Jerome David Salinger

1919 - 2010

Relavance to Catcher in the Rye:

Salinger went to various prep schoos before he was sent to the Valley Forge Military Academy

Holden also moves from prep school to prep school and is threatened with military school.

In terms of acedemia Salinger attended a nubner of colleges, but never graduated form any of them. Both he and Holden are seen as an academic failiure.

Quotes from Wikipedia:

"The book was—and continues to be—banned in some communities, and it consequently has been thrown into the center of debates about First Amendment rights, censorship, and obscenity in literature."

"Though controversial, the novel appealed to a great number of people. It was a hugely popular bestseller and general critical success. Salinger’s writing seemed to tap into the emotions of readers in an unprecedented way. As countercultural revolt began to grow during the 1950s and 1960s, The Catcher in the Rye was frequently read as a tale of an individual’s alienation within a heartless world. Holden seemed to stand for young people everywhere, who felt themselves beset on all sides by pressures to grow up and live their lives according to the rules, to disengage from meaningful human connection, and to restrict their own personalities and conform to a bland cultural norm. Many readers saw Holden Caulfield as a symbol of pure, unfettered individuality in the face of cultural oppression."

Holden Caulfield  

Age: 16

Academic: academic failure/expelled from a school called Pencey Prep

Character: intelligent and sensitive

Narreration voice: cynical and jaded

World view: He finds the hypocrisy and ugliness of the world around him almost unbearable

Inner conflict: He in in the gap betwene childhood and adulthood, and he is uncomfortable with his own weaknesse

Phoniness: 

Conflict in the end: His inability to successfully negotiate the chasm leaves him on the verge of emotional collapse.

major conflict · The major conflict is within Holden. Part of him wants to connect to the adult world , while part of him wants to reject the adulthood as “phony,” and never grow up.

rising action · His decisions to interact with other people as an adult, or to retreat from them as a child are in conflict.

climax  · He is unable to handle a sexual encounter; the end of his date with Sally, when he tries to get her to run away with him. He begins to question his characteristic mode of judging other people.

falling action  · His tears of joy at watching Phoebe on the carousel as a retreat into childhood and away from adulthood.