Twenty First Reader Is Always on the Side of the Outsider
The twenty-first century reader is always on the side of the outsider.
By comparing and contrasting appropriately selected parts of the two novels you have studied for this question, show how far you would agree with the ciew expresed above. Your argument should include relelvant comments on each writer’s methods and relevant contextual material on the twenty-first century reader.
Reader reactions vary enormously with personality, society and morals. The personality of the reader will dictate the extent to which the reader engages with outsiders such as Holden and Mersault. Whereas the society that the reader lives within ordains the reader’s interpretation of what it is to be an outsider. Ultimately it is the morals, products of both personality and society, each individual holds which influence whether any individual reader sides with the outsider.
For a twenty-first reader, living in a pluralist society, eccentricities and idiosyncrasies of individuals are generally more accepted and such things do not define an outsider in the modern world. Salinger’s use of first person narration depicts Holden Caulfield as an outsider from the outset because of his repeated singular “I” and the absence of collectives such as “we” even when Holden is in the company of other people. The use of such enclaves encourages a true and personal renditition of the inner teenage voice. According to Costello this “authenticity” is revealed in the idiosynchrasies of Holden’s ‘inside’ speech patterns (that do not feature in his direct speech) such as the use of fragmented comments and the informal repetition of expletives such as “goddam” and “bastard”. Repeated phrases surrounding such expletives like “goddam phony bastard” induce a fondness from a sympathetic modern reader. Although swearing is still used in the ‘traditional’ sense of cursing, it is becoming a more tolerated style of speech and does not provoke censorship it did at the time of The Catcher in the Rye‘s
By comparing and contrasting appropriately selected parts of the two novels you have studied for this question, show how far you would agree with the ciew expresed above. Your argument should include relelvant comments on each writer’s methods and relevant contextual material on the twenty-first century reader.
Reader reactions vary enormously with personality, society and morals. The personality of the reader will dictate the extent to which the reader engages with outsiders such as Holden and Mersault. Whereas the society that the reader lives within ordains the reader’s interpretation of what it is to be an outsider. Ultimately it is the morals, products of both personality and society, each individual holds which influence whether any individual reader sides with the outsider.
For a twenty-first reader, living in a pluralist society, eccentricities and idiosyncrasies of individuals are generally more accepted and such things do not define an outsider in the modern world. Salinger’s use of first person narration depicts Holden Caulfield as an outsider from the outset because of his repeated singular “I” and the absence of collectives such as “we” even when Holden is in the company of other people. The use of such enclaves encourages a true and personal renditition of the inner teenage voice. According to Costello this “authenticity” is revealed in the idiosynchrasies of Holden’s ‘inside’ speech patterns (that do not feature in his direct speech) such as the use of fragmented comments and the informal repetition of expletives such as “goddam” and “bastard”. Repeated phrases surrounding such expletives like “goddam phony bastard” induce a fondness from a sympathetic modern reader. Although swearing is still used in the ‘traditional’ sense of cursing, it is becoming a more tolerated style of speech and does not provoke censorship it did at the time of The Catcher in the Rye‘s