Holden Caulfield's Alienation As The Embodiment Of Self-Preservation
Sabrina Huwang
Mr. Maiore
AP English Language
9 June 2014
Alienation as the Embodiment of Self-Preservation in The Catcher in the Rye Written in 1951 during Post-World War II America by J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye details the deteriorating psychological state of the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, a pessimistic misanthrope who is convinced that the adult world is spurious and full of “phonies.” Throughout the bildungsroman, Holden’s various interactions with incommensurable individuals highlight his frequent obsession with the child-like innocence that he desperately covets and fails to protect in himself and others around him. While resisting maturation, Holden believes he resents society because society is fraudulent and artificial, …show more content…
but all he really yearns for is someone who is willing to listen to his fears regarding his transition into adulthood. When nobody gives him the attention he craves, Holden subconsciously estranges himself from others, and in his mind, it is the validation he seeks as to why he is more copacetic than everyone else around him. His cynical sense of superiority is his habitude of self-preservation, and while it does offer him some stability, it also debilitates his mental soundness and social capability. Holden craves human interaction but his contemptuously defensive barrier prevents him from doing so; thus it not only becomes his sole source of strength, but it also morphs into his biggest detrimental obstacle. Through the usage of recurring symbolism, juvenile first-person narration, and the contradictory hypocrisy of the protagonist in the novel, Salinger realistically portrays the chronic feelings of alienation and isolation that characterize a coming-of-age story while also adamantly addressing the abstruse issue regarding the loss of one’s innocence. Inseparable from the protagonist, the obnoxious red hunting hat has come to be one of the paramount symbols that epitomize the distinctive child-like identity of Holden Caulfield. Although seemingly proud and boastful of the flamboyant hat, Holden becomes very self-conscious when he is in the public eye and does not wear it, but in his moments of vulnerability, the hat shows up to aggrandize his confidence and transmute his attitude into a tough, lackadaisical one. Thus, the red hunting hat transforms into a crucial way by which the protagonist perceives himself because when he wears it, he can be as insular and individualistic as he desires. Conversely, the hat also represents Holden’s inability to love others, Holden himself states, “This is a people shooting hat. I shoot people in this hat” (Salinger 30). The hostile indifference in his tone solidifies his defense mechanism against others and halts all insightful interactions with the “phonies” and other individuals. At the time of the novel’s publication, young people wore hats with the bill turned front. However, Holden deliberately wears the hat backwards “as a badge of his nonconformity and his rebellion against the rest of society,” which also symbolizes his self- appointed task of preserving innocence (Vanderbilt 297). “To be a catcher in the rye, Holden’s ambition, is to be a kind of secular saint, willing and able to save children from disasters” (Bloom 1-2). In addition, the backwards bill also symbolizes the reverse direction of his enigmatic journey for love. “As long as Holden wears the bill to the back, he remains a victim of his neurosis and continues to be unreceptive to the regenerative power of love” (Unrue 40). The presence of the hat deftly mirrors the central struggle of the book which is the protagonist’s frantic tendency towards peaceful isolation versus his critical need for attentive companionship. Repeatedly, the ducks at the central lagoon materialize throughout the novel and Holden’s fixation with them has come to embody his struggle with change and the torment of maturation. In the frigid wintertime, Holden frets over where the ducks will go when the lagoon freezes over because in many senses, he himself is a duck with no place to return to. For instance, to infiltrate his home, he must barge in like a crook by duping the elevator boy and quietly sneaking around to avoid the inevitable confrontation with his parents (Heiserman 7). While conversing with the cab driver, Holden inquires, ‘“Well, you know the ducks that swim around in [the lagoon]? Do you happen to know where they go in the wintertime, by any chance?”’ (Salinger 107). The lagoon, frozen and half-frozen, becomes a metaphor that represents Holden’s transition between adolescence and adulthood. The curiosity he claims to have with regards to the ducks emulates his bewilderment that deals with the uncertainty of his own distant future. He needs a safe haven where he can tranquilly reside in that is far away from the hellish society he has known. Holden despondently necessitates permanence so he can elude adulthood, but the ducks validate that one must adapt to their environment in order to survive and subsist. No matter how harsh the winters, the ducks continuously return which emits a message of hope and optimism despite the formerly bleak circumstances. The language in The Catcher in the Rye encompasses linguistic significance that exposes the teenage vernacular of the 1950s and the personal idiosyncrasies of Holden’s speech define that dialect (Costello 11).
The importance of the diction in the novel will increase with each generation as the dialect becomes less colloquial. Holden’s speech may appear to be obscene and vulgar at first, but on the contrary, Salinger intentionally created the character with regard to Holden’s sensitivity. For example, Holden may curse frequently but he never allows himself to use the most “strongly forbidden terms,” whereas his roommates Stradlater and Ackley voices the more offensive terms habitually. The only scenarios in which Holden uses the stronger curse words are those in which he feels the need for them and when he is incapable of expressing himself by other means. It also should be noted that Holden never exerts his vulgar dialect to address the audience but instead he uses it in his interactions with his schoolmates, whom he considers “phonies.” As Holden is incapable of communicating with others, he tends to curse more when impassioned and enraged, as seen in the incident over how Stradlater may have treated Jane Gallagher, who is the emblem of purity and innocence for
Holden. “At the outset of The Catcher in the Rye Holden takes firm control as narrator by sharply defining the parameters and focus of the story he will tell” (Unrue 105). The frame narration in the novel offers a bifocal viewpoint of the events that take place over the course of three days. While there is the infantile Holden to whom the events are happening, there is also the more mature Holden re-telling the span of events that have already happened to him. The entire novel itself is a flashback that offers insight as to what “madman stuff” had really happened to Holden and what had prompted his vicissitude. There are obvious discrepancies between what he says, how he feels, and what really happens, and as Holden is evidently biased, his unreliability as a narrator undermines the accuracy of the circumstances described. While the past Holden found too little innocence in the world and feared the further loss of it, the Holden in the present has reached a new level of awareness, which implies that he has come to terms with the ever-encroaching adult world. He has come to accept the fact that his task to preserve innocence as well as his search for authenticity is insurmountable, and instead of further dismissing people, he has begun to accept and value his interactions with others: “About all I know is, I sort of miss everybody I told about. Even old Stradlater and Ackley, for instance. I think I even miss that goddam Maurice” (Salinger 277). Holden’s apparent nostalgia elucidates that the new Holden is not as begrudging and vitriolic as his past self, which connotes an optimistic ending. Because the novel is told from Holden’s point of view, the contradictions that shape the novel reflect and characterize the neurotic, troubled mind of the misanthropic protagonist. Salinger presents Holden as a confused, hypocritical, and disillusioned teenager who constantly contradicts the way he presents himself with his actions. For instance, Holden is a heavy smoker, but he has no wind. Holden is “quite illiterate” but he reads “a lot” (Salinger 24). Another case of the duality in his identity is the discrepancy between his age and physical appearance, as Holden states, “I was sixteen then, and I’m seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I’m about thirteen. It’s really ironical, because I’m six foot two and a half and I have gray hair” (Salinger 13). Although he addresses Sally Hayes as the queen of phonies, he contradicts himself by stating that he wanted to marry her. However, the most fundamental discrepancy lies in Holden’s attitude towards sex throughout the novel in which he is trying to lose his virginity but when the opportunity came with the prostitute, Sunny, Holden enunciates, “I was feeling much more depressed than sexy” (Salinger 123). This dilemma vehemently clashes with Holden’s ideas on purity and innocence. He assuredly deems that sex should happen between people who not only love each other but also respect one another. When Sunny formalizes sex into a business matter by rushing him, Holden is appalled at how casual and meaningless sex can be. This prompts him into further abjection, which exemplifies his innate desire to remain outside the apocryphal grown-up world. Holden, critical of “phonies,” is arguably the biggest phony of all which is proven by his hypocritical actions. Holden Caulfield’s hypocrisy immortalizes him as one of the most iconic teenagers of 20th-century American literature. The recurring motifs and immature narrative style capture the sensitive adolescent whose wry observations on alienation and whose battle for self-identification resonate with readers more than a century after The Catcher in the Rye’s publication. While J.D. Salinger utilizes his own experiences with teenage depression for the character of Holden Caulfield, his portrayal of the message that isolation cannot preserve self brings hope to an otherwise pessimistic and bleak novel.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold. J.D. Salinger 's The Catcher in the Rye. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2000. Print.
Costello, Donald P. “The Language of The Catcher in the Rye.” Critical Insights: The Catcher in the Rye. American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic Usage (1959): 251-64. Print.
Heiserman, Arthur, and James E. Miller Jr. “J.D. Salinger: Some Crazy Cliff.” Critical Insights: The Catcher in the Rye. Western Humanities Review (1963): 3-7. Print.
Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, 2001. Print.
Unrue, John C. Literary Masterpieces The Catcher in the Rye. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Print.
Vanderbilt, Kermit. “Symbolic Resolution in The Catcher in the Rye: The Cap, the Carrousel, and the American West.” Critical Insights: The Catcher in the Rye. Western Humanities Review (1963): 297-305. Print.
Mr. Maiore
AP English Language
9 June 2014
Alienation as the Embodiment of Self-Preservation in The Catcher in the Rye Written in 1951 during Post-World War II America by J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye details the deteriorating psychological state of the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, a pessimistic misanthrope who is convinced that the adult world is spurious and full of “phonies.” Throughout the bildungsroman, Holden’s various interactions with incommensurable individuals highlight his frequent obsession with the child-like innocence that he desperately covets and fails to protect in himself and others around him. While resisting maturation, Holden believes he resents society because society is fraudulent and artificial, …show more content…
but all he really yearns for is someone who is willing to listen to his fears regarding his transition into adulthood. When nobody gives him the attention he craves, Holden subconsciously estranges himself from others, and in his mind, it is the validation he seeks as to why he is more copacetic than everyone else around him. His cynical sense of superiority is his habitude of self-preservation, and while it does offer him some stability, it also debilitates his mental soundness and social capability. Holden craves human interaction but his contemptuously defensive barrier prevents him from doing so; thus it not only becomes his sole source of strength, but it also morphs into his biggest detrimental obstacle. Through the usage of recurring symbolism, juvenile first-person narration, and the contradictory hypocrisy of the protagonist in the novel, Salinger realistically portrays the chronic feelings of alienation and isolation that characterize a coming-of-age story while also adamantly addressing the abstruse issue regarding the loss of one’s innocence. Inseparable from the protagonist, the obnoxious red hunting hat has come to be one of the paramount symbols that epitomize the distinctive child-like identity of Holden Caulfield. Although seemingly proud and boastful of the flamboyant hat, Holden becomes very self-conscious when he is in the public eye and does not wear it, but in his moments of vulnerability, the hat shows up to aggrandize his confidence and transmute his attitude into a tough, lackadaisical one. Thus, the red hunting hat transforms into a crucial way by which the protagonist perceives himself because when he wears it, he can be as insular and individualistic as he desires. Conversely, the hat also represents Holden’s inability to love others, Holden himself states, “This is a people shooting hat. I shoot people in this hat” (Salinger 30). The hostile indifference in his tone solidifies his defense mechanism against others and halts all insightful interactions with the “phonies” and other individuals. At the time of the novel’s publication, young people wore hats with the bill turned front. However, Holden deliberately wears the hat backwards “as a badge of his nonconformity and his rebellion against the rest of society,” which also symbolizes his self- appointed task of preserving innocence (Vanderbilt 297). “To be a catcher in the rye, Holden’s ambition, is to be a kind of secular saint, willing and able to save children from disasters” (Bloom 1-2). In addition, the backwards bill also symbolizes the reverse direction of his enigmatic journey for love. “As long as Holden wears the bill to the back, he remains a victim of his neurosis and continues to be unreceptive to the regenerative power of love” (Unrue 40). The presence of the hat deftly mirrors the central struggle of the book which is the protagonist’s frantic tendency towards peaceful isolation versus his critical need for attentive companionship. Repeatedly, the ducks at the central lagoon materialize throughout the novel and Holden’s fixation with them has come to embody his struggle with change and the torment of maturation. In the frigid wintertime, Holden frets over where the ducks will go when the lagoon freezes over because in many senses, he himself is a duck with no place to return to. For instance, to infiltrate his home, he must barge in like a crook by duping the elevator boy and quietly sneaking around to avoid the inevitable confrontation with his parents (Heiserman 7). While conversing with the cab driver, Holden inquires, ‘“Well, you know the ducks that swim around in [the lagoon]? Do you happen to know where they go in the wintertime, by any chance?”’ (Salinger 107). The lagoon, frozen and half-frozen, becomes a metaphor that represents Holden’s transition between adolescence and adulthood. The curiosity he claims to have with regards to the ducks emulates his bewilderment that deals with the uncertainty of his own distant future. He needs a safe haven where he can tranquilly reside in that is far away from the hellish society he has known. Holden despondently necessitates permanence so he can elude adulthood, but the ducks validate that one must adapt to their environment in order to survive and subsist. No matter how harsh the winters, the ducks continuously return which emits a message of hope and optimism despite the formerly bleak circumstances. The language in The Catcher in the Rye encompasses linguistic significance that exposes the teenage vernacular of the 1950s and the personal idiosyncrasies of Holden’s speech define that dialect (Costello 11).
The importance of the diction in the novel will increase with each generation as the dialect becomes less colloquial. Holden’s speech may appear to be obscene and vulgar at first, but on the contrary, Salinger intentionally created the character with regard to Holden’s sensitivity. For example, Holden may curse frequently but he never allows himself to use the most “strongly forbidden terms,” whereas his roommates Stradlater and Ackley voices the more offensive terms habitually. The only scenarios in which Holden uses the stronger curse words are those in which he feels the need for them and when he is incapable of expressing himself by other means. It also should be noted that Holden never exerts his vulgar dialect to address the audience but instead he uses it in his interactions with his schoolmates, whom he considers “phonies.” As Holden is incapable of communicating with others, he tends to curse more when impassioned and enraged, as seen in the incident over how Stradlater may have treated Jane Gallagher, who is the emblem of purity and innocence for
Holden. “At the outset of The Catcher in the Rye Holden takes firm control as narrator by sharply defining the parameters and focus of the story he will tell” (Unrue 105). The frame narration in the novel offers a bifocal viewpoint of the events that take place over the course of three days. While there is the infantile Holden to whom the events are happening, there is also the more mature Holden re-telling the span of events that have already happened to him. The entire novel itself is a flashback that offers insight as to what “madman stuff” had really happened to Holden and what had prompted his vicissitude. There are obvious discrepancies between what he says, how he feels, and what really happens, and as Holden is evidently biased, his unreliability as a narrator undermines the accuracy of the circumstances described. While the past Holden found too little innocence in the world and feared the further loss of it, the Holden in the present has reached a new level of awareness, which implies that he has come to terms with the ever-encroaching adult world. He has come to accept the fact that his task to preserve innocence as well as his search for authenticity is insurmountable, and instead of further dismissing people, he has begun to accept and value his interactions with others: “About all I know is, I sort of miss everybody I told about. Even old Stradlater and Ackley, for instance. I think I even miss that goddam Maurice” (Salinger 277). Holden’s apparent nostalgia elucidates that the new Holden is not as begrudging and vitriolic as his past self, which connotes an optimistic ending. Because the novel is told from Holden’s point of view, the contradictions that shape the novel reflect and characterize the neurotic, troubled mind of the misanthropic protagonist. Salinger presents Holden as a confused, hypocritical, and disillusioned teenager who constantly contradicts the way he presents himself with his actions. For instance, Holden is a heavy smoker, but he has no wind. Holden is “quite illiterate” but he reads “a lot” (Salinger 24). Another case of the duality in his identity is the discrepancy between his age and physical appearance, as Holden states, “I was sixteen then, and I’m seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I’m about thirteen. It’s really ironical, because I’m six foot two and a half and I have gray hair” (Salinger 13). Although he addresses Sally Hayes as the queen of phonies, he contradicts himself by stating that he wanted to marry her. However, the most fundamental discrepancy lies in Holden’s attitude towards sex throughout the novel in which he is trying to lose his virginity but when the opportunity came with the prostitute, Sunny, Holden enunciates, “I was feeling much more depressed than sexy” (Salinger 123). This dilemma vehemently clashes with Holden’s ideas on purity and innocence. He assuredly deems that sex should happen between people who not only love each other but also respect one another. When Sunny formalizes sex into a business matter by rushing him, Holden is appalled at how casual and meaningless sex can be. This prompts him into further abjection, which exemplifies his innate desire to remain outside the apocryphal grown-up world. Holden, critical of “phonies,” is arguably the biggest phony of all which is proven by his hypocritical actions. Holden Caulfield’s hypocrisy immortalizes him as one of the most iconic teenagers of 20th-century American literature. The recurring motifs and immature narrative style capture the sensitive adolescent whose wry observations on alienation and whose battle for self-identification resonate with readers more than a century after The Catcher in the Rye’s publication. While J.D. Salinger utilizes his own experiences with teenage depression for the character of Holden Caulfield, his portrayal of the message that isolation cannot preserve self brings hope to an otherwise pessimistic and bleak novel.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold. J.D. Salinger 's The Catcher in the Rye. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2000. Print.
Costello, Donald P. “The Language of The Catcher in the Rye.” Critical Insights: The Catcher in the Rye. American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic Usage (1959): 251-64. Print.
Heiserman, Arthur, and James E. Miller Jr. “J.D. Salinger: Some Crazy Cliff.” Critical Insights: The Catcher in the Rye. Western Humanities Review (1963): 3-7. Print.
Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, 2001. Print.
Unrue, John C. Literary Masterpieces The Catcher in the Rye. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Print.
Vanderbilt, Kermit. “Symbolic Resolution in The Catcher in the Rye: The Cap, the Carrousel, and the American West.” Critical Insights: The Catcher in the Rye. Western Humanities Review (1963): 297-305. Print.