An Analysis on Holden’s Anti-hero Imagein The Catcher in the Rye

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中國政法大學外國語學院

Abstract：The Catcher in the Rye is the only published famous long novel of Jerome David Salinger. The protagonist Holden Caulfield’s rebellion to hypocrisy and his pursuit of sincerity and innocence have reflected spiritual insolation of his coeval. As one of representatives of the “Beat Generation”,Holden is genuine to the things around in a negative manner. Compared with other generations,this generation has great courage to directly face the thorny society.

Keywords：The Catcher in the Rye Holden anti-hero image the “Beat Generation”

一、Introduction

The Catcher in the Rye is the retrospection of a high school student—Holden Caulfield,who was telling the story to one psychoanalyst guy about his three-day experience in New York City. Holden wanted to get rid of the phony school and the ugly society to lead an ideal life in Westland. However,as a member of family or a part of society,he didn’t have enough power and courage to resist the decadent world.

Many researches have been done on Holden’s personality,language,interpersonal relationship,etc. Some critics think that this novel set a pessimistic example for the contemporary teenagers and should be banned. T. Morris Longstreth once wrote “that (the novel) is not fit for children to read”. He thought Holden was preposterous and profane tremendously. However,other critics think highly of Holden. Clifton Fadiman thought Holden is a human being created out of ink,paper and the imagination. Paul Engle considered Holden was engaging and believable with sharp insight. By comparing it with Adventures of Huckleberry Fin,Charles Kaplan put forward that both novels were about “the right of the nonconformist to assert his nonconformity.” However,through reading the previous literature,I find there is few paper on Holden’s anti-hero image,which is the theme of this paper.

二、An Overview of Anti-hero Image

Anti-hero image is the mainstream in the period of post-modernism. An anti-hero (or anti-heroine) is a protagonist who lacks conventional heroic qualities,such as idealism,courage,or morality. In most cases,an anti-hero may be a coward and gradually become immoral when facing the surroundings. He may be indifferent and never concerned about the social ethics; or he may own “unfit” principles to deal with the occurrence with the ambitions to change the dirty world,but seldom does he make it.

This image was developed with the changing process of the degeneration of man’s sublime ideal. The damages caused by two world wars make people eager for the individual understanding of the terrible social situation. Gradually the public turned their attentions to the works which could present the real life of common people. All these ordinary people came to the light of literature,therefore,with the increasing works on ordinary life,anti-hero became the dominant protagonist in literature works in post-modern period. The development from heroism to anti-heroism proved the collapse of pursuing the sacred and the sublime.

三、Performance of Holden’s Anti-hero Image

Faced with the secular material world,Holden felt disgusted and depressed. He hated the decayed surroundings and struggled with the mire of phony persons and things around him. However,his hesitation and incomplete rebellion made his final failure doomed.

(一)Holden’s Rebellion against Society

In the face of hypocrisy and decayed adult world,Holden felt suffocated and had no way to give his depression a vent. Only by leading a decadent life did he express his rebellion. For his rebellion against society,the best illustration is his coarse and vulgar language.

Firstly,the use of slang. The slang used by Holden is usually vulgar and lacks the accuracy. Holden used vulgar phrases,such as “freeze my ass off” to depict the freezing weather. Another feature of his slang is adding the word “old” to a person’s name no matter how old he or she is. Actually,the word “old”,without meaning,indicates the ambiguousness and inaccuracy of slang. That coarse slang has described a vivid image of an anti-orthodox-culture teenager. Holden couldn’t accept the phony mainstream,therefore,driven by his innovative spirit,he created “new” language to show his difference and rebellion.

Secondly,the use of expletives. In the novel,the expletives mainly are “damn (86 times)”,“goddam (137 times)” and “hell (143 times)”. These three words imply Holden’s hatred and boredom with the existing social morality. Those expletives are signs to express Holden’s dissatisfaction with the realistic world and his violent rebellious spirit to the civilized language.

Thirdly,the obvious grammatical mistakes. When Jane came into his mind,he said that “if a girl’s quite young and all and she does it,it’s pretty it just about kills you.”(Salinger,301) In the principal clause,the lead word “that” of adverbial clause of result is omitted,which is wrong in the grammatical aspect. For a flunked student,those mistakes may be normal,but Holden is an exception. “I didn’t have to do any work in English at all hardly...”(Salinger,227) What’s more,Holden read some English classical literature work. From those factors,Holden’s English was not at all terrible. The only reason to explain why he made so many mistakes is that he ignores the grammatical rules to demonstrate his rebellion against the common and well-accepted culture.

(二)Holden’s Resignation to the Adult World

As a teenager,Holden cannot escape from the lousy society,let alone overthrow it. Many of his behaviors indicate that he cannot cut the relationship between the community and him; therefore,it is inevitable for him to resign to the nasty society.

Holden’s resignation mostly reflects his changed attitudes towards the adult world. In the beginning,he rejected to accept the hypocritical adult world and wanted to prevent the innocent children and himself from stepping into adult world because it was the symbolic of death—falling into the “cliff”. But in the end,he accepted the truth that as a member of social community,he had to enter his next stage. Here,“resignation” is a process,not the result. In this process,his attitudes towards “death” and his little sister Phoebe are important parts.

When Holden hired the prostitute Sunny,he was falling into the cliff. When Sunny with Maurice came to ask another five bucks,Holden knew that he was chiselled. It was his first time to face death seriously. Instead of escaping,he began to face it even though the depression and disappointment almost drown him. Holden was not so brave to fight against the strong “vicious” power represented by Maurice. His courage and gut were falling owing to his awareness of death.

Thanks to Phoebe,Holden finally accepted the adult world. It was Phoebe who pulled Holden out of his indulgences in the sorrow of his dead brother. Her witness,love and innocence have brought Holden back to reality. After talking with Phoebe,Holden gradually accepted the adult world and the death peacefully. Holden totally resigned to the adult world when he saw Phoebe on the carrousel in Central Park. To pursue the maturity,they might fall into risks but it is inevitable. As one of nature phenomena,he had to accept it rather than reject or escape it.

四、Conclusion

From the analysis on Holden in The Catcher in the Rye,we can find that the “Beat Generation” has a contradictory character. They are unsatisfied with the status quo and want to throw it over,but the reality stops them doing that. The conflict between ideal and reality facilitates their special personality.