoebe at the carrousel on Monday afternoon. The final chapter (26) returns to the novel's starting-point, the time and place from which Holden tells his story, six months or so after the events of the main narrative. SECTION 1: AT PENCEY (CHAPTERS 1-7)

Chapter 1

The novel's opening chapter establishes several of its central themes. It begins with Holden directly addressing someone, 'you', who is in effect also the reader. Salinger uses first-person narration to evoke Holden, giving him a unique 'voice', and the relationship established between him and the reader is intimate from the outset, engendering sympathy. The opening line seems a response to a question, but also communicates weariness - 'If you really want to hear about it' (Salinger 1994a: 1) - as if the narrator is reluctant to tell his story, implying that it will not be a happy one. Holden makes clear both that he has a story to tell and that he refuses to engage with the conventions of autobiography: he will not tell 'you' about his childhood or his family, 'all that David Copperfield kind of crap' (Salinger 1994a: 1). Although Holden distances himself from Charles Dickens's novel, there are similarities between the two narratives: David Copperfield (1849-50) is based on Dickens's life, as Catcher is based loosely on Salinger's; and, like Catcher, David Copperfield is written in thefirstperson, reviewing the events of Copperfield's early life. A further link between the two novels can be found in the narrators' names: they share 'field' and, furthermore, Copperfield is born with a 'caul', a membrane over his face that is sometimes taken as a sign of good fortune. Dickens's novel is an archetypal example of the bildungsroman, or 'coming of age' novel, which conventionally tells the story of a person's development from youth to maturity. Catcher is, in its way, exemplary of the bildungsroman: although Holden's story only covers three days, it does present many of the experiences of his life. Typically, the protagonist of a bildungsroman suffers a loss that encourages him to begin a journey that will entail diverse and sometimes troubling encounters; he is changed 32


by these experiences and ends by reflecting on his situation in the present. Holden is contending with the loss of Allie, his brother, who died of leukaemia three years before; he undertakes a journey around Manhattan and summarizes what he has learnt at the novel's end. So although Holden says that he does not 'feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth' (Salinger 1994a: 1), it' being his life story, he does in fact reveal a great deal and observes the conventions of the bildungsroman to a significant extent. By making use of a traditional and respected literary form, this controversial novel of teenage rebellion encourages readers to view it as a serious work of literature. In the opening paragraph Holden discusses those members of his family who feature least in the rest of the novel; they are significant despite, or because of, their absence. The brief comments on his parents - they are 'touchy', though 'nice and all' - imply distance, while his older brother, D. B., is 'being a prostitute' (Salinger 1994a: 1) in Hollywood, where he has chosen to write film scripts rather than more short stories like those in his book The Secret Goldfish. This book's title story suggests one of Salinger's recurring interests, the perspective of a child: but if D. B. is an author-figure, he is one who has failed to be true to his art, lured away by money and fame. This establishes the theme of corruption, which Holden pursues throughout his narrative. Looking back, Holden decides that 'Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep' (Salinger 1994a: 1). The school is one that 'you probably heard of (Salinger 1994a: 1), indicating Holden's class status, even though he makes it clear that it does not deserve its fame: the image it promotes is 'strictly for the birds' (Salinger 1994a: 2), meaning that it is fake and would only impress the gullible. This raises one of the novel's key themes: Holden's hatred of the 'phony', that is, dishonesty, superficiality and pretence. Holden's description of Selma Thurmer, the headmaster's daughter, continues the theme: she wears 'those damn falsies' (Salinger 1994a: 2), meaning a padded brassiere. Although this suggests that she too is engaged in a pretence, Holden believes her to be an authentic person because she recognizes the hypocrisies of school life. 33


The novel's first reference to suicide, a recurring theme, appears in this opening chapter when Holden comments cynically that 'you were supposed to commit suicide or something if old Pencey didn't win' the football game (Salinger 1994a: 2). This comment indicates that he does not share the school's ethos of loyalty, and his distance from the school's values is conveyed by the fact that he watches the game from afar, standing on a hill beside the 'crazy cannon that was in the Revolutionary War and all' (Salinger 1994a: 2). In one sense the school's cannon represents its traditional ideals by evoking the uprising against British rule by American colonies (1775-83), a source of pride for many Americans. However, as the war also implies rejection of authority and questioning of those in power, the cannon establishes Holden's status as a rebel. Holden has not been a success at Pencey. As well as failing his exams, he loses the fencing team's equipment on the way to a match and is 'ostracized the whole way back' by the team (Salinger 1994a: 3). So, as much as he rejects the school, it in turn rejects him. The fact that Holden's coat has been stolen by one of the boys in the school confirms to him that 'Pencey was full of crooks' (Salinger 1994a: 3): like its advertisements, the school's pupils are dishonest. Despite this, Holden does have happy memories of throwing a ball around at dusk with some friends. Remembering this moment of play helps him to 'feel some kind of a good-by' (Salinger 1994a: 4), as if he needs to identify a positive image of the school in order to let it go. This suggests that Holden is afraid of loss, another key theme, and develops strategies to make the experience bearable. Even so, as he runs to Mr Spencer's house Holden feels that he is 'sort of disappearing' (Salinger 1994a: 4). This feeling recurs for Holden as he falls further into crisis later in the novel and his sense of loss intensifies. Chapter 2

Developing the theme of rebellion, Holden's visit to Mr Spencer confirms that he is opposed to the conventional ideas that school and society encourage in order to promote stability. Spencer, Holden's History teacher, affirms the Headmaster's view that 'Life is a game' that should be played by rules, but Holden silently 34


disagrees: 'Game my ass' (Salinger 1994a: 7). Throughout the novel, Holden is uncomfortable with social inequality and his comment that life is only a game for those on the side of the 'hot-shots' (Salinger 1994a: 7) shows his awareness of such injustice. As a young, affluent white man Holden is, of course, a privileged figure himself, but he recognizes - although he does not always articulate it directly - that others are not so fortunate. For example, one sector of the population very much on the 'losing team' is Native Americans, who are invoked in the reference to the 'Navajo blanket' that Spencer bought from 'some Indian in Yellowstone Park' (Salinger 1994a: 6), a person whose social status is conveyed by the fact that he is as anonymous as the exhibit of 'Indians' in Holden's favourite museum (Salinger 1994a: 109). The visit to Spencer establishes Holden's fear of death through the theme of aging. Spencer, like the school, is linked to American history: he lives on Anthony Wayne Avenue (named after a Revolutionary War general) and seems ancient to Holden. The term 'old' is used throughout the novel to imply affection and familiarity ('old Phoebe') but here Holden uses it repeatedly in a literal sense, making several comments about 'old guys [. . .] their bumpy old chests [. . .] Old guys' legs' (Salinger 1994a: 6-7) that express revulsion, indicating his fear of death. Holden is preoccupied by aging: he acts 'quite young for [his] age sometimes', but has 'gray hair' (Salinger 1994a: 8), a contradiction that suggests that he is neither child nor adult. However, his immature behaviour could also be read as an attempt to resist death by counteracting the aging process that his gray hair represents. Books that Holden has read as part of his education reiterate the theme of death and reflect other aspects of the novel. Beowulf (c. 1000 AD) is an archetypal 'quest' narrative, and Holden's journey around Manhattan is structured much like a quest in which he tries to find sanctuary and the answers to troubling questions. 'Lord Randall My Son' (a seventeenth-century ballad) tells the story of a nobleman who dies young, probably poisoned by his lover. The injustice of the death of young people is a recurring concern in Catcher, epitomized by Allie and James Castle, whose suicide Holden describes later. When he meets the nuns in 35


Chapter 15, Holden also notes how angry he feels about the death of Mercutio in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1597). Chapter 3

This chapter establishes that Holden's narrative is characterized by contradictions, which point to his unstable state of mind. His confession that he is 'the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life' (Salinger 1994a: 14) is an early hint that the reader has no way of knowing whether or not Holden's entire narrative is built on dishonesty. Despite his tendency to lie, Holden is often angry about deception: he condemns those he considers phony, such as the undertaker and school benefactor, Ossenburger. To Holden, he is a hypocrite who prays for personal gain: 'I can just see the big phony bastard shifting intofirstgear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs' (Salinger 1994a: 14). The contradiction between Holden's anger about phoniness and his own lies indicates a lack of self-awareness that makes his narrative unreliable. Once back in his room, Holden tries on his new 'red hunting hat' (Salinger 1994a: 15), which he bought for himself after losing the fencing team's equipment. It is no coincidence that he buys this unusual hat after he has been ostracized by his teammates. He seems to be embracing the role of misfit before it is applied to him by others, a self-protective strategy. His claim that it is 'a people shooting hat' (Salinger 1994a: 19) raises the theme of death once more and suggests aggression, which will surface later in his interaction with his room-mate, Ward Stradlater. Once again, Holden's reading-matter echoes themes raised so far. The autobiography Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (published in the USA in 1938) highlights the issue of phoniness: although Holden does not comment on this, the book's author could be termed a phony, as Dinesen is the pseudonym of Karen Blixen. In a typical contradiction, Holden claims that he is 'quite illiterate' but reads 'a lot' (Salinger 1994a: 15), and that he particularly likes D. B.'s stories and the work of Ring Lardner. While his brother may be a 'prostitute', selling his talent to Hollywood, Lardner represents principles that Holden would approve of, as Lardner was one of the 'Hollywood 10' who refused to respond to the HUAC's questions about their political allegiance in 1947, 36


Lardner's appearance here therefore seems especially pointed. Still on the theme of fiction, Holden wishes he could 'call up' (Salinger 1994a: 16) certain authors, including Dinesen, Lardner and Thomas Hardy. He excludes Somerset Maugham, having read his semi-autobiographical bildungsroman Of Human Bondage (1915), which, much like Catcher, addresses the difficulty of coming to terms with adult sexuality. By rejecting Maugham, Holden attempts to distance himself from the novel's protagonist, a character with experiences similar to his own, suggesting that he is reluctant to recognize his own isolation and confusion. When Robert Ackley interrupts Holden's reading, he plays a game with Ackley that suggests Holden is lost and seeking reassurance; it may also evoke death in its reference to darkness. Holden pulls his cap over his eyes and starts 'groping around' as if blind, calling to Ackley, 'Mother darling, everything's getting so dark in here [. . .] Mother darling, why won't you give me your hand? (Salinger 1994a: 18-19). Ackley, refusing to play along, rejects the role of Holden's surrogate mother. Holden's game hints that he isfiguratively'in the dark' and in need of guidance from an older person; although an unlikely role model, Ackley later tells Holden that he is 'old enough to be your lousy father' (Salinger 1994a: 21). Since Holden's mother and father barely feature in the novel, his apparent desire for parentalfiguressuggests that he misses the security they conventionally represent. CHAPTER 4

This chapter introduces Stradlater and Jane Gallagher, key figures in the novel. Stradlater is a phony and a conformist in a narrative that disparages both: he is a 'secret slob [. . .] a Year Book kind of handsome guy' (Salinger 1994a: 23), photogenic but fake, with looks that conform to the ideal of the moment rather than expressing individuality. Preparing for his date, wearing Holden's jacket and 'Vitalis' (a hair product), Stradlater's phoniness is emphasized through the implication that he is impersonating Holden. He asks that Holden stand in for him by writing his essay on 'Anything descriptive. A room. Or a house' (Salinger 1994a: 24). This indicates that Stradlater is a social 37


success but lacks imagination; Holden, by contrast, is creative and playful, shown when he entertains Stradlater by 'imitating one of those guys in the movies' (Salinger 1994a: 25). Although Holden mocks the weaknesses in Hollywood plots and states that he 'hate[s] the movies like poison' (Salinger 1994a: 25), throughout the novel he uses roles from films to help him cope with difficult feelings. In this chapter, he plays the role of clown to please Stradlater, whom he positions as a father-figure: while Holden watches him shaving, an activity that signifies adult masculinity, he pretends to be 'The little ole goddam Governor's son' (Salinger 1994a: 25) whose father does not want him to be a dancer in the Ziegfeld Follies (1946). In a sense, Stradlater is the 'Governor', the dominant male, and Holden plays the role of son, rebellious and yet desirous of his father's approval, asking if Stradlater likes his hunting hat. Holden's subordinate position is confirmed when Stradlater tells him that a girl he has dated and rejected is 'too old' (Salinger 1994a: 26) for Holden, and again when he cannot hold Stradlater in a wrestling grip: but a worse blow comes when he discovers that Stradlater's date is Jane Gallagher, a girl he idealizes. Stradlater has little interest in Jane (he misremembers her name as Jean) or how Holden knows her, but Holden's comment that he 'damn near dropped dead' (Salinger 1994a: 26) at the news alerts the reader to Jane's importance, something the narrative repeatedly affirms in later chapters. Stradlater's only interest in Jane is sexual, but Holden's memory of playing checkers with Jane suggests a different attitude: he recalls that Jane would not 'move any of her kings' because 'She just liked the way they looked when they were all in the back row' (Salinger 1994a: 27). Too nervous to speak to Jane, but anxious about her safety because he is aware of Stradlater's sexual prowess and physical dominance, Holden asks Stradlater to ask Jane if she 'still keeps all of her kings in the back row' (Salinger 1994a: 29). In this way, he attempts to remind her of the intimacy they shared, which his room-mate cannot offer, and also warns Jane to stay on her guard with Stradlater, that is, to keep herself as safe as the kings. Holden's inability to speak to Jane himself suggests he fears discovering that she will have changed and perhaps lost her


innocence; his reluctance also suggests a more general fear of engagement with women. CHAPTER 5

One of the most interesting moments in this chapter comes when Holden decides not to throw a snowball at a car covered in fresh snow because it 'looked so nice and white' (Salinger 1994a: 32). Whiteness is associated with purity and innocence, qualities that Holden values and hates to see spoiled, so his decision not to throw the snowball represents his desire to preserve innocence, a key theme of the novel as a whole. Although Holden uses 'nice' more than 80 times in his narrative, diminishing its impact, it is also used at important moments to convey his genuine appreciation, not least when he watches Phoebe on the carrousel and begins to cry because 'she looked so damn nice' (Salinger 1994a: 191). Similarly, at this early stage in the novel, he is moved by the still street scene, finding beauty in an ordinary moment despite his troubled state of mind. Holden is reluctant to write the essay that Stradlater requested, which is unsurprising given that the topic ('a room or a house') must evoke either school, from which he has been rejected, or home, to which he cannot return without facing his parents. Instead, he describes Allie's baseball mitt, which his brother decorated with poetry. The essay Holden writes becomes - in a manner typical of the novel - a springboard for his memories and makes it clear that Allie's death dominates his thoughts. When he says of Allie, 'You'd have liked him' (Salinger 1994a: 33), the intimacy between Holden and the reader is increased: a three-way connection is implied between Holden, the reader and Allie, the person Holden loves most. The information that Holden offers about his brother enables the reader to fix the date of the narrative: Allie died at the age of 11 in July 1946, when Holden was 13; in Chapter 2 Holden says that 'I was sixteen then [during the events he describes] and I'm seventeen now' (Salinger 1994a: 8), indicating that the novel is set in 1949, just before Christmas, a time associated with salvation and hope, feelings Holden does not share.


The impact of Allie's death on Holden is one of the central issues of the novel: although he speaks of it explicitly at times, it drives his actions and responses in ways that he does not necessarily recognize. In this chapter the pain he felt when Allie died is evident: they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage. [. . .] I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with myfist,just for the hell of it. [. . .] My hand still hurts me once in a while [. . .] and I can't make a realfistany more. (Salinger 1994a: 34) Holden does not, of course, break the windows 'just for the hell of it' but as an expression of the frustration and grief he feels, and these emotions erupt at points throughout the narrative. However, the fact that this act has left him unable to make a fist confirms that he is, essentially, not a violent person: although much later in the narrative he wishes to 'smash' the head of whoever wrote 'fuck you' on the wall of his sister's school (Salinger 1994a: 181), he says earlier that he 'hate[s] fist fights' and considers himself a coward (Salinger 1994a: 81). As the title ('catcher') and name of Salinger's protagonist ('Holden') indicates, hands are a recurring motif in the novel. The image of hands used in violent acts contrasts with other images of hands that offer comfort, such as the hand that Holden remembers Jane placing on his neck (Salinger 1994a: 72) and the hand that he asks for when he pretends that Ackley is his mother (Salinger 1994a: 18-19). However, hands are also the source of trouble in the much later scene with Antolini, who frightens Holden by touching him on the head when he is sleeping. Chapter 6

Events in this chapter exacerbate Holden's fear of loss and inability to protect those he loves. The opening paragraph of this chapter uses variants of 'worry' six times: the repetition has a comic quality but also conveys Holden's fears that Stradlater, the 'unscrupulous' 'bastard' (Salinger 1994a: 35), will have corrupted 40


Jane by persuading her to have sex with him. For Holden, who has developed strong feelings for Jane within the context of a non-sexual relationship, physical intimacy signals a loss of innocence and entry into the adult world, which he associates with corruption. Stradlater is damaging not only to Jane's innocence but also to the memory of Allie. When he rejects the essay Holden has written for him, Stradlater effectively disparages Allie, intensifying Holden's negative feelings. Holden notes that he feels 'nervous', unable to speak without his voice 'shaking' (Salinger 1994a: 37), but rather than nerves, Holden's language suggests anger. The fact that Stradlater responds to these signs with 'playful' punches to Holden's shoulder could suggest either that he is misreading Holden's volatile mood, or that, anticipating a fight, he is reminding Holden of his superior strength. Allie's death and Holden's situation are inextricably linked. This is confirmed when Holden, lashing out at Stradlater, cannot hurt him due to the injury he sustained when Allie died. Further, Stradlater's refusal to reveal what he has done with Jane confirms Holden's worst fears, and his rage is fuelled by his sense of frustration: he could not save Allie from death and now he has lost Jane to corruption. When Stradlater overpowers Holden and, in response to relentless taunts of 'moron', eventually hits him quite hard, Holden considers the relationship between this and the fights he has seen in films, recognizing that in fact, 'It's pretty hard to knock a guy out, except in the goddam movies' (Salinger 1994a: 39). This reminds the reader thatfilms,like the people that Holden hates, are phony. Chapter 7

Holden's fight leads to despair and provokes thoughts of death once more. He escapes to Ackley's room but does not find sanctuary there, confirmed by his repeated admission that he feels 'lonesome' (Salinger 1994a: 42-5). Not only does Holden 'almost wish [he] was dead' (Salinger 1994a: 42), he feels 'like jumping out the window' (Salinger 1994a: 43). His suicidal gloom not only continues the theme of death, but prefigures both his thoughts of jumping from his hotel window in Chapter 14 and the story Holden later tells of James Castle's suicidal jump from 41


a school window in Chapter 22. There is a further link between Holden's two moments of suicidal misery: the first occurs when he fears that Stradlater has sexually exploited Jane, the second when he fails to have sex with Sunny. On both occasions, Holden is humiliated by more dominant, sexually experienced men: first Stradlater and then Maurice, Sunny's pimp. Throughout the novel Holden attempts to escape his situation, beginning when he decides to leave the school and 'take a room in a hotel in New York' (Salinger 1994a: 45), avoiding his family home and his parents' response to his expulsion. Although he claims not to know why he is crying as he leaves Pencey, suggesting a lack of self-awareness, it is obvious that Holden is lost and lonely: alienated from his peers, unable to relate to adults, full of fear and anger. His final action at the school - shouting 'Sleep tight, ya moronsV (Salinger 1994a: 46) - is immediately followed by him slipping on peanut shells. This accident introduces the theme of falling that pervades the narrative in references to suicidal leaps and Holden's own dream of saving children. In addition, the mixture of comedy and poignancy creates sympathy for Holden without making the novel sentimental. Finally, this moment suggests that when Holden attempts to do something that makes him anxious, his body lets him down as if it is expressing his reluctance to face what is ahead. Further examples of this occur when Holden falls over his suitcase when the prostitute comes to his hotel room, suggesting his anxiety about sex (Chapter 13); attempting to appear sophisticated to the nuns he meets at Grand Central Station, he accidentally blows cigarette smoke in their faces (Chapter 15); and when, trying to kiss Sally in the taxi, he falls off his seat, betraying his inexperience and reluctance to be physically intimate with her (Chapter 17). However unreliable his narrative, Holden's body language reveals a great deal about his state of mind. SECTION 2: AT THE EDMONT HOTEL (CHAPTERS 8-14)

Chapters

Throughout his narrative, Holden is persistently preoccupied with gender roles, sexuality and relationships. On the train to 42


Manhattan, he mocks the type of magazine story that has 'a lot of phony, lean-jawed guys named David in it, and a lot of phony girls named Linda or Marcia that are always lighting all the goddam Davids' pipes for them' (Salinger 1994a: 47). Holden recognizes that, as in the 'movies', these stories of men who are defined in terms of cliched signs of masculinity (lean-jawed' and pipe-smoking), and the women who defer to and serve them, offer an exaggerated, fake representation of relationships. Holden's revulsion for men like Stradlater and the generic 'Davids' of conventionalfictionleads to confusion about his own sexual feelings. Not wishing to be similarly objectifying or exploitative of women, Holden feels uncomfortable when he is attracted to the 'very good-looking' woman who joins him on the train: 'I don't mean I'm oversexed or anything like that - although I am quite sexy. I just like [women], I mean' (Salinger 1994a: 48). One of the things he likes about women is that they are 'always leaving their goddam bags out in the middle of the aisle' (Salinger 1994a: 48), as the woman on the train has done. This very specific example of what Holden perceives as typical female behaviour suggests that he sees women as endearing but impractical. His view of women is therefore ambivalent: although he worries about how men treat women, he also holds some traditional views. The woman he meets on the train is the mother of Ernest Morrow, 'the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey' (Salinger 1994a: 48). Holden's description of Ernest exemplifies Salinger's strategy of using one detail to explain a character. Ernest is 'the kind of a guy' who snaps his 'soggy old wet towel at people's asses' (Salinger 1994a: 48). It is left to the reader to guess what kind of person commits such an act, but cruelty disguised as playfulness is implied, along with a homo-erotic element. Holden tells Mrs Morrow that his name is Rudolph Schmidt (the name of the school janitor), which is the first time he lies about his name in the novel. His repeated use of pseudonyms positions him as a phony, but also highlights the instability of his identity. This instability is confirmed when he tells the women he meets at the hotel that his name is 'Jim Steele', an ultra-masculine name suitable for a man who might meet women in a bar or solicit a prostitute, as Holden goes on to do, using the same name. On this 43


occasion, his chosen name suggests that he wishes to escape his social class; later, he will imagine himself in blue-collar job, 'at a filling station somewhere' (Salinger 1994a: 178). Holden's attraction to Mrs Morrow is complicated by the fact that she is a mother. He lies to her to about her son's popularity to encourage her to feel warmly towards him, believing that 'mothers aren't too sharp' (Salinger 1994a: 50) and do not know the truth about their children, suggesting that he feels distant from his own parents. His belief that 'mothers are all slightly insane' (Salinger 1994a: 49) may be based on his own mother's difficulties since Allie's death: 'she hasn't felt too healthy since my brother [. . .] died' (Salinger 1994a: 97). By making a connection between his mother and Mrs Morrow, Holden desexualizes their encounter. Seeking the sympathy of a maternalfigure,Holden tells her that he has a 'tiny little tumor on the brain' (Salinger 1994a: 51), but realizes from her shocked reaction that his lies have gone too far, at which point he withdraws from her. Having built his conversation on lies, Holden has sabotaged exactly the kind of connection he craves with an older person who might guide him. This illustrates both his vulnerability and his instability. Chapter 9

From this chapter onwards (until Chapter 26, which returns to California) the novel is set in Manhattan. As the encounter with Mrs Morrow shows, Holden seeks connection with others and, throughout the narrative, either makes, or plans to make, many telephone calls. However, at this stage, he cannot think of anyone to call, not even Jane: just as he never managed to see her at Pencey, he never manages to reach her on the phone, often commenting that he does not 'feel like' calling (Salinger 1994a: 53). Holden relies on memories of ideal moments to sustain him; if Jane has been changed by her date with Stradlater, his memories of the tenderness they shared will be irrevocably spoiled. Repeatedly, Holden's anxieties about loss are indirectly expressed through his concern about the ducks in Central Park. He first considers their fate when listening to Mr Spencer in Chapter 2, linking his teacher's advanced age to death and loss, symbolized by the ducks. Now that he is in the city the question 44


recurs. The ducks signify absence: it is winter and they have left the Park that Holden knew in childhood. Like Allie, the ducks are part of Holden's past and hefindstheir absence inexplicable. He asks a taxi driver where the ducks have gone and he takes the response to his question - 'He [. . .] looked at me like I was a madman' (Salinger 1994a: 54) - as evidence of its complexity. Yet when Holden comments later that he is fond of a museum display of 'birds flying south for the winter' (Salinger 1994a: 109), he reveals that he knows about migration, which offers the most obvious explanation for the ducks' disappearance. His inability to answer his own question thus suggests that, traumatized by Allie's death, he sees incomprehensible loss everywhere. Holden's experiences at the Edmont Hotel are all associated with gender and sex. First, Holden is shocked by the people he sees from the window of his room. One man, 'very distinguishedlooking', is doing 'something you wouldn't believe if I told you' (Salinger 1994a: 55), although Holden does in fact tell us that the man is cross-dressing, an act that challenges the strict gender boundaries that Holden has been socialized to understand as normal. He then sees a couple squirting liquids at each other, but although he can see that they are having fun - 'They were in hysterics the whole time' - he considers them 'perverts' (Salinger 1994a: 55). His condemnation indicates his confused feelings about sex: he is both repelled and fascinated by what he sees, conceding that the couple may be having fun but maintaining that he does not 'like the idea' (Salinger 1994a: 56) of their actions. This is because Holden sees sexual activity as something imposed by a man on a woman: 'if you do like [a girl], [. . .] you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to [her]' (Salinger 1994a: 56). A product of the repressive post-war era in America, when sexual desire was considered unspeakable and clear information about sex was rare, Holden comments twice in this chapter that he does not understand sex and is uncertain about the boundaries of behaviour. However, he is full of curiosity and unfulfilled desire: 'In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw' (Salinger 1994a: 56). Desperate to gain experience, he attempts to arrange a date with Faith Cavendish, but flounders as he adopts a contrived persona and Faith mishears his name 45


as 'Mr Cawffle' (Salinger 1994a: 58). This misunderstanding underlines the uncertainty of his identity, reflecting his position between childhood and adulthood. Chapter 10

In this chapter Holden reflects on his relationship with his sister Phoebe, who will prove to be one of the centralfiguresin the narrative. As he gets ready to visit the hotel's nightclub, the Lavender Room, Holden compares himself with his siblings: Phoebe is 'really smart' and Allie 'was a wizard', while Holden is 'the only dumb one in the family' (Salinger 1994a: 60), indicating his low self-esteem. Similarities between Phoebe and Allie provoke Holden's affection, but also increase his fears: if Allie can be lost, so can his sister. Phoebe is a sophisticated child who enjoyed The Baker's Wife (1938), a French film about a village that acts together to return the baker's wayward wife to him so that he will resume making bread, suggesting that Phoebe favours social order. However, her favourite film is The 39 Steps (1935), whose plot is concerned with escape, injustice and identity confusion. The moment in thefilmthat Holden describes, when the 'professor [. . .] that's really a German spy' (Salinger 1994a: 61) reveals that the hero is in danger from someone he hoped would help him, parallels Holden's later encounter with his former teacher, Mr Antolini (Chapter 24). Holden trusts Antolini but is frightened when his teacher touches him while he sleeps: as with the bogus professor in thefilm,who is identified as a villain by having part of a finger missing, the actions of Antolini's hands suggest that he may not be an ally after all. In this description and in later encounters with Phoebe, Holden expresses some discomfort about Phoebe's emotional openness: she is 'a little too affectionate sometimes' (Salinger 1994a: 61) and 'Sometimes she's even too affectionate' (Salinger 1994a: 146). Given his fondness for his sister, it is difficult to understand why he would feel uncomfortable about her displays of affection. Perhaps, because he struggles to express his own emotions, he is unnerved by Phoebe's openness; or perhaps physical contact with her reminds him of the loss of Allie: damaging his own hands when Allie died may have signified Holden's with46


drawal from physical as well as mental connection with others, erecting a barrier that Phoebe attempts to cross. One of the recurring phrases that characterizes Holden's narrative is 'killed me', meaning that something or someone made him laugh. Here he uses the phrase in relation to Phoebe to express how much she amuses him, but he also comments that 'She killed Allie, too. I mean he liked her, too' (Salinger 1994a: 61). Since Phoebe has no responsibility for Allie's death, Holden's redundant clarification indicates that he is constantly aware that Allie is dead. In the nightclub Holden meets three women - evoking the three witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth - named Bernice, Marty and Laverne. Their names signify their working-class status, compared with the girls that Holden knows, Phoebe, Sally and Jane. Once again, Holden displays his ambivalent attitude to women, previously seen in his meeting with Mrs Morrow: although he makes insulting remarks about the women in the bar, commenting that they are 'pretty ugly' and 'three real morons', he concedes that one of them is 'sort of cute' (Salinger 1994a: 62-3). Despite his condemnation of Stradlater's objectification of women as sexual objects, Holden disdainfully mocks their small-town roots, their aspiration to see a celebrity, their manners and intelligence, which suggests that he too values appearance over personality: despite his negative attitudes, he says he is 'about half in love with' (Salinger 1994a: 65) Bernice because she dances so well. The episode with the women in the Edmont Hotel typifies the way in which Holden's unreliable narration reveals his lack of self-awareness, itself a sign of his troubled state of mind. Holden's self-perception is often at odds with the way he is seen by others, but the reader has to interpret details of his narrative to discern this, because he does not. For example, he believes that the women are giggling at him because they are 'ignorant' (Salinger 1994a: 65), but it seems more likely that 16-year-old Holden, although assured of his superior social skills, actually looks like what he is, a teenager pretending to be an adult. He does not recognize the significance of the women's repeated questions about his age and whether his father is available for a date, or understand why they 47


keep 'kidding' him about drinking Cokes (Salinger 1994a: 67). This disparity between Holden's perception and that of those around him recurs throughout the narrative. Chapter 11

Holden's reactions to women and sexual matters are one of the central themes of the novel. This has been established by his complex relationship with Jane, his blunders with Mrs Morrow, his anxious fascination with the hotel's guests and his failure to connect on any level with the women in the Lavender Room. Now his thoughts return to Jane: his understanding that 'You don't always have to get too sexy to get to know a girl' (Salinger 1994a: 69) confirms, in contrast to Stradlater, his desire to develop a relationship with a woman that is not simply sexual. Holden's description of Jane shows that she is an ideal partner for him: she reads, she is interested in Holden's stories about Allie, they are 'friends' (Salinger 1994a: 69) and, like Allie and Phoebe, Jane 'kill[s]' him (Salinger 1994a: 70). Although he claims that he likes it best 'when you can kid the pants off a girl' (Salinger 1994a: 70), a phrase that conveys sexual playfulness, the girls Holden likes the most are 'the ones I never feel much like kidding' (Salinger 1994a: 70), like Jane, for whom he has both loving and sexual feelings. This chapter makes clear what is implied in Chapter 6 when Holdenfightswith Stradlater: Jane is a centralfigurein Holden's life and her loss is painful to him, even though he feels sure that 'she wouldn't let [Stradlater] get to first base with her' (Salinger 1994a: 72). He now recounts the incident when, having been reduced to tears by her stepfather, Holden kissed her repeatedly, though never on the lips. He describes this as 'the closest we ever got to necking' (Salinger 1994a: 71), but the reader recognizes that their intimacy is more than sexual. Similarly, the two spend much time just holding hands: Jane 'was terrific to hold hands with' (Salinger 1994a: 71) and in these moments, Holden comments, All you knew was, you were happy. You really were' (Salinger 1994a: 72). Jane's hand resting on the back of Holden's neck is another sign of genuine intimacy and comfort, one that is almost maternal. 48


Having apparently lost Jane, however, Holden is himself lost, moving aimlessly around the city. On his way to a nightclub, he returns to the subject of those who consider themselves superior to others, in this case Ernie, 'a big fat colored guy that plays the piano' (Salinger 1994a: 72). Despite his condemnation of other people's superficiality, Holden's description of Ernie indicates that he judges people in terms of appearance and reproduces a racial hierarchy that positions whiteness as the norm, against which other races are defined. Likewise, Holden later expresses disgust about a 'very Cuban-looking guy' that he sees in a bar (Salinger 1994a: 82), and praises a 'colored' singer (Salinger 1994a: 104) named Estelle Fletcher for her 'whorehouse' style of singing. Although sometimes sensitive to inequalities of class, Holden is less aware of the ways in which he reproduces racial stereotypes that were common in the USA in this era, such as the sexualization of African Americans. Chapter 12

Holden's unhappy emotional state is made clear by his continued focus on the ducks in Central Park. The cab driver, Horowitz, is more concerned about the fish, because he believes that they are frozen in the ice: 'It's tougher for thefish,the winter and all, than it is for the ducks' (Salinger 1994a: 75). His comments imply that it is harder to stay behind and face difficulties than it is to leave: Holden would, in this metaphor, rather be a duck than a fish. Horowitz's theory suggests arrested time, like the exhibits in the museum, but he contends that 'If you was afish,Mother Nature'd take care of you, wouldn't she? Right? You don't think them fish just die when it gets to be winter, do ya?' (Salinger 1994a: 76). In Holden's experience, however, certain living things are simply allowed to die, not least his brother Allie: 'Mother Nature' did not take care of him and this disturbs Holden's faith in nature. Throughout the novel, Holden is sensitive to the possibility of corruption: and he sees several examples at Ernie's. He considers Ernie's playing to be 'show-offy' for an audience of 'morons' and 'dopes' (Salinger 1994a: 76) who do not appreciate real skill: the audience is a corrupting force that encourages Ernie to be 'phony'; if Holden were a pianist he claims that he would 'play it 49


in the goddam closet' (Salinger 1994a: 77). As with his earlier comments about his older brother D. B., Holden suggests that the lure of audience approval taints an artist. Sitting in the club, Holden again reflects on gender roles and relationships. A couple nearby is composed of a 'boring' man and an 'ugly' woman (Salinger 1994a: 77). She 'had to listen' to him because she is unattractive: 'Real ugly girls have it tough. I feel so sorry for them sometimes' (Salinger 1994a: 77). Although a cruel description, Holden seems to be motivated by sympathy for women who are under social pressure to attract a man at any cost. Another couple evoke Holden's preoccupation with death and his discomfort about sex. The 'Joe Yale-looking guy' (a wealthy student of a prestigious Ivy League university) and 'terrific-looking' girl (Salinger 1994a: 78) have all the sociallyapproved attributes. However, the man is telling his partner about someone he knew who committed suicide while 'giving her a feel under the table' (Salinger 1994a: 78), putting the woman in the difficult position of having to appear sympathetic to the story while trying to discourage his sexual advances. The man's manipulative act evokes Stradlater, while the subject of the conversation anticipates James Castle, whose suicide Holden has not yet disclosed, and echoes Holden's own suicidal thoughts. Chapter 13

Holden's anxieties about sex, heightened by his recent experiences, prompt him to get himself in a 'big mess': 'against [his] principles and all' (Salinger 1994a: 82), he agrees to have a prostitute sent to his room. He reveals that he is a virgin and claims that the main reason for this is that when a girl tells him to stop, he does, although he believes that 'Most guys don't' (Salinger 1994a: 83). This confirms that Holden refuses to exploit the girls he dates in the way that Stradlater does, although it also suggests Holden fears sexual contact as much as he desires it. His argument that a passionate girl 'just hasn't any brains' (Salinger 1994a: 84) suggests that some of the girls he has dated are willing to be physically intimate and it is Holden who, in the guise of protecting them, sets the boundaries on their sexual activities, a reversal of conventional gender roles. 50


Holden's encounter with Sunny confirms his nervousness about sex. As when he leaves Pencey and slips on peanut-shells, his encounter with the prostitute has a slapstick element: he 'damn near broke [his] knee' (Salinger 1994a: 85) falling over his suitcase when Sunny arrives. Believing himself to be 'nonchalant' and 'suave' (Salinger 1994a: 85), he notes that she is 'very nervous, for a prostitute' (Salinger 1994a: 85). While that may be true, it is likely that Holden has nervous feelings that he is reluctant to acknowledge and projects these onto Sunny. Even his manly persona, 'Jim Steele' (Salinger 1994a: 85), does not protect him from feeling 'peculiar' when she begins to undress. His comment, 'I know you're supposed to feel pretty sexy when somebody gets up and pulls their dress over their head, but I didn't' (Salinger 1994a: 85-6) is oddly phrased, since he uses words that are not gender-specific although he is talking about a woman. This indicates a desire to disengage just at the moment when he might be expected to feel most involved. Holden's discomfort is confirmed by the fact that he then tries to delay having sex by engaging Sunny in conversation. As with his desire to protect Jane from the corrupting influence of male sexual desire, Holden's empathy with Sunny and sadness at her exploitation makes it impossible for him to have sex with her. He learns that Sunny comes from 'Hollywood' (Salinger 1994a: 86), which links her to his brother D. B., who is in Hollywood, 'being a prostitute' (Salinger 1994a: 1) in the film industry. As Salinger's childhood nickname was 'Sonny', the implied link between D. B. and Sunny extends to him, suggesting that he too is uncomfortable with prostituting his art to entertain an audience. Apparently conscious of issues of exploitation, Holden asks Sunny if she minds very much if they don't 'do it' (Salinger 1994a: 87), seemingly concerned that he might offend her by refusing. By applying the same standards of behaviour to his liaison with Sunny as he does with any other woman, Holden demonstrates his naivety but also his respect for women. Holden justifies his decision to refuse sex by noting Sunny's enjoyment of the movies. Interestingly, she compares him to an actor, one who plays the role of a 'kid brother [. . .] that falls off this boat' (Salinger 1994a: 87): as well as demoting him to a 51


subordinate role now that he has revealed himself to be too afraid to have sex, her comment offers a reminder that Holden's own 'kid brother' is the source of much of his sadness. The reference to falling is also noteworthy in a text that contains several images of boys falling to their deaths. The film she refers to is probably Captains Courageous (1937), a classic coming-of-age tale in which Freddie Bartholomew plays Melvyn Douglas's son. Bartholomew falls from an ocean liner, is rescued by a fishing trawler and learns some important lessons from the men he meets there. Bartholomew was 13 years old when he made thefilm,so the similarity that Sunny claims to see between Holden and Bartholomew once again undermines his perception of himself as an adult and reminds the reader of Holden's unreliability as a narrator. Chapter 14

Holden's response to the episode with Sunny shows that his relationship with Allie has taken on an almost religious dimension. Shaken, he begins talking to Allie, 'sort of out loud' (Salinger 1994a: 89). Being 'sort of an atheist', Holden cannot pray: but his prayer-like words to Allie have a calming effect, and he begins to think about Jesus, who he likes, and 'other stuff in the Bible', like Christ's Disciples, who 'annoy the hell out of him (Salinger 1994a: 89). Holden's sense that the Disciples let Christ down reflects his own anxiety that he let Allie down in some way, and Allie's almost saint-like persona underscores the parallel with Christ in this situation. Holden also likes the 'lunatic' (Salinger 1994a: 89) who is described in Mark, Ch. V: possessed by demons, he yearns to be saved from madness and begs Christ to cleanse him. Later, at the height of his crisis, Holden calls on Allie to save him: 'Allie, don't let me disappear' (Salinger 1994a: 178). This endorses the implied parallel between Allie and Christ and between Holden and the 'lunatic'. Such a parallel does not mean that Holden understands Allie to be literally Christ-like, but suggests that he, like Christ, represents the possibility of salvation. Like his failure to have sex with Sunny, Holden's fight with Maurice (Sunny's pimp) undermines his sense of masculinity. Although he tries to stand his ground, Holden, like a child, is in his pyjamas while Maurice is fully dressed, his adult masculinity 52


further signified by his exposed 'big fat hairy stomach' (Salinger 1994a: 91). Earlier, Holden does not notice anything about Maurice: he is simply 'the elevator guy' (Salinger 1994a: 82). Now he perceives him to be 'a huge sonuvabitch' (Salinger 1994a: 91): but Holden, although scared, refuses to comply with Maurice's demand for an extra five dollars for Sunny's services, contradicting his earlier self-assessment as 'yellow' (Salinger 1994a: 81). Once again, Holden's perceptions of himself and others are revealed to be inconsistent. Maurice ends the discussion with brute force, punching Holden in the stomach after 'snapping] his finger very hard' on Holden's pajama trousers (Salinger 1994a: 93), an act with a sexual undertone that seems a mocking reminder of Holden's inability to have sex with Sunny. Once alone, Holden imagines himself as an actor in afilmwho pretends to have been shot in the stomach. This strategy shields him from the reality of his situation, because - as he has established - films are 'phony' and the painful situations they represent are not real. Through thisfilmscenario, Holden imagines a different outcome to his encounter with Maurice, in which he becomes a cliche of hyper-masculinity: despite having 'a bullet in my guts', he hunts down Maurice, who is 'screaming [. . .] in this very high-pitched, yellow-belly voice, to leave him alone' (Salinger 1994a: 93-4). Humiliated and emasculated by Maurice, Holden takes revenge by reversing their roles in his fantasy. Despite the bravado of his daydream, Holden's vulnerability is increasingly evident. Although he recovers some sense of himself as sexually successful by imagining Jane tending his wounds, his comment 'The goddam movies. They can ruin you. I'm not kidding' (Salinger 1994a: 94) shows his awareness that his movie fantasy is fake. The comfort it offers is therefore short-lived: within the hour Holden feels like 'committing suicide' (Salinger 1994a: 94). He attributes his decision not to 'jump [. . .] out the window' (Salinger 1994a: 94) to his fear of further exposure to the gaze of strangers like Sunny and Maurice. This fear becomes more understandable later, once the death of James Castle has been described: Holden relates Mr Antolini's efforts to save the dead boy, who has jumped from a window, from the gaze of 'a bunch of stupid rubbernecks' (Salinger 1994a: 94). 53


SECTION 3: AROUND MANHATTAN (CHAPTERS 15-20)

Chapter 15

This chapter begins a section of the novel in which Holden seems increasingly anxious and his attempts to make meaningful connections with other people become ever more desperate. Still not 'in the mood' (Salinger 1994a: 95) to call Jane, despite her prominent role in his fantasy, Holden turns to Sally Hayes. Instead of reaching out to the person he really cares for, he turns to someone that he is not 'too crazy about' (Salinger 1994a: 95), perhaps because there will be little emotional risk in spending time with Sally. Sally's value is principally sexual - she is 'a pain in the ass, but she [is] very good-looking' (Salinger 1994a: 96) and Holden needs to retrieve some sense of himself as sexually successful. His next destination, Grand Central Station, emphasizes that he is in transit, not only between places - he acknowledges that he has 'no place to go' (Salinger 1994a: 96) but between stages in his life, past and future, childhood and adulthood. The theme of social and financial privilegeflowsthrough this chapter. Noting that he is low on money, Holden reveals directly what the text has already implied, that his father is 'quite wealthy' (Salinger 1994a: 97). By contrast, the 'inexpensive-looking suitcases' (Salinger 1994a: 97) carried by the nuns Holden meets at the station signify their vows of poverty and their difference from his social circle. This leads Holden to remember Dick Slagle, a room-mate from a previous school who also had cheap cases. Holden recalls his painful awareness that, as with the nuns, these possessions symbolize wider issues: although Holden and Dick got along well, their suitcases were evidence of the social inequality between them, which tainted their relationship. Holden recognizes the difficulty of transcending the boundaries of wealth and privilege in a competitive, class-conscious society. Similarly, he feels guilty that he has more money and greater social status than the nuns. He attempts to assuage his guilt by offering to pay for their food and donating money to their charity but is then embarrassed by the thanks he receives, which only confirms the inequalities between them. 54


Like the scene with Ernest Morrow's mother, Holden's meeting with the nuns establishes that he strives to place women in one of two standard, mutually exclusive categories: maternal or sexual. By likening one of the nuns to Mrs Morrow, the narrative suggests that Holden views her as a mother figure. However, his attempt to categorize her as maternal is frustrated by her enthusiasm for books with 'a lot of sexy stuff in them' (Salinger 1994a: 99). Holden is embarrassed to discuss Romeo and Juliet with her. By disparaging Romeo - 'I never liked Romeo too much' (Salinger 1994a: 100) - he rejects the archetypal romantic male role, attempting to keep the discussion away from sex. Equally, his focus on Mercutio reflects his fears, guilt and grief, since there is an obvious link to Allie in his comments that 'it drives me crazy if somebody gets killed - especially someone very smart and entertaining and all - and it's somebody else's fault'(Salinger 1994a: 100). Chapter 16

The opening paragraphs of this chapter are concerned with Holden's understanding of different models of femininity. Initially, he considers the differences between the nuns and the privileged women of his own social circle, whom he disparages for their reluctance to undertake charity work. This is evidence of his tendency to place men and women in separate spheres: Holden clearly does not consider charity men's work. Holden also has diverse expectations of women of different races. The record he buys for Phoebe, 'Little Shirley Beans' by 'this colored girl singer' (Salinger 1994a: 104), Estelle Fletcher, has a 'whorehouse' quality, despite its bland subject matter. He contends that a white singer would make the song 'cute\ suggesting innocence, 'but old Estelle Fletcher knew what the hell she was doing' (Salinger 1994a: 104). These comments suggest that Holden views black women as more sexual than white women, a common racial prejudice. For all his rebellious attitudes, Holden is unable to shake off certain cliches about racial identity. Leaving the station, Holden witnesses a scene that reflects his sense of isolation: a six-year-old boy is walking in the road, ignored by his parents on the pavement, symbolizing the gulf 55


between adults and children. Highlighting the significance of the novel's title, the boy is singing 'that song, "If a body catch a body coming through the rye'" (Salinger 1994a: 104). It is not clear whether Holden mishears or whether the boy has got the words wrong: as Phoebe later points out (Chapter 22), the correct words to the poem by Robert Burns, 'Comin' Through the Rye' (1796), are 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye' (Salinger 1994a: 155). The misinterpretation removes the poem's sexual connotations, which are very strong in Burns's original, underscoring Holden's discomfort with adult sexuality. Equally important in a narrative containing numerous references to falling is the song's focus on catching a body. No wonder Holdenfindsthe boy and his song engaging, given that they mirror his own situation and concerns. As with earlier allusions to Holden's choice of reading matter, this chapter contains references to texts that reiterate the narrative's themes. After yet another failed attempt to contact Jane, Holden buys tickets for the play, I Know My Love (1949) by S. N. Behrman, featuring 'the Lunts' (Salinger 1994a: 105), the common name for the theatrical couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. The title of the show is striking given that rumours of homosexuality followed the Lunts throughout their long marriage. Holden is fascinated by homosexuality, even though he feels uncomfortable about it, as shown in his anxious comments about Carl Luce in Chapter 19: Holden is shocked by Luce's revelations about actors who are not as heterosexual as they seem and, in Chapter 24, he is alarmed to find that Mr Antolini - a married man - seems to desire him. The rumours about the Lunts' sexuality also suggest that they may be phony, and not simply because they are actors, who in Holden's opinion 'never act like people' (Salinger 1994a: 105). Holden's second example of the failings of actors is Laurence Olivier, whose version of Hamlet (1948) did not meet Holden's expectations that Hamlet should be portrayed as a 'sad, screwedup type guy' (Salinger 1994a: 106), which is how Holden appears to the reader. As with the Lunts, biographers have suggested that Olivier had homosexual relationships, which makes a suggestive link between these actors, and points up the difficulty of being 56


open about sexual identity in a repressive era: if they are 'phony' in terms of their sexuality, these actors may not be so from choice. Holden's comments on Olivier'sfilmalso echo another of the novel's central concerns, relationships between siblings. The only part of Olivier's film that Holden enjoyed is when Ophelia is 'horsing around' (Salinger 1994a: 106) with her brother, since it evokes his affection for Phoebe; even the names of the two girls, which contain the same letters, 'oph'/'pho', are similar. He does not comment on the hint of incest between Ophelia and Laertes, an act of desexualizing censorship comparable to his error with the lyrics of 'Comin' Through the Rye'. Unable tofindPhoebe in Central Park, Holden decides to walk to the Museum of Natural History, a place that he visited as a child and which he expects she has visited recently, as a way of feeling connected to her. As well as talking to a girl Phoebe's age in this chapter, Holden also tries to play with two boys on a seesaw, but realizes that 'they didn't want me around' (Salinger 1994a: 110): Holden may still long for his childhood and the company of children, but to them he is an adult, further evidence of his position between the two states. The Museum is an important location in the narrative, a place that Holden is drawn to in his memories and in his journey around Manhattan, because it represents the preservation of the past. Walking through Central Park he remembers that he 'loved that damn museum' (Salinger 1994a: 108) as a child, and has vivid memories of seeing the life-size models of Indians and an Eskimo when he visited with his school class. All the exhibits are static, in glass cases, and it is this immobile quality that Holden finds comforting: 'The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move' (Salinger 1994a: 109). Change, for Holden, means loss: time passes, people die or leave, experience corrupts innocence. However, while the exhibits do not change, Holden has to concede that people inevitably do. 'Nobody'd be different', he says, meaning the model people, The only thing that would be different would be you9 (Salinger 1994a: 109). Holden is depressed by this gradual but inescapable process 57


of change because, for him, it has no positive consequences: 'Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone' (Salinger 1994a: 110). Although this is an image of isolation and unnatural stillness, Holden prefers it to the danger he associates with change. At the end of the chapter Holden reaches the museum and cannot bring himself to enter: 'I wouldn't have gone inside for a million bucks' (Salinger 1994a: 110). The strength of his reaction suggests that he is afraid to find that the museum, the only place of stillness and safety he can imagine, has changed after all or that he will no longer feel the same as he did in the past. Chapter 17

This chapter describes Holden's date with Sally, during which he reflects on gender identity, and reveals his deteriorating mental state. Having imagined the static exhibits in the museum, Holden now turns to another kind of 'sightseeing' (Salinger 1994a: 111): in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel, waiting for Sally, he watches 'girls', using the word nine times to suggest the number and variety he sees. As he catalogues these women with a mixture of voyeurism and affection, he wonders 'what the hell would happen to all of them' (Salinger 1994a: 111). He believes that 'most of them would probably marry dopey guys' (Salinger 1994a: 111), showing his awareness that his social class values the perceived safety of marriage. He then turns his attention to the flaws he perceives in 'guys', including being boring, which reminds him of yet another school room-mate, Harris Macklin, who, although a bore, was a good whistler. As so often in the novel, a small detail is used to make a broader point: when Holden concludes that it might be acceptable for a girl to marry a boring guy if he is a 'terrific whistler' (Salinger 1994a: 112), he suggests that the most unpromising people can have special qualities. This illustrates that, although Holden is often distracted by superficial appearances, as when he watches the girls, he has the capacity to see beneath the surface, in relation to men at least. Holden is increasingly troubled by contradictory feelings and has difficulty discerning the reality of a situation. When Sally 58


arrives, he says 'I felt like marrying her the minute I saw her. I'm crazy. I didn't even like her much' (Salinger 1994a: 112). Some of his enthusiasm may come from desire - Sally 'looked terrific' (Salinger 1994a: 112) - but Sally is also the first familiar face Holden has seen since leaving Pencey and his eagerness reflects his loneliness. His self-perception becomes increasingly skewed during his date with Sally, evidenced by his comment that 'I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it' (Salinger 1994a: 113). If he speaks sincerely, he does not tell a lie, but it seems more likely that the untruth exists in the claim that he ever 'meant it' at all. His relationship with Sally, like his liaison with Mrs Morrow in Chapter 8, is built on lies and destined to fail, which, in the context of Holden's fear of sexual intimacy, is the outcome he unconsciously desires. Holden's unreliability as a narrator is further illustrated by his belief that he is being 'seductive as hell' (Salinger 1994a: 113) in the taxi, even though he falls off his seat twice, suggesting sexual incompetence. The performance by the Lunts that Holden and Sally attend evokes that of Ernie, the nightclub pianist (Chapter 12): all are 'showing off5 (Salinger 1994a: 114) in Holden's view, too aware of their audience. 'George something' (Salinger 1994a: 114), who Sally meets in the interval, is also performing: he was 'the kind of a phony that have to give themselves room when they answer somebody's question' (Salinger 1994a: 114-15). Holden resents George's overbearing presence and his disdainful attitudes towards 'shows and books and women' (Salinger 1994a: 115), which implies that all are comparable objects. Holden's sense of difference from George and his circle increases his feelings of isolation and desire to escape. Holden's reason for not jumping from his hotel room window (Chapter 14) was that he does not like to have his vulnerabilities made into a spectacle for others, and his sense of exposure continues on his date with Sally. At the skating rink, they are so inept that he feels humiliated by the gaze of 'rubbernecks' (Salinger 1994a: 116), exactly the same term he uses earlier to imagine those who would stare at his dead body (Salinger 1994a: 94). Feeling vulnerable, Holden encourages Sally to run away with


him, and this conversation shows that he has little awareness of his behaviour. For example, while he outlines his plans to Sally and complains about what he hates about Manhattan and life at school, Sally tells him 'Don't shout, please' (Salinger 1994a: 117). He thinks this is 'very funny, because I wasn't even shouting' (Salinger 1994a: 117), further evidence that Holden is unreliable. Refusing to participate in his plan, Sally adds, 'stop screaming at me, please', but very soon has to tell Holden that she cannot hear him: 'One minute you scream at me, and the next you - ' (Salinger 1994a: 119). Although Holden denies that he was raising his voice, this difference in point of view is reminiscent of misunderstandings that Holden has experienced with other characters: the women he meets at the Lavender Room, the children he meets in the park, the taxi drivers who become heated or do not seem to understand him, Maurice (when he demands more money). Holden presents all of these characters as people who misunderstand him, inexplicably feel uncomfortable with him, or try to cheat him. However, his assessment is thrown into doubt as the narrative continues, not because Holden reveals himself to be the 'terrific liar' (Salinger 1994a: 14) that he claimed to be earlier, but because it becomes increasingly clear that he is losing the ability to understand himself and relate to those around him. This has an impact on the reader's experience, too: because a first-person narrator allows no other perspective on events or characters, Holden's crisis of understanding is as inescapable for the reader as it is for him. By placing the reader in the same position as Holden, Salinger creates empathy for his protagonist. Despite his misperceptions of his own behaviour, there are suggestions that Holden is becoming aware of his approaching breakdown. His complaints about school - 'full of phonies' (Salinger 1994a: 118) - are much as they have been in earlier chapters, but his perception, 'I'm in bad shape. I'm in lousy shape' (Salinger 1994a: 118), suggests that, even if he is focusing on his physical health, he knows that something is wrong. He envisions escaping the city for a simpler, rural existence, starting a new life with Sally in a cabin in Vermont. She sees this for the fantasy it is, however, and quashes it further by refuting that they are free to make adult 60


plans: 'In the first place, we're both practically c/n/dren' (Salinger 1994a: 119). She confirms this immaturity by using the childish word 'oodles' when she tries to convince Holden that his plan will still be possible 'after you go to college and all, and if we get married and all' (Salinger 1994a: 119). Sally's vision of a conventional future highlights the difference between the two characters: imagining himself 'working in some office, making a lot of dough, riding to work in cabs' (Salinger 1994a: 119-20), Holden knows that his chance to escape will be lost for good, while Sally does not consider such a conventional future undesirable. Chapter 18 Having alienated Sally, Holden is desperate for company and a sense of purpose. Killing time before his meeting with Carl Luce, a boy from a previous school with extensive sexual knowledge, Holden visits Radio City Music Hall. This is a further example of his contradictory behaviour, because he regularly disparages the 'movies' and claimed to be 'depressed' (Salinger 1994a: 67) by the eagerness of the women he met in the Lavender Room to attend the same venue. The vast Radio City is famous for its stage shows, although Holden is unimpressed by the Christmas show: concerned as always with what is 'phony', he identifies the incongruity of celebrating Christmas with 'fancy costumes' rather than 'anything religious or pretty' (Salinger 1994a: 124). That Sally considers his negative response - rather than the show itself - to be 'sacrilegious' (Salinger 1994a: 124) demonstrates the irreconcilable differences between them. Holden's earlier claim that he 'like[s] Jesus and all' (Salinger 1994a: 89) is confirmed here by his awareness of the disparity between the show's commercialism and the spiritual meaning of Christmas: 'Jesus probably would've puked if He could see it' (Salinger 1994a: 124). However unimpressed by the show, Holden does appreciate the 'guy that plays the kettle drums' (Salinger 1994a: 124). Like the figures in the museum, the drummer has been part of the show for as long as Holden can remember and, like them, he hardly ever moves. The drummer thus represents the past and stands for continuity, which counters Holden's sense of loss. The link to Holden's childhood is emphasized by Allie's fondness for the drummer. 61


Typical of Holden's apparently unwitting contradictory comments, he says of the film he then watches, 'It was so putrid I couldn't take my eyes off it' (Salinger 1994a: 124). Described in great detail, the film is similar to Random Harvest (1942), in which a shell-shocked First World War soldier loses all memory of his prewar life and marries, only to have his memory return after an accident that wipes all memory of his post-war life. After a complex series of coincidences, the soldier's memory returns and he is reunited with his wife. The film emphasizes the cruelty of random events, but ensures that order is ultimately restored, a comforting result that engages Holden despite his cynicism. However, he can never fully escape his preoccupations: the woman he sees crying over the film is actually 'as kind-hearted as a goddam wolf (Salinger 1994a: 126) because she will not take care of her child and thus epitomizes the phoniness that Holden despises. This chapter contains further literary references that mirror the novel's preoccupations. A novel about adversity in childhood by Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (1838), Ernest Hemingway's novel about loss during Italy in the First World War, A Farewell to Arms (1929), and F. Scott Fitzgerald's definitive novel about 1920s decadence, The Great Gatsby (1925), appear here along with the First World War poet Rupert Brooke and the innovative nineteenth-century poet, Emily Dickinson (Salinger 1994a: 125-7). Hemingway and Brooke are directly associated with the 1914-18 war, as is the film Holden has been watching, while Dickinson, although not usually associated with war poetry, is famed for her powerful poems about death. This may be why Allie considered Dickinson a better war poet than Brooke, since Brooke is most commonly associated with his few poems that romanticize death in wartime and thus could be considered a phony. Holden found the hero of Hemingway's novel 'phony' (Salinger 1994a: 127) too, but D. B., who was in the Army during the Second World War, thought it 'terrific' (Salinger 1994a: 127), suggesting that it resonates for those who have experienced war directly. Cushioned from such trauma, Holden prefers Fitzgerald, whose novel critiques the false promises of American society, much like Holden's narrative. However, Holden's comments make it clear that he trusts D. B.'s assessment of the war - 'the Army 62


was practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were' (Salinger 1994a: 126) - and his claims that he would rather be shot than face combat and will 'volunteer' to 'sit right the hell on top' (Salinger 1994a: 127) of the atomic bomb in the event of war are radical. Reiterating his rebellious stance, Holden suggests that the practice of war is not honourable and that he will refuse to participate in any future hostility, comments that are both 'un-American' and redolent of the anti-war counter-culture that would arise over later conflicts, such as that in Vietnam. Chapter 19

The subject of this chapter, Holden's encounter with Carl Luce at the Wicker Bar, could be read as a comic interlude, but it echoes some of the novel's key themes, especially sexuality. They meet in a bar frequented by 'phonies' and 'flits' (Salinger 1994a: 128-9), the latter a word used to refer to homosexual men. Holden's comments suggest a parallel between phoniness and homosexuality, although the man he sees 'snowing hell out of the babe he was with' (Salinger 1994a: 129) is equally phony. The theme of homosexuality, which will reappear in Chapter 24 when Holden visits Mr Antolini, is dominant in the early stages of this chapter. Holden explains that Luce has an encyclopaedic knowledge of 'sex, especially perverts and all. [. . .] And flits and Lesbians' (Salinger 1994a: 129). In the repressive post-war era, Luce's information about homosexual 'movie actors' is particularly surprising, since it would destroy an actor's career. Luce's extensive knowledge may imply that he is himself a member of the gay subculture, and Holden notes that Luce is 'sort of flitty' (Salinger 1994a: 129). Whatever the truth about Luce's sexuality, he has certainly frightened younger boys with his claims that 'you could turn into one [a 'flit'] practically overnight' (Salinger 1994a: 129). Since Holden already has many anxieties about sex, Luce's suggestion that sexual identity is unstable intensifies his discomfort. The conversation focuses on sex. Several of Holden's questions suggest that he is drunk, emphasized by the contrast between his abrupt questions and sloppy pronunciation and Luce's calm statements: 63


'I simply happen to find Eastern philosophy more satisfactory than Western. Since you ask.9 'You do? Wuddaya mean "philosophy"? Ya mean sex and all? You mean it's better in China? That what you mean?' (Salinger 1994a: 132) Holden copies Luce's words, suggesting that he sees him as a role model: he tells Luce to 'relax', which is what Luce has just said to him; Luce uses the word 'Listen' (Salinger 1994a: 130-31) early in the conversation, suggesting his command of Holden's attention, and Holden uses the same word (Salinger 1994a: 132) when he tries to make Luce divulge personal information. Twice, Luce asks Holden when he is 'going to grow up' (Salinger 1994a: 130,131) and several of Holden's questions are childish, reiterating his immaturity. However, Holden's insistence that he regards sex as 'a physical and spiritual experience' (Salinger 1994a: 132) and that he 'can never get sexy [. . .] with a girl I don't like a lot' (Salinger 1994a: 133) actually suggest a maturity that an older boy like Stradlater has not yet achieved. Luce suggests that Holden see a psychoanalyst, indicating that his troubled state of mind is obvious to others if not to himself. When Luce leaves Holden at the bar, he feels 'lonesome as hell' (Salinger 1994a: 134), indicating his deepening crisis. Chapter 20 Attempting to avoid his emotional pain, Holden once again imagines that he has been shot in the stomach, transforming his psychological wounds into physical ones. As when he was punched by Maurice (Chapter 14), this fantasy diverts him from his sense of isolation. He comments that, by placing his hand under his jacket, he is 'concealing the fact that I was a wounded sonuvabitch' (Salinger 1994a: 135), but he is merely striving to conceal this from himself. As always, his impulse to contact Jane falters and he calls Sally instead, continuing his fantasy by telling her, They got me. Rocky's mob got me' (Salinger 1994a: 136), probably a reference to the archetypal gangster film, Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), in which James Cagney plays the murderous hoodlum Rocky Sullivan. Holden's sense of vulnerability intensifies when the bar's 64


pianist tells him several times to 'go home' and he has to reveal that he has 'No home to go to' (Salinger 1994a: 137). It may be this realization that causes Holden to start crying and, leaving the bar, he nears his lowest point, 'damn depressed and lonesome' (Salinger 1994a: 138). Holden's decision to look for the ducks in Central Park leads to one of the turning-points in the novel: his resolution to go home to visit his sister. First, he 'drop[s] old Phoebe's record' (Salinger 1994a: 138), which breaks. The dropped record echoes the theme of falling established by Holden's plans to jump from a window, his later revelations about James Castle, and, in the novel's final stages, his own sense of 'going down' (Salinger 1994a: 178) when he crosses the street. The ducks are absent from the lake, which is 'partly frozen and partly not frozen' (Salinger 1994a: 139), an unstable, in-between state that mirrors Holden's age and state of mind; that his hair is also partially frozen confirms this parallel. Cold, Holden imagines that he will 'probably get pneumonia and die' (Salinger 1994a: 139), linking himself to Allie. Imagining his own tombstone, he thinks of Allie's grave and his young brother, 'Surrounded by dead guys' (Salinger 1994a: 140), as if he were not also dead. To a great extent, of course, Allie is not dead to Holden: he thinks of him constantly and talks to him in times of crisis. The depth of his grief is communicated through the unusual distance he places between himself and 'you', the reader, at this point. Describing the unfairness of Allie's death, he states, 'You didn't know [Allie]. If you'd known him, you'd know what I mean' (Salinger 1994a: 140). This shift suggests that Holden is no longer sure that his audience can empathize with the extent of his loss, showing that his despair causes him to feel as alienated from 'you' as he does from other characters. SECTION 4: HOME, ANTOLINI AND THE CARROUSEL (CHAPTERS 21-5)

Chapter21 This is the climactic section of the novel, which takes Holden through a range of locations and ends with his moment of insight at the carrousel. Dominated by Holden's relationship 65


with Phoebe, the section begins with three chapters devoted to his conversations with her. In the Park at the end of the previous chapter Holden convinces himself that he should visit Phoebe in case he 'died and all' (Salinger 1994a: 141). This allows him to justify going home, something he has unconsciously wanted to do ever since he arrived in Manhattan and 'gave the driver my regular address, just out of habit and all' (Salinger 1994a: 53). Returning home, he finds Phoebe in D. B.'s room: sleeping in his bed and using his desk makes her seem a small version of him, just as later she will seem a miniature of Holden when she wears his cap and carries his case. These images confirm the strong bonds between the siblings, while their parents remain shadowy figures. Like Holden, Phoebe plays with her identity, choosing the gender-neutral 'Weatherfield' as a middle name, rather than 'Josephine' (Salinger 1994a: 144). He takes great comfort from being in her presence, and 'just felt good, for a change' (Salinger 1994a: 144), but when Phoebe awakes, he finds her enthusiastic greeting overwhelming. The repetition in his description confirms his discomfort: 'She's very affectionate. I mean she's quite affectionate, for a child. Sometimes she's even too affectionate' (Salinger 1994a: 146). His uneasiness suggests that Holden is saddened, rather than comforted, by displays of love, perhaps because he cannot reciprocate. Themes of death and gender roles recur in Phoebe's conversation with Holden: she tells him that she is playing Benedict Arnold in her school Christmas pageant and that 'It starts out when I'm dying' (Salinger 1994a: 146). Arnold, a general in the American Revolution, became notorious for changing his allegiance to the British side. He is thus an emblem of unreliability and betrayal, like other authorityfiguresin the novel. The reference to his death is thematically linked to the deaths of young people in Holden's narrative, especially as Phoebe says 'I'm dying' rather than 'he', thus presenting herself as afiguretouched by death. This is continued by Phoebe's enthusiasm for afilmshe has just seen, in which a doctor is imprisoned for committing euthanasia on a child, once again conveying the vulnerability of children. Like the broken record Holden gives her, Phoebe has fallen: she tells Holden that a boy has pushed her down stairs in the park 66


(the place where Holden dropped the record) during a disagreement. Holden's response to this story is to ask Phoebe, 'What are you - a child, for God's sake?'; Phoebe replies, 'No' (Salinger 1994a: 148), but of course she is a child, and it is odd that Holden chastises her for the quality he treasures most, her youth and the innocence it implies. When Phoebe perceptively realizes that Holden must have been expelled from school, her reaction is that of a child, repeatedly saying, 'Daddy'll kill you!' (Salinger 1994a: 149). This phrase also offers another example of the way that 'kill' is used in the novel, to mean murder as well as amuse. Holden's assertions that 'Nobody's gonna kill me' (Salinger 1994a: 149) are significant in a novel so preoccupied by untimely death (either through illness or suicide), since his claims still allow for the possibility that he might kill himself. Chapter 22

Like the Pencey fencing team in Chapter 1, Phoebe 'ostracizes the hell out of (Salinger 1994a: 150) Holden because of his expulsion. The phrase's mixture of colloquial and formal language emphasizes the instability in his perception and, by implication, his identity. When Phoebe asks him, 'Oh, why did you do it?' (Salinger 1994a: 151), Holden claims that he is 'sick of everybody asking me that' (Salinger 1994a: 151), but there is no evidence in his narrative that anyone apart from Mr Spencer has discussed his expulsion with him. His response suggests, then, that he has been asking himself this question, and he has an answer, telling Phoebe that he 'just didn't like anything that was /opening at Pencey' (Salinger 1994a: 152). She responds to this by asserting 'You don't like anything that's happening' (Salinger 1994a: 152), which Holden denies. This exchange exemplifies the way that Salinger uses italics for emphasis in dialogue: Holden and Phoebe both say the same thing, but the italics demonstrate the difference between their perspectives in a subtle way, since Holden's complaint is specific to Pencey, while Phoebe observes that he is unhappy generally. Phoebe's role in this chapter is to force Holden to face his problems: as a child, she is the source of clear-sightedness and compassion that Holden cannot locate in the adult world. She challenges her brother to 'name one thing' (Salinger 1994a: 153) 67


that he likes: but he cannot 'concentrate too hot' (Salinger 1994a: 153) on her question. Instead, he thinks of James Castle, the boy at one of his schools who committed suicide rather than take back unkind comments about another boy, even when tormented by 'repulsive' punishments (Salinger 1994a: 153). The possibility that Holden will jump from a window like James has already established a link between them, and although he emphasizes that he did not know the other boy well, he now reveals that James was wearing Holden's sweater when he died, strengthening the connection between them. Although James is the subject of his thoughts, Holden tells Phoebe that he likes Allie and her: when she responds that Allie's dead' (Salinger 1994a: 154), like Castle, Holden becomes agitated and refutes that his brother should be excluded for that reason. This reaffirms that despite indeed because of - his death, Allie dominates Holden's life. This chapter makes clear the significance of the novel's title and, in doing so, reveals the depth of Holden's fears. When Phoebe asks him to name something he'd 'like to be' (Salinger 1994a: 155), he rejects the role of lawyer as potentially phony and, in doing so, implicitly rejects his father. As Holden builds towards one of the novel's key statements, his sister points out his error with the lyrics of the song he finds so significant. By replacing 'meet' with 'catch', he articulates his desire to 'catch' those in danger of falling, be that into death (like Allie and James) or out of innocence and into corruption (like Jane and Phoebe). He imagines himself as 'the catcher in the rye and all', a lone adult in a field of rye edged by a 'crazy cliff, with 'Thousands of little kids' (Salinger 1994a: 156) that it is his responsibility to save from going over the precipice. Hefindsthis vision of responsibility for the safety of children comforting, indeed, it is 'the only thing I'd really like to be' (Salinger 1994a: 156). The ways in which this vision articulates Holden's fears is, understandably, beyond Phoebe, who can only respond with another 'Daddy's going to kill you' (Salinger 1994a: 156). Her vision of punishment contrasts with Holden's imagined scene of salvation and highlights the contrast between his fantasies and the reality of his situation. In response, Holden decides to reach out to another father-figure, his former teacher, Mr Antolini. 68


Chapter 23

Antolini, Holden explains, is the teacher who picked up Castle's body and 'didn't even give a damn if his coat got all bloody' (Salinger 1994a: 157). Although the teacher did not 'catch' James when he fell, he did save him from the gaze of those onlookers, the 'rubbernecks' (Salinger 1994a: 94, 116) that disgust Holden, and he hopes that Antolini will rescue him too. His progress towards this idealized figure of salvation is thwarted by the sudden return of his parents,figureshe - like Phoebe - associates with punishment. Forced to hide in Phoebe's closet, Holden is physically close to his mother, but cannot see her: thus she remains a shadowy figure. The scene reinforces the closeness between the siblings and the distance between Holden and his parents. Although he has said that he does not care if he encounters them, Holden now wants to get out of the apartment without seeing them, 'Not that they'd would've killed me or anything' (Salinger 1994a: 160) he insists, denying Phoebe's conviction. His feelings about his parents are unstable and contradictory: soon he confesses that he does not 'give much of a damn anymore' if they do catch him and 'almost wished they [would], in a way' (Salinger 1994a: 162). Clearly, although he fears his parents' disapproval, he would like to be 'caught' by them and saved from the crisis he is falling into. Once the chance of being caught by his parents has passed, Holden falls again over 'ten million garbage pails' (Salinger 1994a: 162) outside the family home, emphasizing his increasing vulnerability. Chapter 24

The opening paragraph of this chapter establishes that Holden has a significant relationship with Mr Antolini, whom he obviously admires. The teacher reminds him of D. B. - both are 'witty' (Salinger 1994a: 163) - so Antolini may be as much a surrogate older brother to Holden as a fatherfigure.When Holden arrives at his door, Antolini says, 'I expected to see a day-old infant in your arms. Nowhere to turn. Snowflakes in your eyelashes' (Salinger 1994a: 164). This image feminizes Holden, picturing him as a stereotype from a nineteenth-century novel, a young mother alone in the world and seeking charity. Holden is certainly


vulnerable, but this comment is a reminder that his selfperception conflicts with how other characters view him. In fact, the whole chapter is concerned with differences of perspective, failures to communicate and inappropriate behaviour. Although he passed English, Holden confesses to Antolini that he 'flunked' Oral Expression, which leads to his anecdote about his class-mate who digressed and received an 'F' grade. Even though he received the same grade, Holden values digression, which he employs throughout his narrative and which mirrors his attempt to avoid emotional pain. Although Antolini suggests that digression may not be the best strategy for success, echoing Spencer's belief in playing the game of life 'by the rules' (Salinger 1994a: 7), Holden insists on creative thinking: 'lots of times you don't know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn't interest you most' (Salinger 1994a: 166). Holden's complaints about the punishment given for digression emphasize that he values rule-breaking and spontaneity in others. This attitude has more in common with the ethos of the rebels of the 'Beat Generation' than of the conservative middle class of the 1950s: for them, as for Holden, a single, narrow vision of existence is not possible or desirable, so there is no merit in aiming to 'unify and simplify9 (Salinger 1994a: 166). In defending digression and advocating rebellion, Holden is also defending himself. Highlighting once again the theme of falling, Antolini tells Holden, 'I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall' (Salinger 1994a: 168). Antolini's words echo the many images of falling in the narrative, but his version of a 'fall' is social failure: Holden will not fulfil his potential and will become a bored and bitter adult, hating others for petty reasons. When Holden misunderstands Antolini, he tries again: 'This fall I think you're riding for - it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling' (Salinger 1994a: 169). This image anticipates Holden's later perception that he is falling, going 'down, down, down, [. . .] nobody'd ever see me again' (Salinger 1994a: 178), when he crosses the street. Despite Holden's incomprehension, Antolini pursues his theme, quoting the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel. Stekel, whose suicide 70


in 1940 adds extra significance to his role in the chapter, said that The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one' (Salinger 1994a: 169). Since Antolini imagines that Holden will die 'nobly [. . .] for some highly unworthy cause' (Salinger 1994a: 169), the Stekel quotation implies that Holden is psychologically immature and, in this, Antolini echoes Carl Luce's contention that Holden's 'mind is immature' (Salinger 1994a: 133). This emphasizes the link between Antolini and Luce as men who have or will let Holden down when he turns to them, and who are also sexually ambivalent, as Antolini will soon prove to be. Holden is puzzled by his teacher's monologue and, although his wide knowledge of literature suggests that Antolini is correct when he observes that Holden is 'a student - whether the idea appeals to you or not. You're in love with knowledge' (Salinger 1994a: 170), his final argument is almost as conservative as Mr Spencer's. Through education, Antolini contends, Holden will find that: you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. [. . .] Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. (Salinger 1994a: 170) As Catcher is a record of Holden's troubles, from which readers learn that their feelings are not unique, the narrative may be read as his attempt to follow Antolini's advice, showing that he already a reader of other people's experiences - has 'something to offer' others in return. The close of this chapter includes one of the novel's most disturbing scenes, in which Antolini, rather than saving Holden, frightens him by crossing a sexual boundary. Conceding that Holden is exhausted, Antolini begins a new conversation: 'How're all your women?' (Salinger 1994a: 171) he asks, referring to Sally and Jane. In light of later events, this question may 71


be a means of establishing the extent of Holden's heterosexuality. Similarly, Antolini's observation about Holden's long legs, his comment that he will be in the kitchen (rather than going to bed with his wife) and casual 'Good night, handsome' (Salinger 1994a: 172) signify an ambiguous sexual identity. When Holden wakes to find Antolini 'petting or patting me on the goddam head' (Salinger 1994a: 172), the teacher contends that he is 'admiring - ' but, because Holden interrupts him, he never finishes his sentence. Although it is difficult to imagine any closing words that would reasonably explain his actions, the uncertainty allows Holden to avoid the full implications of the situation when he reviews it. However, his claim that 'perverts' are 'always being perverty when I'm around' (Salinger 1994a: 173) suggests that, in the moment, Holden does believe that Antolini's actions are sexual. Including a sexually predatory, almost paedophilic, homosexual character in the novel reflects prejudices that were common in the sexually repressive 1950s. After he has left Antolini's apartment, Holden claims, 'that kind of stuffs happened to me about twenty times since I was a kid' (Salinger 1994a: 174), suggesting sexual abuse in his past. However, Holden tends to exaggerate numbers: a strong handshake will 'break around forty of your fingers' (Salinger 1994a: 79), Mrs Antolini is 'about sixty years older' (Salinger 1994a: 163) than her husband, the carrousel plays the same tune it played 'fifty years ago when I was a kid' (Salinger 1994a: 189). His comment does imply, however, some experience of unwanted sexual contact, which may shape his perception that sex corrupts children. It is also possible that Holden's recent meeting with Carl Luce has brought his own fears about sexuality to the forefront of his mind. Rather than finding refuge with Antolini, Holden once again finds himself alone and drifting, let down badly by someone he trusted. This experience pitches him into the final stage of his crisis. Chapter 25

This chapter presents the culmination and resolution of Holden's crisis; he reaches his lowest point, but arrives at a moment of 72


revelation. Spending the rest of the night in Grand Central Station leaves him 'more depressed than I ever was in my whole life' (Salinger 1994a: 175). Exhausted, he wonders if he misread Antolini's actions: 'maybe he just liked to pat guys on the head when they're asleep' (Salinger 1994a: 175). This is an attempt to desexualize the incident, typical of Holden's capacity for denial. However, he comes to an important conclusion, one of those flashes of maturity that characterize his narrative, when he comments that, 'even if [Antolini] was a flit he certainly'd been very nice to me' (Salinger 1994a: 175). He recognizes that his teacher may have begun to cross a boundary, but he is not a demon and does care about Holden's well-being. Ironically, it is his teacher's willingness to touch Castle when he died that makes it possible for Holden to excuse the inappropriate way that Antolini touches him. Holden's concern with his failing health, established in his earlier comment to Sally about being in 'lousy shape', is exacerbated by reading a magazine article that convinces him that, like Allie, he has cancer and will be 'dead in a couple of months' (Salinger 1994a: 176). Roaming Manhattan, distraught, he sees signs of Christmas approaching, but the ideal image of Christmas as a time of peace and goodwill is undercut by the two men who struggle and swear over a Christmas tree: 'Hold the sonuvabitch upV (Salinger 1994a: 177). Holden, too, is out of sync with the traditional Christmas atmosphere, which he remembers fondly from the past, but currently feels too ill and saddened to enjoy. The novel's many references to falling culminate in the crisis that overtakes Holden in this key chapter. He starts to fantasize: Every time I [. . .] stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down and nobody'd ever see me again. [. . .] Every time I'd get to the end of a block I'd make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I'd say to him, 'Allie, don't let me disappear. [. . .]' And then when I'd reach the other side of the street without disappearing, I'd thank him. (Salinger 1994a: 178) 73


This experience echoes Holden's sense of disappearing when he crossed the road on the way to Spencer's house only two days before, but now his very sense of self is at risk. He is afraid of disappearing, or dying, being lost forever like Allie. Holden asks his brother to save (that is, catch) him, as if Allie is a benevolent spirit watching over him. Already presented as a saint-like figure, Allie emerges as a martyr appropriate to the Christmas setting. Despite his earlier comments about wishing he were dead, Holden is now desperate not to die. This change of heart may be prompted, paradoxically, by his sense that death is nearer than before. Holden dreams of freedom: 'I decided I'd never go home again and I'd never go away to another school again' (Salinger 1994a: 178). However, his fantasies of escape suggest that he does not wish to cut himself off from society entirely. His plan to go 'somewhere out West' (Salinger 1994a: 178) is archetypally American: he will follow the trail of pioneers who sought freedom and prosperity on the frontier. Countering the conventional aspect of this fantasy, Holden rejects the expectations of his social class and the American Dream of material wealth: he will take a blue-collar job and pretend to be deaf-mute to avoid 'stupid useless conversations'(Salinger 1994a: 179). He expresses further ambivalence about escape when he imagines himself living in a cabin 'near the woods' (Salinger 1994a: 179) but not in them, suggesting that he will live on the margins. His plan to marry a 'beautiful' girl and have children likewise suggests conventional ambitions, despite his rebelliousness. Visiting Phoebe's school to leave her a note explaining his plans to leave, he is engaged by its unchanging nature. The comfort Holden finds in static places, like the museum, is underscored here by the repetition of the word 'same' six times (Salinger 1994a: 180) in his comments about the school. The brief sense of tranquillity that Holden achieves by being reconnected to his past (and to Phoebe) is shattered when he notices 'Fuck you' written on the wall (Salinger 1994a: 180-81). This drives him 'damn near crazy' (Salinger 1994a: 181) because he interprets the expletive as an attack on children's purity. His violent reaction, in which he imagines beating the culprit 'till he 74


was good and goddam dead and bloody' (Salinger 1994a: 181), is a protest against all attacks on innocence, not least the encroachment of adulthood, which he considers inherently corrupt. Although he can rub out this graffiti, he soon finds another example, and begins to realize that it is impossible to remove all offensive words or protect children from every damaging experience: in other words, it is impossible to be the 'catcher' of falling children. This realization, which will resolve his crisis, comes to fruition at the end of the chapter as he watches his sister ride the carrousel. Holden's progress towards the resolution of his crisis is signalled by the fact that he now enters the museum. He takes two boys to see the Egyptian 'wwmmies - them dead guys' (Salinger 1994a: 182). The boys appeal to Holden for several reasons: one is their lack of self-consciousness (one is not embarrassed by his unzipped trousers), which he attributes to innocence; another is that they are brothers, like Holden and Allie. Although they abandon Holden in the Egyptian display, the boys have helped him enter one of his most cherished locations, which he could not bear to do before. However, Holden is immediately faced with another Tuck you' (Salinger 1994a: 183). The implication is that, in corrupted post-war America, it is not possible to find a sanctuary: everywhere is vulnerable to attack, even the grave. As Holden says, 'if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say "Holden Caulfield" [. . .] then right under that it'll say "Fuck you"' (Salinger 1994a: 183). Although this is a melancholy statement, it makes interesting use of the word if: throughout the text Holden has sought death and thought it inevitable, but his phrasing here suggests increased optimism. Holden's vision of escape is shattered when Phoebe arrives carrying his suitcase and wearing his red cap, desperate to join him. His angry response indicates his discomfort over what her actions reveal about his plans: Phoebe's commitment to him shows that, in fact, he is not 'cool as all hell' (Salinger 1994a: 184) about leaving his family, as he claims, as they will be distressed by his departure. Equally, her struggle with his suitcase is a symbol of the difficulty and impracticality of his plans, an 75


indication that Sally was right to refuse to accompany him. He 'almost hated' Phoebe (Salinger 1994a: 186) because she is willing to miss her Christmas play to be with him and is, therefore, willing to sacrifice one of the pleasures of childhood. Holden now begins to assume a more responsible role. When Phoebe throws the cap back to him, rejecting the role of rebel, he does not put it on, signalling his decision to stay. Similarly, when Phoebe insists that she is 'not going back to school' (Salinger 1994a: 186), Holden responds, 'you have to go back to school' (Salinger 1994a: 187). Holden's maturity is further established when he reassures Phoebe that she is not too big to ride the carrousel (affirming her status as a child and his as an adult that she may turn to for guidance), and when he, metaphorically moving away from his own childhood, decides to sit on the bench with the parents of other children. This new maturity is signalled by an epiphany that releases Holden from the impossible role of the catcher in the rye. Watching Phoebe, although he is afraid that she will 'fall off the goddam horse', Holden does not 'say anything or do anything', realizing that 'The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them' (Salinger 1994a: 190). In this key passage, Holden acknowledges that his overwhelming need to protect Phoebe (and all children) is inappropriate, since they have to learn about life's pitfalls for themselves. Sometimes that process will be painful, as it has been for Holden, but it is essential. Despite his apparent move towards adulthood, the final paragraph of the chapter confirms Holden's status as an adolescent. Choosing not to take shelter with the parents when it begins to rain, he is left in a position between the adults and children. His red cap, which symbolizes individuality, provides the 'protection' he needs, not only from bad weather, but also from the trials of adolescence. Finally, he feels 'so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling, [. . .] she looked so damn nice' (Salinger 1994a: 191). Holden has had few moments of happiness in the narrative and most have been provoked by Phoebe, who represents 76


innocence and, now, the possibility that change need not entail loss. On the carrousel, Phoebe moves but always returns, just as growing up will not mean that Holden will lose her. Mirroring the enduring connection between Holden and Phoebe, the final sentence re-establishes Holden's intimacy with 'you' that was temporarily disrupted when he suggested that the reader could not empathize with his loss: 'I wish you could've been there' (Salinger 1994a: 191). Chapter 26

Just as Phoebe goes 'around' on the carrousel, so Holden's narrative returns to its starting-point in the short final chapter. The ending of a conventional bildungsroman summarizes the hero's current situation, which is typically a positive resolution to the trials he has undergone. In contrast, Holden's narrative ends on an uncertain note that undercuts the optimistic mood of the previous scene. The reference to a 'psychoanalyst guy' (Salinger 1994a: 192) suggests that he is spending time in a facility for those with poor mental health. This conflicts with any implication that Holden's revelation at the carrousel resolved his crisis. Salinger further challenges the conventions of the bildungsroman by subverting the principle of the protagonist's development and by resisting closure. Holden's future seems no clearer to him after his time in therapy: asked if he will 'apply' himself when he goes back to school, he wonders, 'how do you know what you're going to do till you do it?' (Salinger 1994a: 192). Similarly, when D. B. asks his brother what he thinks about what happened to him, Holden responds with uncertainty: 'If you want to know the truth, I don't know what I think about it' (Salinger 1994a: 192). The narrative also challenges one of the central tenets of psychoanalysis. Holden's closing remark suggests that telling his story has not formed a part of the healing process, as psychoanalysis purports it will: 'Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody' (Salinger 1994a: 192). The novel's melancholy final line thus implies that there are no easy cures for Holden, or simple answers to the questions raised by the process of growing up in post-war America. 77


DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Holden's narrative 'voice' is considered by many critics to be Salinger's greatest achievement as an author. What are its characteristics and how do these shape our understanding of Holden as a narrator? 2. Holden has often been described as a 'typical' or 'universal' adolescent. Do you agree? 3. What impact do Holden's experiences in the past have on his responses to the present and future?

78

CHAPTER 4

CRITICAL RECEPTION AND PUBLISHING HISTORY

Since The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951, it has sold millions of copies and has been discussed by critics in hundreds of essays and many books. Now one of the most famous novels to emerge from post-war America, it is difficult to imagine a time when it was simply the first novel by a fairly well-known shortstory writer named J. D. Salinger, who had a strong reputation principally based on his appearance in The New Yorker, at that time the most prestigious publisher of short stories in America. Readers who knew Salinger's stories were interested in his first novel, little knowing that it would also be his last, and that the extraordinary success of the novel would eventually cause Salinger to reject the role of publishing author, an occupation that had been his ambition for most of his life. This chapter explores the ways in which the novel has been analysed since it was published, showing the range of critical approaches employed to read the text and how perspectives on it have developed over time. On publication, Catcher was promoted by the Book-ofthe-Month Club, which recommended a particular book to its members every month in the hope of mail-order sales. This guaranteed publicity for the novel and probably encouraged more newspapers and magazines to review it than might otherwise have been the case. Published in hardback (priced $3) with a bright image of a carrousel horse on the front of the dust jacket and a photograph of Salinger taken by the eminent photographer Lotte Jacobi on the back, Catcher sold respectably throughout 1951, 79


appearing on the New York Times' bestsellers list. As the novel's unexpected success became more evident, Salinger requested that his photograph be removed from reprints and, although some of the paperback editions of Catcher in the mid-1950s had bright covers bearing artists' impressions of Holden Caulfield, Salinger's wish to have his work presented in plain jackets without any information about the text or the author eventually prevailed in American and British editions. Although the novel was reviewed in almost 200 publications, many offered only brief comments. However, several newspapers and magazines did present substantial reviews and, although a few were extremely negative, critics' comments were broadly favourable. Reviewers tended to focus on the creation of Holden as a character and the way in which Salinger constructed a unique 'voice' through thefirst-personnarrative. Many were also interested in what the novel implied about post-war American society and, in particular, the experiences of young people, an issue of increasing concern at the time. Several critics, for example, were troubled by the use of expletives in the novel. 'Ugly words [. . .are] peculiarly offensive' (Laser and Fruman 1963: 9) when spoken by young people, commented Virgilia Peterson in the Herald Tribune, while the reviewer for Catholic World found that the 'coarse language' in the novel made it 'monotonous and phony' (Salzberg 1990: 31). Similarly, The Times Literary Supplement (TLS) was disturbed by what it perceived as 'an endless stream of blasphemy and obscenity' (Laser and Fruman 1963: 17) from the narrator. However, anxieties about expletives did not distract critics from conceding that Holden's language was one factor that made him a credible narrator: even the TLS accepted that Holden is a 'normal specimen' (Laser and Fruman 1963: 17) and, in the Atlantic Monthly, Harvey Breit recognized that Salinger's narrator is 'bright, terrible and possibly normal' (Bloom 1990: 6). The criticism, then, is not that reviewers find Holden unbelievable: rather, reviewers express anxieties that were common to their place and time about the potential of adolescents to behave in socially disruptive ways. Throughout its existence, Catcher has been banned, and is still excluded from high school reading lists in the twenty-first 80


century, usually due to complaints from parents who do not want their children to be encouraged to read it. Their objections tend to centre on the novel's language choices or Holden's 'immoral' activities, such as smoking, drinking and engaging a prostitute. One of its earliest reviewers, T. Morris Longstreth, voiced doubts that have echoed across America since the mid-1950s: 'a book like this given wide circulation may multiply [Holden's] kind' (Bloom 1990:6). The possibility that the novel may be influential could be taken as an indication of its credibility, but this anxiety also reveals a misconception: Longstreth, like many other commentators, seems to believe that the novel is aimed at an adolescent audience. Although Salinger often writes about young people and children, he does not write for them; Harold Roth, writing in the Library Journal, recognized this when he noted that Catcher is an 'adult book (very frank)' (Laser and Fruman 1963: 7). Many other reviewers agreed with Roth that the real value of the novel lay in its representation of an adolescent perspective for an older readership, allowing an adult audience to better understand the adolescent experience, as well as offering a critique of contemporary society. Several commentators agreed with the critic in the New York Times who believed that Holden's difficulties stem, not from any wrongdoing of his own, but from 'a world that is out of joint' (Laser and Fruman 1963:10). However, if the novel is 'a critique of the [. . .] grown-up world' (Laser and Fruman 1963: 14), it is also a very humorous book. For the reviewer in The New Yorker, it is the contrast between Holden's 'literalness and innocence' and the 'complicated and often depraved facts of life' (Laser and Fruman 1963:13) that make the novel funny, though it might be argued that this contrast is also the source of some of its sadness. Although many critics were convinced that the novel because of the skill with which Salinger created Holden's 'voice' - was genuinely amusing, they were less certain as to the effect of the humour. For some, the novel had important and serious points to make about post-war American society, and these were in danger of being drowned out by the humour; for others, while laughter was always possible, the novel had 'a dark whirlpool churning fiercely below [. . .] the surface' (Laser and 81


Fruman 1963: 13), and so it was never possible to forget its serious aspects. While critics were confident that Catcher was 'extremely funny' or 'predictable and boring' or 'unusually brilliant' or 'truly moving' (Laser and Fruman 1963: 8, 10, 13, 16) or 'absurd' (Bloom 1990: 5), they cannot have imagined in the summer of 1951 how extraordinarily successful the novel would be. Six months after publication, Salinger himself was 'tremendously relieved that the season for success of The Catcher in the Rye is over' (Hamilton 1998: 121) because he had not anticipated the demands that publishing a popular novel would make on his time and energy - but, of course, that season was only just beginning. Despite Salinger's gradual withdrawal from public life and his eventual decision to cease publishing his work altogether, interest in his only novel increased annually, aided by paperback editions and word-of-mouth popularity among students. Catcher spoke to its moment in a way that no one could have predicted and, perhaps most surprisingly given the enormous changes in American society in the decades following the Second World War, the novel would continue to resonate with new readers around the world, never going out of fashion or coming to seem irrelevant or out-dated. Holden's perspective on the world, his hatred of hypocrisy and injustice, and his willingness to reject the aspirations and values of his society made him a figure ideally suited to the growing counter-culture of the 1950s, the radicalized 1960s and 1970s, and beyond. By the mid 1950s, Catcher was starting to appear on university reading lists and academics began to produce essays that analysed the novel. The first of these appeared in 1956 ('J. D. Salinger: Some Crazy Cliff' by Arthur Heiserman and James E. Miller) and it began a tradition in Catcher criticism of comparing the novel with more canonical texts. Heiserman and Miller focused on the relationship between Catcher and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) by Mark Twain, a connection that several other critics have also pursued, although later commentators have also compared the novel to such significant works as Shakespeare's Hamlet (c. 1600), Charles Dickens's David Copper field (1849-50), Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground (1864), James Joyce's 82


Ulysses (1922), T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land (\922\ and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925), among others. In these essays, critics typically focus upon the significance of a troubled hero who undertakes a journey towards revelation, offering a commentary on his society as he goes. In comparing Catcher to such famous texts, critics are asserting that Salinger's novel is - despite its expletives and its rebellious hero - an important work of literature that should be taken seriously by readers and academics. As well as claiming that Catcher is a member of the elite group of significant American novels that includes Huckleberry Finn, and is therefore a part of the American literary tradition, Heiserman and Miller also connect Catcher to one of the archetypal models of European literature: the Quest. This is the structural pattern most associated with the epic, in which an individual seeks an answer to a question or struggles to attain a goal, facing challenges along the way. This model is seen in Homer's Odyssey (c. 800 BC), in myths and legends from many cultures and in major works of literature, including Miguel Cervantes's Don Quixote (1605), Herman Melville's Moby Dick (1851), and William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930), and is still seen in contemporary novels. In Quest texts, heroes are usually either looking for something or trying to find their way home: Heiserman and Miller argue that Holden is 'engaged in both sorts of quest at once; he needs to go home and he needs to leave it' (Heiserman 1956: 131). Holden longs to leave home, to escape the 'phony' society he lives in, but at the same time he seeks home, craving the security that has been lost through Allie's death. As well as its connections to epic and quest, Catcher's first critics saw in Holden a figure comparable to Huck Finn: both boys are on a journey and are non-conformists who offer 'insightful criticism of American life' (Kaplan 1956: 77) through their humorous and poignant first-person narratives. Like the early reviewers, academic critics recognized that Holden offers adult readers a new way of considering their society, but the common ground with Huck Finn also emphasizes Holden's moral qualities: the rebellion of both characters is justified because the society that they reject is fundamentally flawed. Holden, argued these early critics, is both universal and particular: he expresses 83


the alienation of an adolescent in post-war America and in that sense he is a product of his place and time, but he is also an archetype undergoing familiar trials that have been represented throughout the literary tradition. Holden has an instantly recognizable voice, which may be identifiably teenaged but is still very individual. Donald Costello (1959) explores the elements that have been combined to create that effect. First, he notes the repetitive quality of Holden's speech: certain phrases, unremarkable in their own right, come to suggest important aspects of his personality through frequent repetition, such as 'and all', 'I really did', 'it really was'. Other words that Holden uses - not least some of the words that critics found objectionable - change their meaning depending on context: 'sonuvabitch', for example, is not necessarily an angry term, since Ackley is described with sympathy as a 'crazy sonuvabitch' (Salinger 1994a: 34). Similarly, Holden never uses an expletive when addressing 'you', the reader. He speaks in fragments - 'Not one. Neither did I. I just watched him' (Salinger 1994a: 35) - and combines several simple words for emphatic insults, as in 'You're a dirty moron [. . .] a stupid chiselling moron' (Salinger 1994a: 93). Although he knows more complex words, like 'ostracized' and 'exhibitionist', he more often falls back on uncomplicated phrases like 'very, very tired' (Salinger 1994a: 92), and the narrative persistently uses italics for emphasis: 'Boy, did she hit the ceiling' (Salinger 1994a: 120). These strategies convey Holden's personality through his 'voice' and show that 'Salinger thinks of the book more in terms of spoken speech than written speech' (Costello 1959: 180). It is this technique, which evokes direct address, that creates the intimate relationship between Holden and the reader. It is a measure of Salinger's achievement that more than 40 years later reviewers of the television series My So-Called Life praised its writers for recreating teenage speech-patterns so effectively that the series' female protagonist could be deemed 'a kind of Holden Caulfield in Doc Martens' (Bell 1996: 47). Other critics focused on psychological aspects of the novel. Carl Strauch, writing in 1961, contended that Catcher was 'a psychological drama of unrelenting terror and final beauty' 84


(Strauch 1961: 6). Holden undergoes 'neurotic deterioration' provoked by the loss of Allie and Jane and his fear of adulthood's corruption, but recognizes in the scene with Phoebe at the carrousel that he can stay joined to childhood through his connection with his sister, entering maturity gradually as he parents her. Much of what Strauch contends in his long and detailed analysis remains central to many people's understanding of the text, but plenty of other psychoanalytical readings have emerged since then. Several of them focus on the issue of sex, which is undeniably one of Holden's preoccupations throughout the novel. For Brian Way, Holden's thwarted attempts to gain 'sexual satisfaction' move him to 'mental collapse' (Way 1962: 77) in the mid-section of the novel. Way considers Holden's responses to Phoebe to be far less important than Strauch implies and believes that it is the honest approach that the novel takes to the representation of adolescent sexuality that is its greatest strength. Way is not the only critic to consider the importance of sex in the novel. In 1974, James Bryan offered a new interpretation that caused some controversy. Like other readers, Bryan believes that Holden equates adult sexuality with corruption and children with innocence. However, he contends that Holden's desire to protect children from sexual corruption stems from his own 'confused feelings about Phoebe' (Salzberg 1990: 110). At 16, Holden has transferred his sexual focus from his mother to his sister in a process that will eventually allow him to focus on other women. His desire for his sister is a product of his yearning for innocence and his developing adult sexuality. Bryan suggests that proof of this comes in Holden's comments that Phoebe is 'too affectionate' (Salinger 1994a: 146) and that he feels 'swell' (implying sexual arousal) in her company (Salinger 1994a: 144). Further, Bryan argues that Holden cannot answer Phoebe's demand that he name something he likes because he cannot admit that the answer is Phoebe herself. This interpretation is likely to provoke a negative reaction from readers who identify with Holden and, indeed, a critic named Dennis Vail published an essay in 1976 refuting Bryan's analysis. Vail contends that it is the genuine purity of Holden's relationship with his sister that saves him from his breakdown: she helps him understand that he 85


cannot escape adulthood and he takes strength from his role as her protector. For Vail, the novel shows that, despite Bryan's interpretation, intimate relationships between siblings are healing and 'such contact need not be corrupt' (Salzberg 1990: 117). Psychoanalytical interpretations that consider Holden's sexual identity did not end with Bryan, however. In 1977 Duane Edwards contended that the desire which Holden represses is not for his sister but for other men. His dreams of escaping are not motivated by a desire to protect Phoebe but by his need to be free from contact with men and his unspeakable desire for them. Further evidence cited by Edwards in support of this analysis is that Holden has difficulty contacting women, especially Jane, but is effective in arranging meetings with Carl Luce and Mr Antolini, both men with ambiguous sexual identities. According to Edwards, Holden reacts so strongly to Antolini's approach because the older man expresses the desire that Holden cannot face in himself. His conviction, after leaving Antolini's apartment, that he must himself be ill is a way of expressing the samesex desire that, as a young man in the repressive 1950s, he would be socialized to perceive as an illness. Even when not speculating about Holden's sexuality, critics have often considered him in psychoanalytical terms. In 1984 R. J. Huber analysed Holden in terms of Alfred Adler's theories of 'inferiority' and 'superiority' complexes. Although Holden is often described as a typical adolescent, Huber reads him simply as an unhappy person who has some accurate perceptions about the problems of his society but exaggerates the negative aspects in order to relieve his own sense of inferiority. Similarly, his fantasy of being 'the catcher in the rye' is one in which he positions himself as god-like in order to cover his conviction that he is a failure. In 1990 James Mellard presented a reading of the novel, based on the theories of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, which suggested that, rather than seeing Phoebe as a lover, Holden has placed her in the role of mother. Until he resolves his close identification with Phoebe, he cannot progress from what Lacan terms the 'Imaginary' into the 'Symbolic' order, meaning that he will not 86


mature until he accepts his role in the social structures of adulthood and moves away from the childhood that Phoebe symbolizes. For Mellard, earlier readings that focused on Holden's sexuality are misguided, since it is Holden's struggle to become an adult individual in his own right that drives the novel, not specifically his sexual development. Although psychoanalysis has been an important aspect of Catcher criticism, it is not the only theory that has been employed to construct interesting interpretations. Work by Carol and Richard Ohmann in the mid-1970s challenged the by then widely accepted idea that Holden's popularity can be attributed to the fact that he is a 'universal' adolescent whose experiences represent those of any other adolescent, regardless of gender, race or class. Like Huber and his Adlerian reading, the Ohmanns doubt that Holden is a typical teenager, but their theoretical approach is grounded in Marxism rather than psychoanalysis. They argue that, far from being a universalfigure,Holden is a creation of a specific period (the late 1940s) and place (New York) and that he specifically represents middle-class, privileged society. They do not see this narrowness as aflawin Catcher, but they do believe that critics, in failing to see the precise nature of the novel, have overlooked one of its greatest strengths, which is the ways in which it comments on 'social relationships in mid-century America' (Salzberg 1990: 122). In the Ohmanns' analysis, Holden allows Salinger to critique social inequality and the ways in which capitalist hierarchies have a negative impact on relationships. One example of this is the way in which Holden's friendship with Dick Slagle is ruined by their different social positions. Holden's wealth and privilege is represented by his high-quality suitcases: although Dick would like people to believe that the cases are his own, the realization that he cannot attain Holden's social status drives a wedge between the two boys, despite their genuine liking for each other. Inevitably, Dick will hate Holden for having advantages that he is denied, and Holden's awareness of injustice is shown by his sadness at losing a friend through social pressure. If the novel is read without considering the context of its place and time, argue the Ohmanns, this political significance is lost and Holden's 87


spoiled friendship with Dick is simply attributed to broad concepts like 'corruption'. According to the Ohmanns, the novel's strength lies in the way it presents ideas through Holden's narrative that he cannot perceive himself, such as the incompatibility of his admiration for those who challenge convention (such as Allie, Jane, and James Castle) with the conformist, repressive society in which he lives. The first-person narrative technique of the novel creates an intimate relationship between Holden and the reader. If the reader is young and male there is a strong possibility that he will identify with Holden and many critics have praised the novel because it permits just such an identification, allowing male readers to consider their own experiences and feelings in relation to Holden's. While this is not problematic in itself, this aspect of the novel seems to have encouraged a critical approach which suggests that, because Holden is personally recognizable to a white, middle-class male reader, he must offer the same sense of recognition to all readers, even if they are not white, or middleclass, or male. Surprisingly, perhaps, few critics have ever considered that the appeal of the novel for them may lie in their similarity to Holden. This may account for the startlingly few feminist readings of the text. In 1962 Leslie Fielder did concede that Salinger's work represents 'the cleanest, politest, bestdressed, best-fed and best-read' young people (Fiedler 1962: 128), a comment that recognizes the narrowness of the novel's privileged characters - but does so in approving and ungendered terms. While the Ohmanns acknowledge that Holden is not a representative of all American youth, it was not until 1990 that a critic took issue with the relationship between Holden and male critics. Catcher came to prominence during the surge in academic publishing of the late 1950s, a time when universities were dominated by men who critiqued texts according to established masculine values. These men were socialized to value texts which represented male experience (encouraging them to under-value novels that depicted female lives) and which conformed to literary models that affirmed male archetypes, such as the adventurous men seen in Quest literature, a model many early critics saw in


Catcher. These critics 'fall in love with the novel [because] they see in Holden [. . .] an incarnation of their youth' (Schriber 1990: 227); this sense of identification encouraged male critics to promote the novel as if their experience is true for all readers. Thus Holden comes in time to be seen as representative of adolescence itself. Readers who are, for example, female, black, gay, or from less privileged backgrounds must simply adjust their perceptions and attempt to identify with Holden regardless of their differences. One result of this is that, until very recently, no one has questioned Holden's attitudes towards women, ethnic minorities, or gay people, because readers are encouraged to see the world through the hero's eyes. This combination of an implied reader who is a white heterosexual male, and the accumulated influence of Catcher studies, has thus limited the ways in which the novel has been read. A new wave of criticism emerged in the 1990s that placed the novel in its historical context by considering it in relation to the Cold War. For example, Alan Nadel's 1995 study of post-war American culture includes a chapter on Catcher that considers the ways in which the novel depicts a repressive and rulegoverned society and engages with characteristics of the Cold War such as the government's preoccupation with secrecy and identifying those with 'subversive' beliefs. Holden's rejection of the 'phony' suggests that he values honesty and he often promises to tell the truth, emphasizing his aims with phrases such as 'I'm not kidding' (Salinger 1994a: 55). His red 'people shooting hat' (Salinger 1994a: 19) suggests that he is ready to hunt down anyone who deceives him, suggesting that perhaps he shares some of Joseph McCarthy's aims. However, like one of McCarthy's victims, Holden 'names names': his narrative is patterned with the names of the innumerable people he remembers or meets, and he is willing to disclose details of their lives. Above all, though, Holden is angered by the restrictions of the adult world, the freedom he will lose when he begins a career: so, like Huck Finn, he dreams of escape. However, Nadel argues that, more than a place to escape to, Holden needs a space in which he can think freely, because his rebellious ideas are at odds with the highly controlled society in which he lives.


Published a little later, Leerom Medovoi's essay on the relationship between Catcher and the Cold War focuses on the impact of the ethos of 1950s on youth culture. Despite or because of its repressive nature, the era saw the beginning of counter-cultural movements and campaigns for improved civil rights for a range of previously oppressed groups, all of which challenged the conservatism of the time. The rapidly developing youth culture caused concern among some commentators, but while delinquency may have been feared, youthful characters like Holden and Huck Finn were praised for their principled rejection of corruption. This apparent contradiction - that youthful rebellion is both frightening and commendable - is indicative to Medovoi of the inconsistencies of the post-war years. That the USA sees itself as a young and vibrant nation may contribute further to the confusion: a nation that values the qualities associated with youth cannot wholeheartedly repress those who embody those qualities, which may be why youth culture was able to flourish in the 1950s. There are contradictions, too, in responses to the novel and to Salinger as a writer. As early as 1959, the critic George Steiner was complaining about the development of a 'Salinger Industry', driven by an academic culture that was under pressure to publish criticism. Promoting Salinger's work through their essays and courses elevated the author beyond his actual worth, in Steiner's opinion. Inevitably, many critics came forward to defend Salinger and Holden from this disparagement. Even so, the worth of the novel has often been debated, not least in the context of censorship. In 1961 Edward Corbett defended Catcher against those who sought to ban it on the grounds of its immorality and expletives: the latter, he argues, is key to the novel's 'integrity', while the fact that Holden is deeply troubled by his 'immoral' activities, such as engaging a prostitute, affirms his essentially moral core. For Corbett, Holden is a character of 'goodness, genuineness and sensitivity' (Corbett 1961: 443) and his reactions to experience are essential to the book's meaning. Forty years - and many instances of banning from high schools later, Pamela Hunt Steinle considers why the novel should remain so controversial. Holden may reject certain adult values, 90


but he is angered by the corruption of children, the sexual exploitation of women and is enraged by expletives scrawled on a school wall. Controversy about the novel may stem from the same issues that the Ohmanns and Schriber debated: how representative of American youth is Holden, and how influential might he be? America, suggests Steinle, may not know its young people very well, may even fear them, and therefore remains anxious about the impact of the novel upon them. It is a testament to the richness of The Catcher in the Rye that so many critics have been able to produce such varied responses to it in the more than half a century since it was published, supporting readers' own explorations of the text. There is no sign that the novel is exhausted, either. In the twenty-first century, critics have found new things to say: for example, Livia Hekanaho reconsiders Holden in the light of queer theory, arguing that he may be anxious about thefluidityof sexual identity, while Renee Curry argues that Holden's identity as white, although never directly addressed by the text, shapes many of his actions and attitudes (Graham 2007). Familiar ideas, such as the importance of peers, siblings and role models to Holden, and the significance of school and the museum, have been usefully re-examined in recent years (Salzman 1991 and Steed 2002). Salinger's sense that the overt Christianity promoted in post-war America was not, in fact, the only possible form of spiritual belief has been applied to analyses of Holden, not least in Yasuhiro Takeuchi's (2004) work on the significance of Zen in Catcher. One result of this sustained critical attention and the novel's capacity to continually find new readers is that Catcher isfirmlyembedded in the culture of many countries, informing new works of literature, film, drama and music. The ways in which the novel persists in surfacing in other texts and the effect it has on their meanings is the subject of thefinalchapter of this study.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Which of the critical approaches outlined above do you find most interesting or useful, and why? 2. Why do you think critics have continued to be interested in Catcher! 3. What aspects of the novel have been neglected by critics and how do you account for such gaps in criticism?

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CHAPTER 5

ADAPTATION, INTERPRETATION AND INFLUENCE

Although The Catcher in the Rye is more than 50 years old, it remains the novel against which all other texts about adolescence are judged. In recent years, nine-year-old Oskar in Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005) has been compared with Holden Caulfield because 'Oskar wanders around New York City, lonely, alienated and on the verge, possibly, of an emotional breakdown' (Kakutani 2005); the protagonist of Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep (2005) has 'a voice as authentic as Salinger's Holden Caulfield' (Lamb 2005); and Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides (1993), a novel about five sisters set in 1970s Michigan, has been described as 'a Catcher in the Rye for our time' {Observer 1993). Although these connections with Catcher may be made to attract readers - in itself a measure of the novel's enduring value - for many there is no need for a new Catcher, since the original does not yet seem dated or irrelevant to those who encounter it for the first time every year. Because it is such a significant part of American culture, Catcher has had an influence in a range of ways, echoing through films, novels, plays and music. Although it is always difficult to measure how a text has made an impact on other writers, it is reasonable to say that Catcher is one of the foundation texts of the youth culture that developed in the USA in the years following its publication, and its character and concerns have echoed across the post-war years. Catcher did not, of course, single-handedly provoke the revolutionary rise of the 93


teenager in the 1950s, but it did validate aspects of adolescent experience (anxiety, alienation, confusion) that many readers have identified as comparable to their own experiences. As well as being a significant part of that group of texts, Catcher is a narrative that, by evoking the speech and exploring the experiences of a young person, often focusing on personal crisis, has become the model for many later texts of adolescence. Other texts refer to Catcher in their plots without actually mimicking Holden's style, which reinforces the sense that the text has a cultural weight that allows it to be used to symbolize a certain way of responding to the world. Finally, Salinger himself has made appearances, literally or disguised, in a few texts, in spite - or because of - the mystery surrounding him. In some ways, tracing Catcher's influence is a matter of opinion: some might, for example, hear Holden's voice in a text when others do not. However, there is no doubt that there are very many examples of texts that form part of Catcher's legacy, and this chapter discusses a few of the most interesting. Many commentators on internet discussion groups speculate about a film of Catcher, not least who would play Holden. However, J. D. Salinger's dismay at the adaptation of his short story 'Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut' into the film My Foolish Heart (1949), which 'dishes up sentiment by the bowlful' (Crowther 1950) according to the New York Times, probably guaranteed that none of his other works would ever be made available for adaptation. Although the rights to Catcher have been highly sought-after, there has never been afilmof the novel. However, a film that can be identified as clearly part of the Catcher legacy, rather than simply being an example of the 'coming of age' genre, is The Graduate (1967), which strongly evokes Holden's dismay at the prospects offered by adult life. Benjamin Braddock, the graduate of the title, finds that he has no interest in the world of business that his parents think he is destined to enter. He has an affair with one of his parents' friends, Mrs Robinson, and falls for her daughter Elaine, who rejects him; thefilmdepicts his sense of loss and alienation from adults and his peer group. His final triumph - stealing Elaine away from her wedding to exactly the kind of 'Joe Yale' man that 94


Holden despises - is presented as a desperate act that neither of them may be able to live with. Although it has its comic moments (not least Benjamin modelling his graduation present, a wetsuit, for his parents and their friends) and a very distinctive visual style, The Graduate ends on a melancholy note, highlighting the sadness and uncertainty that is woven through the whole text, much as in Catcher. The film was hugely influential and a key part of the 1960s youth counterculture: Benjamin's rejection of a career in 'plastics' - the name itself evoking what Holden identified as phoney in the adult world of capitalist venture - spoke to a generation that was dissatisfied with conventional career options and, in particular, had no more desire to go to war in Vietnam than Holden had to fight in the Second World War. Holden's narrative offers a critique of the values of his society, both in his direct comments on post-war America and in the implication that the rigid expectations of his social class contribute to his despair. ThefilmDead Poets Society (1989) focuses on the experiences of a group of adolescents in an American prep school in the late 1950s, and also considers the impact of repression on young men. The setting allows some immediate comparisons with Catcher, since the action takes place in much the same location and era as the novel. Thefilmwas produced in a newly conservative period in the USA, the 1980s, whose political strategies were reminiscent of the 1950s and whose cultural ethos promoted 'family values', material wealth, and conventional roles for men and women. Although the boys in thefilmare from the upper middle class and are destined for university and business careers, a new teacher provokes some of them into reconsidering their aspirations. Thefilmcharts the difficulties they face in putting their new plans into action in a society that values conformity. Although sentimental and visually beautiful in a traditional manner, there is a current of discontent running beneath the film: the boys' rebellions may be relatively minor (one of them wants to act in a play) but they are still rejections of the privileges and restrictions conferred by the boys' gender, class and race. For such a group, the 1980s (which thefilmsubtly reflects) was not so different from 95


Holden's post-war society or the version of the 1950s that the film offers, and there is a subtle critique of both eras beneath the slightly cliched soul-searching. The release of the films Tadpole and Igby Goes Down in the same year (2002) prompted the New York Times to ask: 'What is it with The Catcher in the Rye these days? Is it just a coincidence that in a matter of months, the J. D. Salinger classic has rung two cinematic bells?' (Holden 2002: n.p.). Several reviewers commented on the similarities between Holden and the films' protagonists: each is a 'fresh-scrubbed, upscale teenage rebel with a brain to match his attitude' (Holden 2002: n.p.). In Tadpole (2002) the hero, 15-year-old Oscar Grubman, confides in a friend on the train home from prep school for Thanksgiving that he is in love with his stepmother and plans to steal her away from his father. Once at home in Manhattan, an affluent setting similar to that of Holden's family, Oscar's situation is complicated by his liaison with his stepmother's best friend. The film may echo Holden's pleasure in older women, but Oscar is a more confident figure, both intellectually and sexually. Most importantly, Oscar does not suffer from Holden's tormented perspective on the world, which makes the film much lighter than Catcher. In Igby Goes Down (2002), the title character has been expelled from several prep schools and has just run away from his military academy. Like Holden, he drifts around Manhattan, getting into some awkward situations. For all his privileges, Igby is a troubledfigure,as sensitive to the hypocrisy and corruption of contemporary New York as Holden was 50 years before, and the film is consequently darker than Tadpole. However, Igby is more comfortable with sex than Holden, both with women of his own age and older; he also uses drugs, which leads him into more dangerous situations than Holden's alcohol and cigarettes ever could. Like Catcher, Igby has its comic moments, but the trials faced by its twenty-first century Holden suggest that life has become more complex for adolescents, rather than less so. As innumerable novels have been described as a Catcher in the Rye for their generation, and so many protagonists identified as 'Holden-esque', it is difficult to choose the most relevant examples. 96


Brett Easton Ellis'sfirstnovel, Less Than Zero (1985), focuses on privileged teenager Clay, who spends his Christmas holiday in Los Angeles, taking drugs, going to parties and aimlessly driving the freeways of California. As in Catcher, the season suggests a spirituality that the protagonists cannot actually locate in their society. A sense of hopelessness pervades the novel: Clay's family and friends are soulless people who do not appreciate their luxurious lifestyles and have no sense of purpose; many of them are attracted to acts of sexual abuse and cruelty. Thefirst-personnarrative makes clear that Clay's numbed perspective leaves him less shocked by events than the reader is likely to be but, like Holden, he is not without morality and feels increasingly alienated from his erstwhile community. The novel implies that Clay lives in a place and time that is more superficial and much harsher than Holden's, and he has no one like Phoebe to give his actions meaning. Holden fantasizes about escaping to a Colorado ranch and does eventually go west to California, as if the mythic freedom of the American West will heal him; Clay has gone East to college, and he longs to return there, believing it less immoral than California. These opposing trajectories may suggest that America's identity has changed, with the West no longer the site of renewal - but both novels present a spiritual void at the heart of America. Holden resists it, however, and is considered to be ill (as if the void is within him) while Clay, although intermittently troubled, is resigned to the emptiness in his society and simply tries to escape it to avoid becoming as corrupted as his peers, rather than attempting to effect change. Nomi Nickel, the narrator of Miriam Toews's A Complicated Kindness (2004) is, 'Like Holden Caulfield, [. . .] aghast at a world she struggles to describe and explain' (Allen n.d.: n.p.), although in many ways there could hardly be a less Holden-like character than a 16-year-old girl who lives in a Mennonite religious community called East Village in Manitoba. While the name of her town might invoke Manhattan, this is an isolated place that is not merely rural: its inhabitants actually frown upon association with the urban, modern world beyond. Nomi's future prospects in the town are extremely limited, her mother and sister have 97


both fled and she lives with her father Ray, who is bereft at the loss of half his family. Nomi's first-person narrative strongly evokes Holden's attention to detail, his humour and melancholy; the text makes great use of the richness of everyday language without actually imitating Salinger's style. Recounting her narrow life with her quiet, melancholy father, Nomi says, 'What a riot. We have a ball. Recently, Ray's been using the word stomach as a verb a lot. And also the word rally. We rally and we stomach' (Toews 2005: 4). So, like Holden, Nomi is bereaved; like him, she is dismayed by her life now and in the future; like him, she relates all this in a style that is intimate, honest (although she tells a few lies), funny and believable. Unlike many texts of the adolescent genre, A Complicated Kindness also shares with Catcher an interest in religious faith. Holden empathized with Jesus, but disparaged the Disciples in a way that challenged Christian doctrine; he is both uncomfortable with, and drawn to, those with religious faith. Nomi lives in a community where the smallest details of people's lives are shaped by belief; there are those who rebel against this (including many of the adolescents Nomi knows) and those who preach an unforgiving dogma, and in between there are people like Ray, a gentle, good man who finds comfort in his faith. Nomi's dilemmas are those of many adolescents, but religion and the loss of her family are the issues that make her life most complicated, just as Holden is doubly troubled as he faces adolescence while dealing with Allie's death. These novels, although part of the genre of adolescent narratives, have a more obvious relationship with the style and concerns of Catcher than other texts. However, as well as novels that have an interest in representing adolescent experience, there are texts that evoke Catcher's specific concern with the impact of mental breakdown on a young person. From the popular sociological studies of the 1950s to contemporary discussions in the media about anti-social teenagers, adolescence has often been represented as a problematic period in a person's life, something to survive: at best, an experience like a minor illness, a 'difficult age'; at worst, a period of transition between childhood and adulthood that causes psychological crisis. Although Holden 98


could be understood to be a young person in mourning for his brother - and the significance of Allie to Holden's narrative would support this - Catcher is often read as a representation of a person breaking down simply because he is an adolescent. So Holden's main problems are often deemed to be the result of his refusal or inability to reconcile himself to the adult world he is about to enter. Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (1963) is sometimes described as a female equivalent of Catcher, more obviously autobiographical than Salinger's text, it charts Esther Greenwood's journey from a magazine internship in New York to a breakdown and hospitalization. Although Esther is slightly older than Holden, there are echoes of his voice in herfirst-personnarrative; she shares his anxieties about sex, is pessimistic about the society she lives in and struggles to connect with either her peer group or a role model. It is a bleaker novel than Catcher, because Esther is so explicit in her descriptions of her depression and suicide attempts, but it is also very witty. Acknowledging links between Catcher and The Bell Jar, Louis Menand nonetheless contends that the main difference between them is that 'no reader has ever wanted to be Esther Greenwood' (Menand 2001: 87). Certainly, it is hard to imagine anyone aspiring to suicidal depression - but Holden is also suicidal. Furthermore, while Esther recovers from her depression, Holden is still in hospital at the end of Catcher. Given this, Menand's assumption that Holden's fate is preferable to that of Esther suggests a critical double-standard that celebrates male adolescent rebellion, but pathologizes female protest. While other worthwhile texts that address issues of female mental health have been published since the The Bell Jar, texts that address the issue of mental breakdown in young men are rarer, perhaps because mental illness has historically been feminized and understood to be a largely female experience. Two exceptions to the troubling silence over male mental health are Judith Guest's Ordinary People (1976) and thefilmDonnie Darko (2001). Guest's novel, like Catcher, appears on the American Library Association's list of '100 Most Frequently Challenged Books, 1990-2000'. Like Catcher it is concerned with the impact


of the death of a sibling: Conrad Jarrett attempts suicide six months after his older brother, Jordan, drowns in a sailing accident. Conrad is unable to escape the feeling that he is responsible for his brother's death and that his parents would have preferred the charismatic Jordan to have survived instead of him. Although paying close attention to Conrad's psychological journey, the novel is, unlike Catcher, written in the third person, and is therefore able to offer significant insight into the emotions of many characters. Even so, Conrad echoes Holden, not only in his sadness about his - he believes - superior brother, but also in his bleak outlook. He thinks of himself as 'Conrad Jarrett the Anxious Failure dress this guy in blue and gray' (Guest 1982: 2) and, as in Catcher, the narrative style captures his idiosyncratic voice. Donnie Darko has been a hugely popular film despite, or because of, the mysterious aspects of its plot. Donnie is an adolescent from a comfortable middle-class family; he is close to his parents and siblings so, refreshingly, there is no implication that any of them are responsible for his unhappiness. Donnie is intelligent, imaginative and funny; his main problems in the period of time captured by the film are that he keeps seeing a man-sized mutant rabbit and he believes that the world is about to end. The film creates an intimate relationship between Donnie and the viewer; as with Holden, we like him and empathize with his difficulties. This intimacy allows the film to create a significant ambiguity: we are so close to Donnie that we are not sure how ill he really is. Clues throughout thefilmonly become suggestive at the end of the narrative and leave us wondering if, perhaps, the rabbit is actually Donnie's friend Frank and Donnie's theories of time-travel are actually true, in the world of thefilmat least. Donnie Darko bears interesting comparison with Catcher because the latter also leaves the reader in doubt about Holden's mental health and critics disagree on why Holden has to go to California to 'take it easy' (Salinger 1994a: 1). Thefilmrefuses to demonize mental illness - Donnie is unequivocally the hero of the text - and it does not allow the viewer glibly to equate his problems with his age, as certain readers of Catcher have done. Donnie also has Holden's unerring eye for the phoney, such as the lifestyle 100


guru Jim Cunningham, and although a film cannot truly have a first-person narrator in the way a novel can, the camera presents the world from Donnie's perspective, making the viewer as intimate and empathic with him as the reader is with Holden. Catcher itself is alluded to in certain texts, indicating its cultural significance. British writer John Fowles published his first novel, The Collector, in 1963. The text is narrated from the perspective of both Frederick, the collector, and Miranda, the woman he kidnaps and keeps imprisoned. The story of their relationship touches on issues of class and education: Frederick considers Miranda to be more sophisticated than he and provides her with books and records of classical music during her captivity. She demands that he read The Catcher in the Rye; that he does so indicates the complex power balance between captor and prisoner. Although Miranda expects Frederick to identify with Holden, suggesting that she views them both as unstable, Frederick considers Holden's problem to be that 'he doesn't try to fit [in]' (Fowles 1989: 205). This suggests that, like Holden, Frederick has a conventional core; unlike Holden, he does not recognize his own psychosis, which makes him much more dangerous. At the time that Fowles was writing, Catcher was making its way onto college courses and the flow of academic criticism of the novel was increasing rapidly. It is fascinating that a novel so often associated with adolescent readers can be adopted by Fowles to communicate that Miranda is a cultured, modern adult and that Frederick is fatally lacking in empathy because he does not engage with Catcher in the same way that Miranda does. The title of John Guare's play Six Degrees of Separation (1990) refers to the theory that every person in the world is connected to every other through no more than six links; the difficulty, of course, is identifying what those links might be. In this drama a young black man, Paul, arrives unexpectedly at the home of wealthy white art dealer, Flan Kittredge, and his wife, Ouisa. Claiming to be both the son of the actor Sidney Poitier and a friend of the Kittredges' children, Paul tells Flan and Ouisa that he has been mugged; excited by the proximity to fame that he represents, they invite him to stay the night. 101


Paul is a charismatic figure, charming and intelligent, and he helps the Kittredges secure an important art sale as well as cooking them dinner; during this key scene he outlines the thesis he claims to have been writing at college on The Catcher in the Rye. Paul says that he wants to investigate how Catcher came to be a 'manifesto of hate' through its connection with high-profile murders. Paul suggests that, although Holden may be 'a pretty accurate picture of a male adolescent', what the novel principally communicates is 'the death of the imagination' (Guare 1992: 32-3). Although it later becomes apparent that Paul is a fraud who has stolen his 'thesis' on Catcher from a college graduation speech, it is significant to the play that he chooses this particular text. Paul's reading of the novel suggests that what devastates Holden is the impossibility of connection with others: - 'the imagination is the passport we create to take us into the real world' (Guarre 1992: 34), and so, if the imagination fails, the essential connection with the world outside ourselves is severed. As well as being a compelling interpretation of the novel, and evidence of the playwright's certainty that the audience will know the text, the interpretation that Paul offers emphasizes both his own desire to connect with others and the ways in which individuals often resist such connections, making Paul a Holdenesque figure. The Kittredges are indeed resistant to Paul initially, but once they are assured that he is of their class and connected to the famous, they are enraptured: Ouisa comments, 'I just loved the kid so much. I wanted to reach out to him' (Guare 1992: 31). Even when the truth about Paul's various deceptions is revealed, they feel an obligation to help him, partly because 'He did more for us in a few hours than our children ever did' (Guare 1992: 117), and partly because Paul has become an anecdote that they can use to command attention for themselves. Six Degrees of Separation is an absorbing play that unmasks social hypocrisy and suggests that connections between people can be formed in unexpected ways (and, indeed, that connections are not always found where they might be expected to be). Further, the play implies that social responsibilities do not end at the barriers of race and class. In the centre of this drama sits Catcher, a text that 102


has connected with millions of readers and is, as Paul contends, profoundly concerned with the need to connect with others and the dangers of failing - or being unable - to do so. As Paul notes, The Catcher in the Rye has been invoked by Mark Chapman, who murdered John Lennon in 1980, and by John Hinckley, the would-be assassin of US President Ronald Reagan, in 1981. Whatever this might or might not reveal about the state of mind of these two men - and some have read their references to the text as indicative of their empathy with the outsider figure that Holden exemplifies - the connection certainly keeps this already famous novel in the public eye. The film Conspiracy Theory (1997) uses the Chapman/Hinckley connection in an unusual manner, to suggest that the recurrence of the text in these crimes is not a coincidence but a sign of a government conspiracy to assassinate high-profile figures. The film's hero, Jerry Fletcher (sharing his first name with Salinger), is a likeable, essentially moral character, who has a conspiracy theory for every occasion. His obsession with Catcher seems to be proof of his mental instability and therefore his unreliability, but it transpires that, in fact, he has been brain-washed and is struggling to communicate what he knows to be true about government corruption. Far from being an assassin, his principal aim is to be a saviour like Holden, a 'catcher'. Although the film is a light Hollywood product, it illustrates the range of meanings that a text can acquire over time. Reading the novel as a covert critique of the Cold War, or believing it to be a dangerously subversive influence on the young may not be so far removed from believing that the CIA record every sale of the novel as a way of measuring counter-cultural activity, as Conspiracy Theory playfully suggests. The Good Girl (2002) is another film that makes intriguing, if less dramatic, use of Catcher. Justine, the 'good girl' of the title, lives in a small town in East Texas, works in a superstore and is married to a dull but well-meaning man. The film is concerned with the impact on Justine's life of her brief affair with 22-yearold Tom, a college drop-out who calls himself Holden, says he is a writer and tells Justine that Holden in Catcher is 'put upon by society, the hypocrisy of the world', casting him as a victim rather 103


than a rebel. Justine and 'Holden'/Tom feel connected by their shared sense of disillusionment but he is far less stable than Holden Caulfield and, when his relationship with Justine ends, he kills himself. Ironically, Justine - who has never heard of Catcher - is Holden-esque in more subtle ways, struggling as he does with the narrowness of everyday life. Despite her affair, she is an ethical person who cannot bear to hurt another, especially her husband; she narrates events retrospectively in a voice-over that mimics the first-person voice of a novel; she dreams of escape and is dismayed by the low expectations of those around her, but ultimately she stays put, choosing convention over adventure. Thus, while the principal reference to Catcher may seem to be in the overtly disturbed, intense 'Holden' character, by focusing on the disillusion of a 30-year-old married woman, thefilmsuggests that struggling with conventional adult life is not only the preserve of privileged young men. An interesting variant on references to Catcher in texts is the appearance of Salinger himself. In many ways thefilmFinding Forrester (2000) covers similar ground to Good Will Hunting (1997), both directed by Gus van Sant: the relationship between a talented, misunderstood youth and a sympathetic father-figure. However, Forrester features a reclusive writer who, some years before, published a novel that is still taught in colleges and is very popular among young people, but has published nothing since. The similarities with Salinger seem undeniable, but the implications of this device are puzzling. Continued interest in Salinger as afiguremay well have convinced the scriptwriters that a plot that evoked him would be compelling; it also offers the opportunity to imagine what might happen if someone were able to break through the barrier that Salinger has constructed between himself and his public. The friendship that develops between Forrester and a gifted young black writer, Jamal, leads the otherwise anti-social author to become the boy's mentor (exactly the kind of role model that Holden craves) and ultimately results in Forrester speaking at the boy's prep school. That Forrester is so easily recognizable as a version of Salinger affirms the place still occupied in American culture by an author who has neither published any fiction, nor given an interview, in more than 40 years. 104


It is interesting that Forrester/Salinger has written a book that resonates with an African American youth: as for Justine in The Good Girl, the implication is that Catcher can illuminate lives across boundaries of gender and race, affirming many readers' sense that the novel has universal appeal. Salinger appears even more directly in W. P. Kinsella's novel, Shoeless Joe (1982), which was adapted into the film Field of Dreams (1989). The novel's key phrase, 'If you build it, he will come', refers to hero Ray Kinsella's decision to construct a baseball field on part of his farmland so that the ghosts of the disgraced Chicago Black Sox, baseball players accused of deliberately losing the 1919 World Series, can continue to play. Ray is, like Holden, afirst-personnarrator who shares his name both with the author of Shoeless Joe and with two of Salinger's characters: Richard Kinsella is the boy accused of 'digression' in Catcher and there is a Ray Kinsella in Salinger's 1947 story, 'A Young Girl in 1941 with No Waist at All'. The blending of the novel's author with that of its narrator and with Salinger characters suggests that the boundary between fact andfictionis unstable; this theme carries through to the use made by Kinsella of Salinger as a character in the novel. Ray convinces himself that Salinger is in need of rescue, so he drives to his house and effectively kidnaps him in order to show him the field where the ghost team plays. The fictional Salinger's responses to Ray's efforts seem feasible: he believes that Ray is insane and cooperates with him in case he is dangerous. The ensuing narrative allows Kinsella (the author) to imagine what Salinger might say if it were possible to have a long conversation with him. It is disconcerting to find a real person portrayed in a novel. Kinsella's 'Salinger' is constantly afraid of being recognized, though he rarely is: the implication is that his fear of his readership is unjustified now that so much time has passed. However, 'Salinger' is able to describe what it has meant to him to be intruded upon by his readers, however well-meaning they might be, and the text suggests that his reclusive life has been driven by a fear that everyone he meets will be as demanding and unreasonable as those who actively seek him out; his adventures with Ray eventually assure him that 105


this is not so. The narrative offers 'Salinger' several opportunities to state his reasons for his withdrawal from publishing as he responds to Ray's questions about his life. When Ray tells 'Salinger' that he has 'touched [his] soul' through his work, the writer responds: the words on the page have no connection to the person who wrote them. Writers live other peoples' lives for them. I don't write autobiography. I'm a quiet man who wrote stories that people believe. Because they believe, they want to touch me, but I can't stand to be touched. (Kinsella 1982: 69-70) Eventually, Ray's questions cause 'Salinger' to shout, 'Once and for all, lam not Holden Caulfield^ (Kinsella 1982: 74). While it may be that the real author would like to refute the speculation that conflates him with his most famous character, Kinsella's novel simply adds to the mystery that still surrounds Salinger, although its deployment of him as a central character is very bold and guarantees Shoeless Joe a unique place in the catalogue of Catcher-related texts.

The appearance of Catcher references in popular music confirms that the novel still speaks to young people: rock bands Green Day, The Offspring and The Bloodhound Gang all refer to Holden and Catcher in recent work. Green Day's song 'Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?' (1992) repeats the lines, 'There's a boy who fogs his world and now he's getting lazy/ There's no motivation and frustration makes him crazyI He makes a plan to take a stand but always ends up sitting/ Someone help him up or he's gonna end up quitting'. The chorus of 'Get It Right' by The Offspring (1992) runs, 'No way out/ Same old stuff always drags me down' and the verse contains the lines, 'Like Holden Caulfield I tell myself/ There's got to be a better way'. 'Magna Cum Nada' (2000) by The Bloodhound Gang begins, 'Why try? I'm that guy/ Holden Caulfield from "Catcher In The Rye'7 Put away 'cause he wasn't all there/ Like a jigsaw puzzle you might compare/Me to him'. All three songs are performed in a fast-paced, aggressive rock style that conveys anger and frustration appropriate both to the lyrics and the spirit of the novel. Green Day's song suggests 106


empathy with Holden's situation, while the other two songs claim more direct identification with his deep discontentment, further evidence of the novel's capacity to connect across generations. Catcher's influence is evident in other aspects of the music industry: as well as several bands named Holden, 'Little Shirley Beans' (the record Holden buys for Phoebe) has been taken as the name of an independent record label based in New York, which is also the home of the 'Caulfield Sisters', a group who describe themselves intriguingly as 'the musical metaphor of Phoebe'. Outside the USA, there are bands in Vancouver, ('Ryecatchers'), Glasgow ('Catcher'), Beijing ('Catcher in the Rye'), and, in Ireland, a group called 'Rollerskate Skinny', a reference to Holden's description of Phoebe as 'quite skinny, like me, but nice skinny. Roller-skate skinny' (Salinger 1994a: 60). These glimpses of Catcher in the texts discussed in this chapter prove that this archetypal story of teenage rebellion has a life far beyond its pages, continuing to exert an influence more than 55 years after Salinger's 'novel about this kid in New York during the Christmas holidays' (Hamilton 1998: 20) first appeared.

107

FURTHER READING

SALINGER'S FICTION

It is a pity that Salinger's early stories are not in print, especially the two forerunners of The Catcher in the Rye, Tm Crazy' and 'Slight Rebellion off Madison', since anyone who enjoys Catcher would be interested in seeing how Salinger's narrative style develops in the years before the novel's publication. However, the short story collection {For Esme - With Love and Squalor!Nine Stories) is well worth reading. As Chapter 2 of this book suggests, For Esme is not only an entertaining collection, but the stories also share many of the characteristics of Catcher: an emphasis on dialogue, a preoccupation with innocence and children, a mixture of humour and melancholy. The later novellas are more varied in style, but Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, Buddy Glass's account of his brother Seymour's abandoned wedding day, is very engaging and Franny suggests, in its representation of Franny Glass's disillusionment with the society of 1950s America, that Holden Caulfield is not alone in his troubles. Seymour: An Introduction and Zooey seem to have a little less of Salinger's usual light touch, but any real enthusiast will enjoy aspects of both. Salinger, J. D. (1945) 'I'm Crazy'. Collier's 116, 36, 48, 51. Salinger, J. D. (1946) 'Slight Rebellion off Madison'. The New Yorker 22, n.p. Salinger, J. D. (1994a) The Catcher in the Rye. London: Penguin. 109

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Salinger, J. D. (1994b) For Esme - With Love and Squalor. London: Penguin. Salinger, J. D. (1994c) Franny andZooey. London: Penguin. Salinger, J. D. (1994d) Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction. London: Penguin. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL ON SALINGER

As outlined in Chapter 1 of this book, Salinger withdrew from his career as a publishing author in the mid 1960s. Even before this time, he rarely granted interviews and seemed reluctant to engage with the reading public. It is no surprise, then, that no authorized biography has been published, despite great interest in Salinger and the continued steady sales of his fiction. Ian Hamilton's attempt to write a definitive study of the author resulted in legal action. Hamilton had to redraft his book so extensively that it became as much about the difficulties of writing a biography of Salinger as a study of him; even so, it contains much useful material. Paul Alexander's unauthorized biography makes use of some of the information uncovered by Hamilton and is interesting, if not particularly detailed. Margaret Salinger, the author's daughter, and Joyce Maynard, Salinger's partner in the early 1970s, have both written memoirs that are well-written and engaging books in their own right as well as offering rare insights into Salinger as a person. The New York Times online resource offers good quality material on the author, not least the account of his brief conversation with reporter Lacey Fosburgh about the unauthorized reprinting of his early short stories. Alexander, Paul (1999) Salinger: A Biography. Los Angeles: Renaissance Books. 'Featured Author: J. D. Salinger', The New York Times on the Web. www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/13/specials/salinger.html Fosburgh, Lacey (1974) 'J. D. Salinger Speaks About His Silence', New York Times, www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/13/specials/ salingerspeaks.html?_r=2&oref = slogin&oref = slogin Hamilton, Ian (1998) In Search of J. D. Salinger. London: Bloomsbury. 110

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Maynard, Joyce (1998) At Home in the World. London: Doubleday. Salinger, Margaret A. (2001) Dream Catcher: A Memoir. London: Scribner. CRITICISM OF SALINGER'S FICTION

The majority of books and essays listed here have been discussed in detail in the study, principally in Chapter 4. The recent anthologies that contain 'classic' and/or new critical essays are especially helpful: Salzberg (1990), Salzman (1991), Steed (2002) and Graham (2007). John Wenke's exploration of the short fiction is the only volume of its kind and will be very useful to anyone expanding their reading of Salinger beyond Catcher. An additional suggestion is Morris Dickstein's Leopards in the Temple, which includes discussion of Salinger's work, but is especially recommended for the way it places Salinger in the context of other key writers of the post-war period, such as Philip Roth, Ralph Ellison, Vladimir Nabokov and Jack Kerouac. Bell, Barbara (1996) 'Holden Caulfield in Doc Martens: The Catcher in the Rye and 'My So-Called Life". Studies in Popular Culture 19,47-57. Bidney, Martin (2000) The Aestheticist Epiphanies of J. D. Salinger: Bright-Hued Circles, Spheres, and Patches; "Elemental" Joy and Pain'. Style 34, 117-31. Bloom, Harold (ed.) (1990) Holden Caulfield. Philadelphia: Chelsea House. Bryan, James (1974) 'The Psychological Structure of The Catcher in the Rye\ PMLA 89, 1,065-74. Corbett, Edward (1961) 'Raise High the Barriers, Censors: Some Thoughts on The Catcher in the Rye'. America 104, 441-4. Costello, Donald (1959) 'The Language of The Catcher in the Rye\ American Speech 34, 172-81. Dickstein, Morris (2002) Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction 1945-1970. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 111

FURTHER READING

Edwards, Duane (1977) 'Holden Caulfield: "Don't Ever Tell Anybody Anything'". English Literary History 44, 554-65. Fiedler, Leslie (1962) 'Up from Adolescence'. Partisan Review 29, 127-31. Graham, Sarah. (2007) / D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. London: Routledge. Greiner, Donald J. (2006) 'Updike and Salinger: A Literary Incident'. Critique 47, 115-30. Grunwald, Henry Anatole (ed.) (1962) Salinger: A Critical and Personal Portrait. New York: Harper Colophon. Heiserman, Arthur and Miller, James (1956) 'J. D. Salinger: Some Crazy ClifF. Western Humanities Review 10, 129-37. Huber, R. J. (1984) Adlerian Theory and its Application to The Catcher in the Rye - Holden Caulfield', in Joseph Natoli (ed.), Psychological Perspectives on Literature. Hamden, CT: Archon. Kaplan, Charles (1956) 'Holden and Huck: The Odysseys of Youth'. College English 18, 76-80. Kaufman, Anthony (1998) '"Along This Road Goes No One": Salinger's "Teddy" and the Failure of Love'. Studies in Short Fiction 35, 129-40. Laser, Marvin and Fruman, Norman (eds) (1963) Studies in J. D. Salinger: Reviews, Essays, and Critiques o/The Catcher in the Rye and Other Fiction. New York: Odyssey Press. Mellard, James (1990) 'The Disappearing Subject: A Lacanian Reading of The Catcher in the Rye\ in Joel Salzberg (ed.), Critical Essays on Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: G. K. Hall. Menand, Louis (2001) 'Holden at Fifty: The Catcher in the Rye and What it Spawned'. The New Yorker 77, 87. Medovoi, Leerom (1997) 'Democracy, Capitalism, and American Literature: The Cold War Construction of J. D. Salinger's Paperback Hero', in Joel Foreman (ed.), The Other Fifties: Interrogating Midcentury American Icons. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Nadel, Alan (1995) 'Rhetoric, Sanity, and the Cold War: The Significance of Holden Caulfield's Testimony', in Containment Culture: American Narratives, Postmodernism 112

FURTHER READING

and the Atomic Age. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Ohmann, Carol and Ohmann, Richard (1976) 'Reviewers, Critics, and The Catcher in the Rye\ Critical Enquiry 3, 15-37. Salzberg, Joel (ed.) (1990) Critical Essays on Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: G. K. Hall. Salzman, Jack (ed.) (1991) New Essays on The Catcher in the Rye. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schriber, Mary Suzanne (1990) 'Holden Caulfield, C'est Moi', in Joel Salzberg (ed.), Critical Essays on Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: G. K. Hall. Steed, J. P. (ed.) (2002) The Catcher in the Rye: New Essays. New York: Peter Lang. Steinle, Pamela Hunt (2000) In Cold Fear: The Catcher in the Rye Censorship Controversies and Postwar American Character. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Strauch, Carl (1961) 'Kings in the Back Row: Meaning Through Structure: A Reading of Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye\ Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature 2, 5-30. Takeuchi, Yasuhiro (2004) 'The Zen Archery of Holden Caulfield'. English Language Notes 42, 55-63. Vail, Dennis (1976) 'Holden and Psychoanalysis'. PMLA 91, 120-1. Way, Brian (1962) "Tranny and Zooey" and J. D. Salinger'. New Left Review May/June, 72-82. Wenke, John. (1991) / D. Salinger: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne. POST-WAR AMERICA

This section contains details of key primary works of the post-war period in the USA, such as those by Betty Friedan and Alfred Kinsey: but the majority of titles here are historical or cultural studies of the 1950s and all are strongly recommended for their clarity and insight. Additional suggestions include William Chafe's detailed and comprehensive historical overview of the era. Useful companions to this volume are the essays on American culture in Christopher Bigsby's collection and Martin Halliwell's 113

FURTHER READING

study of the culture of the 1950s, which contains commentary on Catcher as well as a range of valuable material on relevant topics including fiction, music and film. Elaine May's study of how the structure of the American family changed in the Cold War era is the essential volume on this important subject. Lary May's collection of essays focuses on the relationship between culture and politics in post-war America, including in its wide remit youth culture, music, social science, suburbia, women and race. Benedek, Laszlo (1953) The Wild One. Bigsby, Christopher (2006) The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Biskind, Peter (1983) Seeing is Believing. London: Bloomsbury. Brooks, Richard (1955) Blackboard Jungle. Chafe, William H. (2003) The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Douglas, Gordon (1951) / was a Communist for the FBI. Friedan, Betty (1965) The Feminine Mystique. London: Penguin. Gidley, Mick (1993) Modern American Culture: An Introduction. London: Longman. Halberstam, David (1993) The Fifties. New York: Fawcett. Halliwell, Martin (2007) American Culture in the 1950s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Hendin, Josephine (2004) A Concise Companion to Postwar American Literature and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. Henriksen, Margot (1997) Dr Strangeloves America: Society and Culture in the Atomic Age. Berkeley: University of California. Hine, Thomas (1999) The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager. New York: Harper Perennial. Kinsey, Alfred C. (1948) Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male. Philadelphia; London: Saunders. May, Elaine Tyler (1999) Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War. [no place]: Basic Books. May, Lary (ed.) (1989) Recasting America: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cold War. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Ray, Nicholas (1955) Rebel Without a Cause. Riesman, David (2001) The Lonely Crowd (abridged and revised edn). New Haven and London: Yale Nota Bene. 114

FURTHER READING

Tallack, Douglas (1991) Twentieth-Century America: The Intellectual and Cultural Context. London: Longman. Whitfield, Stephen J. (1996) The Culture of the Cold War. Baltimore; London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Whyte, William (1956) The Organization Man. New York: Simon and Schuster. Wilson, Sloan (2002) The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows. BOOKS, FILMS AND MUSIC RELATED TO THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

As the discussion in Chapter 5 makes clear, tracing the influence of Catcher is a difficult task. Many texts of the last 50 or so years have been acclaimed as the 'new Catcher', and while this is often revealed to be principally a marketing strategy, certain texts do seem to bear comparison with Salinger's novel, either in terms of content or style. Novels listed here by Brett Easton Ellis, Judith Guest, Sylvia Plath and Miriam Toews are especially recommended, as is John Guare's play and the films The Graduate, The Good Girl and Donnie Darko. Texts about adolescence continue to be popular and, although less clearly related to Catcher in terms of narrative technique, Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding (1948), James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye (1989), Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides (1993) and Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep (2005) are all narratives of exceptional quality that offer a diverse range of representations of the experience of adolescence. Allen, Karl (n.d.) 'A Complicated Kindness'. http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/fiction/fr/kindness_2.htm Arteta, Miguel (2002) The Good Girl. Bloodhound Gang, The (2000) 'Magna Cum Nada\ Hooray for Boobies. Interscope. Crowther, Bosley (1950) T h e Screen in Review: "My Foolish Heart". http://movies 2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_ id=103324 Donner, Richard (1997) Conspiracy Theory. 115

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Ellis, Brett Easton (1986) Less Than Zero. London: Picador. Fowles, John (1989) The Collector. London: Picador. Green Day (1992) 'Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?' Kerplunk!. Lookout Records. Guare, John (1992) Six Degrees of Separation. London: Methuen. Guest, Judith (1982) Ordinary People. New York: Penguin. Holden, Stephen (2002) 'On the Outs with Almost Everything'. http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=260397 Kakutani, Michiko (2005) A Boy's Epic Quest, Borough by Borough', www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/books/22kaku.html? ex=1269147600&en=a01375fb9af5b575&ei=5090&partner= rssuserland Kelly, Richard (2001) Bonnie Darko. Kinsella, W. P. (1982) Shoeless Joe. New York: Ballantine Books. Lamb, Wally (2005) www.curtissittenfeld.com/prep.htm Observer (1993) Review of The Virgin Suicides, www.bloomsbury. com/Authors/Press/99.doc Offspring, The (1992) 'Get It Right'. Ignition. Epitaph/Ada. Nichols, Mike (1967) The Graduate. Plath, Sylvia (1999) TheBellJar. London: Faber. Robinson, Phil Alden (1989) Field of Dreams. Sant, Gus van (1997) Good Will Hunting. Sant, Gus van (2000) Finding Forrester. Steers, Burr (2002) Igby Goes Down. Toews, Miriam (2005) A Complicated Kindness. London: Faber. Weir, Peter (1989) Dead Poets Society. Winick, Gary (2002) Tadpole.

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INDEX

Ackley, Robert 37 carrousel 21-2, 39, 76, 77, 85 Adler, Alfred 86 Castle, James 41, 50, 53, 68, 69 adolescents see, teenagers Catcher in the Rye, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as autobiography 2 banned book 80-1, 90 The (Twain) 7, 82, 83, 89, 90 first publication 6, 79-80 aging 35 likened to canonical texts American Dream 29, 62, 74 Angels with Dirty Faces 64 82-3 Antolini,Mr40,46,53,56, reviews on publication 80-2 69-73, 86 Salinger's difficulties in writing Arnold, Benedict 66 6 atomic warfare 7, 8, 63 structure 31-2 'catcher in the rye' metaphor 68, Baker's Wife, The 46 76,86 Beat Generation 15,70 catching 56, 68, 69, 74, 75, 76 BellJar, The (Plath) 11, 99 Caulfield, Allie 19, 25, 26, 27, 35, Beowulf35 39-40,41,46,47,49,52,55, bestselling novels of 1951 14 65, 68, 73-4 bildungsroman 32-3, 77 Caulfield, D. B. 33, 62, 69, 77 Blackboard Jungle, The 16 Caulfield family 25, 26 Bloodhound Gang, The 106 Caulfield, Holden in Salinger's Book-of-the-Month Club 6, 79 fiction before Catcher 3-4 universalfigure87, 88-9 Brooke, Rupert 62 Caulfield, Mr 33, 37, 54, 68 'Brown v. Board of Education5 9 Caulfield, Mrs 33, 44, 69 Burroughs, William 15 Caulfield, Phoebe 24, 25, 26, cannon at Pencey Prep 34 46-7, 57, 66-9, 75-7, 85-6 Captains Courageous 52 censorship 90 117

INDEX

Ernie 49, 59 escape 11,42,44,46, 59, 61, 74, 75, 83, 86, 89 exaggeration 72 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Foer) 93

change 57-8, 61, 74, 77 Chapman, Mark 103 characterization 25-7 children 19, 26,42, 56, 57, 66, 68, 72, 75, 76, 85, 91 Christmas 39, 61, 73, 74, 76 cinema in post-war USA 13-14 Civil Rights Movement 9, 15 Cold War 8, 9, 89-90 'Comin' Through the Rye' (Burns) 56 Communism 8, 9 Complete Uncollected Short Stories (Salinger) 5 Complicated Kindness, A (Toews) 97-8 Confessional poets 16 conformity in post-war USA 11-12,13,15 in Catcher 37 Conspiracy Theory 103 counter-culture in post-war USA 15-16,90 Crucible, The (Miller) 8-9

falling 34,42, 52, 56, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 73 Farewell to Arms, A (Hemmingway) 62 father-figures see, Antolini, Stradlater, Ackley Feminine Mystique, The (Friedan) 10-11 Field of Dreams 105 film adaptation of Catcher 94 Finding Forrester 104-5 first-person narration 20, 32 Fletcher, Estelle 55 For Esme - With Love and Squalor (Salinger) 5,19, 109 'For Esme - With Love and Squalor' (Salinger) 20,22, 25, 26, 28 'Franny' (Salinger) 5, 25, 26, 27, 109 'fuck you' 74-5

David Copperfield (Dickens) 32 'De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period (Salinger) 20,25, 26 Dead Poets Society 95-6 death see also suicide 19-20, 35, 36, 66, 73, 74, 75 Dickinson, Emily 62 dialogue 2 2 ^ digression 70 disappearing 34, 7 3 ^ DonnieDarko 100-1 'Down at the Dinghy' (Salinger) 22-3, 24 ducks 44-5,49, 65

Gallagher, Jane 38,40,41,44,48 Generation of Vipers (Wylie) 10 Ginsberg, Allen 15 Glass family 5,19, 20, 25,26, 27 Good Girl, 77K? 103-4, 105 Good Will Hunting 104 Graduate, The 94-5 Grand Central Station 54 Great Depression 7 Great Gatsby, The (Fitzgerald) 1, 29, 62, 83 Green Day 106

epic 83 118

INDEX

Hamlet 56 hands 37,40, 46,48 Hayes, Sally 10, 54, 58-61 Hinckley, John 103 'Hollywood 10'36 homosexuality 56-7, 63, 72, 86 House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) 8 How to Win Friends and Influence People (Carnegie) 12 Humour 27-8 / Know My Love (Behrman) see also Lunts, The 56 T m Crazy' (Salinger) 4 Igby Goes Down 96 Indians 35 inferiority complex 86 innocence 39,41, 55, 57, 67, 68, 75, 77, 85 intertextuality see, texts within texts 'Just Before the War with the Eskimos' (Salinger) 26 Kerouac, Jack 15 Lacan, Jacques 86-7 Lardner, Ring 36 'Laughing Man, The' (Salinger)

20-1,26

Less Than Zero (Ellis) 97 linguistic analysis of Catcher 84 Lonely Crowd, The (Riesman) 12 'Lord Randall My Son' 35 loss 34 Luce, Carl 63-4, 71, 72 Lunts, The 56

Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, The (Wilson) 15-16 marriage 10-11 Marxist analysis of Catcher 87 Maurice 52-3 McCarthy, Joseph 8 men in post-war USA 11 Holden's views on 43, 58 Modern Woman: The Lost Sex (Farnham and Lundberg) 10 Morrow, Ernest 25,43 Morrow, Mrs 43, 55, 59 mother-figures 37,44, 55 movies 13, 38,41, 51, 53, 61, 62 Museum of Natural History 57-8,61,75 music industry, Catcher's influence on 107 My Foolish Heart 94 names 43,47, 66 narration 20-2 Native Americans see, Indians Nine Stories (Salinger) 5 nuns 54-5 Of Human Bondage (Maugham) 37 Offspring, The 106 O'Hara, Frank 16 Oliver Twist (Dickens) 62 Olivier, Laurence 56-7 On the Road (Kerouac) 15 Ordinary People (Guest) 99-100 Organization Man, The (Whyte) 12 Ossenburger 36 Out of Africa (Dinesen) 36 'Perfect Day for Bananaflsh, A' (Salinger) 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27-28 119

INDEX

'Slight Rebellion off Madison' (Salinger) 3, 7 social inequality 35, 54, 87 Spencer, Mr 34-5 Stekel, Wilhelm 70-1 Stradlater, Ward 36, 37-8,40-1 suicide 34, 35,41-2, 50, 53, 59, 67,68 Sunny 24, 28,42, 51,53

phony 33, 36,41,43,49, 53, 56, 59,60,61,62,63 Pollock, Jackson 16 Prep (Sittenfeld) 93 'Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes' (Salinger) 23, 24 psychological/psychoanalytical analysis of Catcher 84-7 quest 83, 88

Tadpole 96 'Teddy'(Salinger) 19, 21, 26 teenagers in post-war America 13-14, 80, 98 in Salinger's fiction 19 Holden as teenager 35, 57, 65, 76 television 13 texts within texts 28-9 39 Steps, The Ad Thurmer, Selma 33

racial prejudice 9,15, 35,49, 55 Radio City Music Hall 61 'Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters' (Salinger) 5, 19, 25,28,29,110 Random Harvest 62 Rebel Without a Cause 14 red cap 12, 36, 37, 66, 75, 76, 89 religion 9, 36, 52, 61, 98 Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) 36, 55

uncertainty 21-2 'Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut' (Salinger) 20, 26, 28 United States, post-war society and culture 7-17 unreliable narration 20, 36,47, 52,60

Salinger Industry 90 Salinger, J. D. biography 2-7 final publication 6 first publication 3 military service 4-5 reclusiveness 7 represented in fiction 104-6 'Sonny'51 sex in Catcher 45, 50, 51, 63-4, 85-7 in post-war USA 12 Sexual Behavior (Kinsey) 12-13 Shoeless Joe (Kinsella) 105-6 siblings 25, 57, 66, 86 Six Degrees of Separation (Guare) 101-3

Virgin Suicides, The (Eugenides) 93 Wild One, The 14 Women, Holden's attitudes 39, 43,47-8,50,51,55,58,85, 86, 89, 91 in post-war America 9-11 in Salinger's fiction 26

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