Analysis on Holden Caulfield in the Catcher in the Rye 英语专业毕业论文.doc

1 Analysis on Holden Caulfield in the Catcher in the Rye Thesis statement: Holden Caulfield is in many ways a typical teenager of the complicated and paradoxical youth. He has a naïve and kind heart with a great ideal, and he is willing to pursue the wonderful life. He only wants to be a catcher in the rye to be the guardian of innocence and the protector of innocents. I demonstrate his honesty, generosity, and kind from the descriptions and the incidents in some chapters. Outline . Introduction .The personality of Holden Caulfield Brief introduction to the prospectus of The Catcher in the Rye A. Holdens honesty and sincerity 1. His thoughts on Selma Thurmer 2. His deeds to others 3. His deeds comparing with that of the adult B. Holdens generosity 1. Contribution of his time to accompany others 2. His tendency to try to find some good in most people 3. His donation to the nuns C. Holdens kindness 1. Consideration for others 2. His unwillingness to make life difficult for people 3. His desire to protect the children . Conclusion Abstract This paper analyses the personality of the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, who is a controversial character. In this paper, the author mainly figures out the positive character of Holden Caulfield. Then the author analyses the personality of Holden Caulfield from three aspects: Holden Caulfield himself is a sincere person, and he tends to espouse is authenticity, disgusting falsehood. Holden Caulfield can not help being generous. Holden Caulfield is a very kind boy. Key Words: honesty, sincerity, generosity, kindness 内容提要 本文主要对麦田里的守望者一书中的主人公霍尔顿考尔菲德这一人物性格 进行分析。这是一个颇具争议的人物，本文主要从正面理解的此人物。首先大 2 致介绍当时美国的历史背景以及作者 J.D.塞林格本人的生活经历。接下来本文 从三方面分析阐述霍尔顿考尔菲德的性格：一是霍尔顿 考尔菲德他本人的正 直和他对真实的追求和对虚伪的厌恶。二是霍尔顿考尔菲德帮助他人的慷慨大 方。三是霍尔顿 考尔菲德发自内心的善良。 关键词：正直， 真实， 慷慨大方， 善良 Introduction His creator is not without his legend either. Jersome David Salinger, man of mystery and conscientious alien from all things connected with the society that his youthful hero laments over, has progressively withdrawn from the company of all but a select few of his fellow human beings, and upon these he appears to have imposed a vow of silence. The facts of his earlier years, consequently, heavily outweigh the information we have later. He was born in 1919 to a well-to-do merchant family in New York City. The only other child in his family, a sister, was eight years older than he. His father was a prosperous meat importer who tried unsuccessfully to groom his son for the trade. An average student with an average I.Q., Salinger attended both public and private schools in Manhattan. Finally he was sent off to a military academy in Pennsylvaniaperhaps a partial model for Holden Caulfields Pencey Prepwhere he receive his only diploma. Aside from the typical extra-curricular activities, at school and at a Maine summer camp, such as acting, fencing, writing for the yearbook and the like, he was remembered for no dramatic escapades of the kind that characterize Holden Caulfield, and left no record of unusual accomplishment. After putting in his time in the military academy he spent less than a month trying out college at New York University and completed his academic career taking a short- story course at Columbia University. This course, given by the editor of Story magazine, resulted in the publication of his first short story in the same magazine in 1940. Drafted in 1942, Salinger spent the next four years in the Army. Apparently the young Salinger never stopped writing, since he is described by himself and others as writing in hotel rooms during weekend passes, in tents by flashflight, and even, if we can accept the more amazing aspects of the legend, in the foxholes. Certainly, if he was not writing all the time, he was alert to the artistic possibilities of his experiences, for many of them turn up in one form or other in his later stories. Biographical information becomes less available at this point, being based more on hearsay and conjecture and less on the small body of fact that Salinger has been willing to provide. 3 What is so important about the facts of Salingers life? Certainly his work stands or falls on its own merits. But the mystery surrounding his life is elaborated because he is at once the most artistically established young American writer and the one about whom the public knows least. Unlike Hemingway, whom Salinger met during his military sojournHemingway thought he had a “helluva” talentSalinger does not have an affinity for dramatic experiences. He is not an activist living openly in the public eye; he is a practitioner of the cult of secrecy. However, some of the details about his life often have a fictional counterpart in his works.For example, both Salinger and his creation, Holden, attended prep schools and were members of the fencing team (although Holden is merely the teams manager). During the prep-school career of both Salinger and Holden Caulfield, a suicide and a nervous breakdown of a fellow student occurred. Thus the students biographical examination is not without relevance, for it illuminates some of the techniques by which Salingers experience are transformed into works of art. J.D. Salinger has some other famous works. Following The Catcher in the Rye publishing in 1951, Nine Story was published in 1953, and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour, an Introduction was published in 1963. All subsequent works listed after The Catcher in the Rye are short stories, most of them published prior to collective issuance. The reason I cho ose to analyze The Catcher in the Rye is that this book is J.D. Salingers first and the most successful works. In the late 40s and the early 51s, while the pieces from Nine Stories were being published separately, Salinger was undoubtedly trying to work into a novel his earlier stories about Holden Caulfield. The Catcher in the Rye became upon publication in 1951 an almost immediate success. As a midsummer Book-of-Month Club selection, for example, it certainly exposed Salinger to a larger audience than he had hitherto enjoyed. If, indeed, “enjoy” is the proper word, since the degree of popularity was enough to disturb Salinger, who directed that his picture be removed from the third and subsequent issues of the book. He remarked later to a friend that “I feel tremendously relieved that the season for success for The Catcher in the Rye is nearly over. I enjoyed a small part of it, but most of it I found hectic and professionally and personally demoralizing.” Reviews of the novel were mixed, from out-and-out approval to questions about Salingers attitudes, the colloquial style, the focus on an adolescent boy, and of course, the issue that has since attracted attention, whether the book was fit for young readers. Thus, The Catcher in the Rye, especially since issuance as a paperback in 1953, has been, curiously, both stipulated for and banned from high school and college reading lists. The theme of The Catcher in the Rye, in its broadest sense, would be the difficulty of growing up, the lonely and arduous voyage from innocence to experience. Perhaps because the American nation and traditions are so young, many prominent American novelists have used the theme of a young persons initiation to experience. The rebellion against genteel language and the subjective, individualistic way of telling the 4 story also are very American. Although Holdens sensitivity and intelligence are heightened for the purpose of dramatizing his character, he shares, to a considerable extent, the problem of all American youth. Holdens main problems are honesty and egotism. Holden can not really accept the death of his brother Allie. He idealizes Allie to the point where it interferes with his ability to make new friendship. He desires to be honest, which demands facing the problems of life, but he wants to protect all other children from having face them. His sincerity leads him to lie, which beclouds his honesty, and forces him to wonder about his ability to be honest. This general pattern, i.e., a self-conscious examination of himself, leads him to doubt all his motivations, as when he dismisses the notion of being a lawyer. Holden feels that self-gratifying motives cannot be separated from any good intention. Holden, preoccupied with self, has a confused vision of the real objects in life. One of the evidences of Holdens growth is stated in the last chapter when Holden finally learns how to miss people. When studying a piece of literature , it is meaningful to note the historical background of the piece and the time at which it was written. America became very rich after the War. After the War, the standard of living and consumption were both developed, so the number of middle class was increased fiercely. At the same time, the spirit of most of the people was more and more vacuous and necessitous. In the early 1950s, the government of America pursued Reds with holding back communism. Internationally, the cold war was being more and more serious. Interiorly, everyone was involved in the horrific atmosphere by the nuclear war and progressive people suppressed. Some people enjoyed the luxurious life, having a muddleheaded life; while others were eager to resist the vulgar and deceptive world, but they were lack of long-range ideal, so they could not find out a correct way. Some youth resisted the reality by negative way such as drinking, freak-out and cohabitation. As a result, some historians of the time regards the young Americans as the beat Generation in America. Although Ever since its publication in 1951, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye has served as a firestorm for controversy and debate. Some critics scolded the novel as being too pessimistic or obscene, too harsh for the society of the 1950's. Others, however, nominated Salinger himself as the top-flight “catcher in the rye“ for that period in American history . They argued that Salinger's concerns represented an entire generation of American youth, frustrated by the phoniness of the world, just like Holden was. In the end, The Catcher in the Rye is accepted by the world. It devotes much to American literature and means much to both adolescence and adulthood in that time. The personality of Holden Caulfield The prospectus of The Catcher in the Rye: Holden Caulfield is a student at Pencey Prep School, being born in a middle-class family. Having been expelled for failing four out of his five classes, Holden goes to see Mr. Spencer, his History teacher, 5 before he leaves Pencey. Holden returns to his dormitory where he finds Stradlater prepares for a date with Jane Gallagher, a friend of Holden from several summers before. When Stradlater returns, Holden asks about his date with Jane, and when Stradlater indicates that he might have had sex with her, Holden becomes enraged and tries to punch Stradlater, who quickly overpowers him and knocks him out. Soon after, Holden decides to leave Pencey that night and not to wait until Wednesday. He leaves Pencey to return to New York City, where he will stay in a hotel before actually going home. On the train to New York City, Holden sits next to the mother of a Pencey student, Ernest Morrow. Holden lies to Mrs. Morrow about how popular and well- respected her son is at Pencey, while he is actually loathed by the other boys. When Holden reaches New York, he finally decides to stay at the Edmond Hotel. Holden experienced two nights and one days vagrant life . Thinking that he may die soon, Holden returns home to see Phoebe, attempting to avoid his parents. He awakens her, when he complains about the phoniness of Pencey, Phoebe asks him if he actually likes anything. He tells Phoebe that he would like to be “a catcher in the rye,“ and he imagines himself standing at the edge of a cliff as children play around him. He would catch them before they ran too close to the cliff. When his parents come home, Holden sneaks out to stay with Mr. Antolini, his former English teacher at Elkton Hills. Holden falls asleep on the couch, and when he awakens he finds Mr. Antolini with his hand on Holden's head. Holden immediately interprets this as a homosexual advance, and decides to leave. Holden spends the night at Grand Central Station, deciding to go to the West. At last, he comes to home. In essence, Holden Caulfield is a good guy stuck in a bad world. He is trying to make the best of his life, though ultimately losing that battle. Whereas he aims at stability and truth, the adult world cannot survive without suspense and lies. It is a testament to his innocence and decent spirit that Holden wouldplace the safety and well-being of children as a goal in his lifetime. This serves to only re-iterate the fact that Holden is a sympathetic character, a person of high moral values who is too weak to pick himself up from a difficult situation. Holden exhibits a cynical self-awareness as he retraces the events that led up to his present position. He has a good many strong opinions, yet he tries to look at both sides of an issue, and, what is perhaps most important, he feels and tries to express his feelings. Holdens view of what is facile, unreflecting and cliché-ridden in the adult world is to figure largely in the novel. Holdens reactionamusement rather than resentmentto the circumstances that caused his expulsion, is another indication of his innate honesty. The one value that he tends to espouse is authenticity, although he has no concrete definition of what this entails. One of the most intriguing points in Holden's character, related to his prolonged inability to communicate, is Holden's intention to become a 6 deaf-mute. So repulsed is he by the phoniness around him that he wishes not to communicate with anyone, and in a passage filled with personal insight he contemplates a retreat within himself: “I figured that I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people's cars. I didn't care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn't know me and I didn't know anybody. I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversation with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life. Everybody would think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone . . . I'd cook all my own food, and later on, if I wanted to get married or something, I'd meet this beautiful girl that was also a deaf-mute and we'd get married. She'd come and live in my cabin with me, and if she wanted to say anything to me, she'd have to write it on a piece of paper, like everybody else“ . First, in Chapter one, Holden begins his story during the Saturd