Catcher In the Rye

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Catcher In the Rye

• By
• J.D. Salinger

2
The Catcher in the Rye

• Type of work   Novel
• Genre   Bildungsroman (coming-of-age novel)
• Time and place written   Late 1940searly 1950s,
  New York

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The Catcher in the Rye

• Narrator   Holden Caulfield, narrating from a
  psychiatric facility a few months after the
  events of the novel
• Point of View   Holden Caulfield narrates in the
  first person, describing what he himself sees and
  experiences, providing his own commentary on the
  events and people he describes.
• Tone   Holden's tone varies between disgust,
  cynicism, bitterness, and nostalgic longing, all
  expressed in a colloquial style. 
• Tense   Past 

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The Catcher in the Rye

• Setting (time)   A long weekend in the late
  1940s or early 1950s
•  
• Setting (place)   Holden begins his story in
  Pennsylvania, at his former school, Pencey Prep.
  He then recounts his adventures in New York City.
  
•  
• protagonist   Holden Caulfield
•  

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J.D. Salinger

• Born in New York City on the first day of 1919,
  J.D. Salinger is the son of a Jewish father and a
  Christian mother.
• After brief periods of enrollment at both NYU and
  Columbia University, Salinger devoted himself
  entirely to writing, and by 1940 he had published
  several short stories in periodicals.
• Although his career as a writer was interrupted
  by World War II, after returning from service in
  the U.S. Army in 1946 Salinger resumed a writing
  career primarily for The New Yorker magazine.

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J.D. Salinger

• Salinger received major critical and popular
  recognition with The Catcher in the Rye (1951),
  the story of Holden Caulfield, a rebellious
  boarding school student who attempts to run away
  from the adult world that he finds "phony."
• In many ways reminiscent of Mark Twain's
  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Salinger's novel
  finds great sympathy for its wayward child
  protagonist.
• Salinger's only novel drew from characters he had
  already created in two short stories published in
  1945 and 1946, "This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise"
  and "I'm Crazy." The latter story is an alternate
  take on several of the chapters in The Catcher in
  the Rye.

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Themes in The Catcher in the Rye

• Themes are the fundamental and often universal
  ideas explored in a literary work.
• Alienation as a Form of Self-Protection
•  The Painfulness of Growing Up  
• The Phoniness of the Adult World

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Motifs in The Catcher in the Rye

• Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or
  literary devices that can help to develop and
  inform the text's major themes.
• Loneliness
• Relationships, Intimacy, and Sexuality
• Lying and Deception

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Symbols in The Catcher in the Rye

• Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or
  colors used to represent abstract ideas or
  concepts.
• The Catcher in the Rye
•  Holden's Red Hunting Hat
• The Museum of Natural History
• The Ducks in the Central Park Lagoon

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The Catcher in the Rye

• foreshadowing   At the beginning of the novel,
  Holden hints that he has been hospitalized for a
  nervous breakdown, the story of which is revealed
  over the course of the novel.