... or central figure, through various pranks an - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 26
About This Presentation
Title:

... or central figure, through various pranks an

Description:

... or central figure, through various pranks and predicaments and by his ... with or see some of their friends reflected in different aspects of Holden's character. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:238
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 27
Provided by: carrie90
Category:

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: ... or central figure, through various pranks an


1
An Introduction toThe Catcher in the Rye
  • Borrowed from
  • Advanced Composition Novel
  • Mrs. Snipes Mrs. Lutes

2
J.D. Salinger
  • Alienation from society is a major theme of
    Jerome David Salingers work and no less a force
    in his own life. He seems determined to retreat
    from society and has succeeded in obscuring most
    of his private life.

3
  • Born January 1, 1919 to the family of a
    prosperous Manhattan food dealer, Salinger had
    one older sister. He was educated in New York
    City except for the last two years of high
    school. These final years were spent at Valley
    Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania.
  • Information about his first six years after
    graduation is vague. Salinger may have visited
    Europe and is known to have studied sporadically
    at New York University, Ursinus College, and
    Columbia University, concentrating on writing
    courses. During this time, Salinger published
    several short stories in popular magazines.

4
  • Drafted in 1942 and trained in England, Salinger
    participated in the D-Day invasion. He continued
    to write during this period and more stories
    appeared in print. There was also an alleged
    marriage to a Frenchwoman, which supposedly ended
    in divorce in 1947.
  • Salinger moved to rural New Hampshire and lived
    as a recluse. He only saw local youngsters, whose
    company he enjoyed. Although the success of his
    one novel, The Catcher in the Rye (1951), brought
    him unwanted attention, he kept the public eye at
    bay by refusing all visitors. However, whenever
    he was trapped, he offered conflicting
    information and often totally false biographical
    data.

5
  • In 1955, Salinger wed an Englishwoman, Claire
    Douglas. The Salingers lived in Cornish, New
    Hampshire, in a fenced-off, isolated farmhouse
    with their two children. Salinger used a nearby
    concrete bunker as his writing office. Although
    the marriage ended in divorce in 1967, Salinger
    remains in Cornish. He continues to refuse all
    contact with society, communicating with the
    world only through his published works.

6
The Philosopher
  • In Salingers work, contemporary society is
    permeated by hypocrisy, injustice, and a lack of
    love. In this world of artificiality and
    indifference, Salingers sensitive characters
    invariably suffer.
  • One of the few saving graces in Salingers
    corrupt world is the purity of childhood. Yet
    this beautiful, desirable, pristine innocence is
    short lived. And since childhood innocence is
    corrupted by passage into adulthood, Salinger
    offers little hope for a meaningful existence.

7
  • Yet even the changes of maturation can be dealt
    with if the character develops an
    all-encompassing love. In a climactic moment in
    The Catcher in the Rye, Holden is transformed as
    he watches Phoebe on a carousel. Through love, he
    is at last able to accept the inevitability of
    change and forgive the wrongdoing of others.

8
  • Some readers object that Salingers message is
    based on negative, reactionary attitudes. For
    example, Holdens ideals are defined by his
    disgust with evil, rather than his reverence for
    good. Yet, when faced with such overwhelming
    corruption and such varied reasons for despair,
    even cautious optimism and the chance for
    salvation is cheering.

9
The Technician
  • Salinger is a writer, first and last. He
    adamantly rejects the role of a public figure. He
    also rejects the position of teacher, refusing to
    talk about his writing or instruct others on his
    methods.
  • Since Salinger has shrouded most of his life, it
    is difficult to distinguish autobiographical
    influences in his work. The Glass family,
    dominating his later work, resembles Salingers
    parents, and superficially, Salingers New York
    boyhood and Pennsylvania prep school are like
    those in Catcher. However, with Salingers
    insistence on privacy, this parallelism only
    becomes incidental. Critics must probe more
    deeply if they intend to truly substantiate
    autobiographical interpretations.
  • Although Salinger has retreated from the world,
    his work offers great immediacy and reality. This
    is partly due to his stylistic gift for
    recreating idiomatic expression. In addition, his
    ability to capture the motivations and desires of
    the soul show that he has an intuitive grasp of
    the human character.

10
  • Salinger wrote his early stories in college
    courses and army camps, perhaps even under enemy
    attack. While some of these show real talent,
    others dont stand up as well. Salinger has
    refused permission to anthologize any early
    stories he deems unworthy. He is also stubborn
    about movie adaptations. Since being horrified
    by a tearjerker that Hollywood created from one
    of this short stories, Salinger has never again
    sold cinema rights to any of this work.
  • In a similar manner, Salinger cancelled a
    tentative publishing contract for Catcher. When
    he met the firms president, Salinger was
    outraged to find that the publisher thought
    Holden was mad.

11
  • Salinger works like a sculptor, obsessing himself
    with a single character or theme and reshaping it
    in a number of ways. He continues to approach the
    character or theme from various angles until the
    final forms emerge. Holden Caulfield evolved in
    this manner.
  • A 1944 Saturday Evening Post story, The Last Day
    of the Last Furlough, makes brief metion of
    Holden Caulfield. The following year, the
    character first appeared in a Colliers story
    entitled, Im Crazy. He appeared once again in
    Slight Rebellion Off Madison in the New Yorker
    in 1947. Finally, in 1951, Holden emerged fully
    grown in Catcher in the Rye.

12
  • At present, Catcher is Salingers only novel. He
    considers himself a short story writer. He has
    written one collection entitled Nine Stories
    (1953) and three novelettesFranny and Zooey,
    Seymour An Introduction, and Raise High the
    Roofbeam, Carpentersissued as a single work in
    1963. He also published approximately twenty
    other magazine stories.
  • Although his output seems meager, Salingers
    widespread popular and critical acclaim make
    every effort seem more valuable.
  • The fact that The Catcher in the Rye continues to
    sell over a quarter of a million copies annually
    in the U.S. alone testifies to Salingers
    continuing popularity.

13
  • The novel offers realism in its use of language,
    its use of social criticism where it is due, and
    its presentation of real problems which
    adolescents face in the process of achieving
    maturity. The book also offers romanticism in its
    view of the innocence of childhood, its quest for
    truth, idealizing the past, and its emphasis on
    individual discovery and growth.

14
  • Salinger borrows traditional structures for
    telling Holdens story. As in Chaucers
    Canterbury Tales or Welles Time Machine, he
    utilizes a frame story structure. The outside
    frame is Holdens talking, possibly to a
    psychoanalyst the inside story is Holdens own
    narrative, with flashbacks of the events, the
    madman stuff that has led to his arrival at a
    rest home in California.
  • Since this narrative is in first person,
    autobiographical and episodic, it is picaresque.
  • It is psychological in that the events narrated
    are accompanied be Holdens thoughts. It is also
    a quest narrative in which Holden seeks to
    discover truth, values, and, ultimately, himself
    and his place in the world.

15
  • Salinger labored on the novel for 10 years, but
    the intimacy of Holdens voice feels effortless.
    Part of this comes from Salingers extraordinary
    ear for speech. Which you also get in, for
    instance, his great Glass family stories. But
    its not just technique operating here. Its an
    inhabitation of character so complete that it
    amounts to soul ventriloquismfull blownI dont
    think theres a single other book in American
    literature in which the narrator so badly needs
    the reader to understand him and cure his
    solitude, and theres no American book in which
    the novelist creates the illusion of solidarity
    between his character and the reader more
    successfully. In fact, the illusion is so strong
    that it doesnt feel like illusion at all
    Salinger dreamed Holden Caulfield right into our
    lives, and 50 years later, he still feels right
    here, red hat on, striding the American blast,
    needing us more than ever. Cornel Bonca

16
Picaresque Novel
  • The picaresque is a chronicle, usually
    autobiographical, presenting the life story of a
    rascal of low degree engaged in menial tasks and
    making his living more through his wits than
    industry. It tends to be episodic and
    structureless. The picaro, or central figure,
    through various pranks and predicaments and by
    his association with people of varying degree,
    affords the author an opportunity for satire of
    the social classes. Romantic in the sense of
    being an adventure story, the picaresque novel
    nevertheless is strongly marked by realism in
    petty detail and by uninhibited expression.
  • Cervantes Don Quixote is one of the best-known
    examples of this genre.

17
  • Also consider, what is Salingers message to his
    audience and how is Holden a vehicle to convey
    this message?
  • Consider how is Salingers The Catcher in the
    Rye a perfect example of a picaresque novel? As
    you read, be looking for evidence and examples.

18
  • Much of the power of Salingers novel arises from
    the honesty and convincingness of his main
    character. Holdens narrative voice lures readers
    to become actively involved with his actions and
    attitudes. Through a skillful use of vernacular
    and truthful observations, Salinger makes us
    believe in and ache for Holden. He becomes on the
    one hand, a unique character and on the other, a
    universal Everyman.
  • In this respect, Holden serves as a character
    like Shakespeares Hamlet, who can be
    reinterpreted each generation. The comparison
    with Hamlet is particularly apt since, like the
    Prince, Holdens major dilemma is trying to cope
    with societys corruption and deceit. In both
    cases, the characters do find peace, but only
    within their own souls.

19
  • Read in this light, The Catcher in the Rye
    becomes a coming-of-age story. Like Huckleberry
    Finn, A Separate Peace, Lord of the Flies, and
    The Great Gatsby, Catcher implies that a loss of
    innocence is essential if a child is to become an
    adult. This process is painful, but inevitable.
  • Other critics have categorized Catcher as a
    picaresque novela book dealing with the
    adventurers of a wanderer. Still others see
    Holden as a Christ figure, lunaticeven Peter
    Pan. The diversity of views only increases the
    novels literary merit.

20
Criticism Controversy
  • The Catcher in the Rye is not without its
    detractors and critics. They attack the books
    use of colloquial slang, its cynical central
    character as an inappropriate role model, its use
    of profanity and seedy scenes and its lack of
    didacticism.
  • While these are points to consider, a thorough
    and objective analysis of the book as a whole can
    lea to the conclusion that the book is a balance
    between realism and romanticism that is designed
    to encourage readers to form their own opinions
    in relation to, in juxtaposition with, Holdens
    opinions.

21
  • Until 2006, The Catcher in the Rye was one of the
    most frequently banned books.
  • It is in the sense that it teaches without
    preaching that Catcher is perhaps the best book
    in the 20th century to address the adolescent
    stage of human development and may explain its
    enduring popularity and controversy.
  • Holden Caulfield is such a composite sketch of an
    American teenager that nearly all readers
    identify with or see some of their friends
    reflected in different aspects of Holdens
    character.

22
  • Young readers see in Holden Caulfield a little
    bit of what they are, while older readers see in
    Holden a bit of what they once were.
  • Ultimately, we all know that in some way, Holden
    is one of us.

23
Catcher John Lennon
  • On December 8, 1980 Mark David Chapman killed
    John Lennon outside his Dakota apartment
    building.
  • He was carrying a copy of The Catcher in the Rye
    with him at the time of the murder and even sat
    down and read a few pages following the shooting,
    while waiting for the police to arrive.
  • He was obsessed with the book and Holden
    Caulfield and believed that the book expressed
    who he was. He thought of himself as a catcher in
    the rye and thought he needed to kill John
    Lennon, who he saw as a phony.
  • Part of his statement following the murder is as
    follows
  • Then this morning I went to the bookstore and
    bought The Catcher in the Rye. Im sure the large
    part of me is Holden Caulfield, who is the main
    person in the book. The small part of me must be
    the Devil.
  • Creepy, huh?

24
Some Values Themes in Catcher
  • The need for inner direction and commitment to
    action
  • A sensitive awareness of lifes compensations a
    necessary balance of sympathy and rejection, joy
    and sorrow
  • The recognition of superficial standards of
    behavior the challenge of seeking positive
    change in ones moral environment
  • The ability to feel compassion and to expect
    justice for all
  • The therapeutic worth of honesty in communication
    with others the treatment of every person as an
    individual
  • The learning of universal love and empathy in
    ones individual struggle against hypocrisy and
    worldly corruption

25
Dominant Symbols in Catcher
  • The carousel
  • The red hunting cap
  • The catchers mitt
  • The ducks in Central Park pond
  • The Museum of Natural History
  • Pencey Prep

26
Sources
  • Perfection Learning Corporation Curriculum Unit
    The Catcher in the Rye.
  • Center for Learning Curriculum Unit The Catcher
    in the Rye.
  • Contemporary Classics Curriculum Unit The
    Catcher in the Rye.
  • Dr. Cornel Bonca He Just Wants to Make Us
    Happy Salingers Holden Caulfield at 50.
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com