(Reader's Guides) Sarah Graham - Salinger's The Catcher in The Rye (Reader's Guides) - Continuum (2007) PDF

SALINGER'S
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

CONTINUUM READER'S GUIDES
Achebe's Things Fall Apart - Ode Ogede

William Blake s Poetry - Jonathan Roberts
Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales - Gail Ashton
Conrad's Heart of Darkness - Allan Simmons
Dickens's Great Expectations - Ian Brinton
Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby - Nicolas Tredell
Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman - William Stephenson
SALINGER'S
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE
SARAH GRAHAM
continuum
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© Sarah Graham 2007

First published 2007
Reprinted 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publishers.
Sarah Graham has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
EISBN 9780826491329
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Graham, Sarah.
Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye / Sarah Graham.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-9131-2
ISBN-10: 0-8264-9131-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-9132-9 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 0-8264-9132-4 (pbk.)
1. Salinger, J. D. (Jerome David), 1919- Catcher in the Rye. I. Title.
PS3537.A426C3273 2007
813\54—dc22
2007008254
Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
1. Contexts 1
2. Language, Style and Form 19
3. Reading The Catcher in the Rye 31
4. Critical Reception and Publishing History 79
5. Adaptation, Interpretation and Influence 93
Further Reading 109

Index 111
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the people who have contributed to the

completion of this book in various ways. The opportunity to
discuss The Catcher in the Rye with students over several years
has been very useful. I have appreciated the friendly, encourag-
ing atmosphere created by colleagues in the Department of
English and in the Centre for American Studies at the University
of Leicester. In particular, I would like to acknowledge with
many thanks the significant support offered by Dr Emma Parker,
whose feedback on this project has been invaluable. As always, I
could not do without the love and encouragement I receive from
my family and friends.
This book is dedicated to P. P., with all my love.
vii
CHAPTER 1
CONTEXTS
When J. D. Salinger published The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, he

could not have foreseen that it would become one of the best
known and most popular novels to emerge from post-war
America, and make him internationally famous. Although he
published his last new fiction in 1965, public interest in Salinger
has continued, in spite (and because) of his decision to withdraw
from his career as a publishing author. Salinger's absence from
the public eye has not stopped Catcher from finding new readers
every year: it has sold millions of copies, been translated into
many languages, and consistently appears near the top of polls
of favourite novels, alongside other key texts of American liter-
ature like F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925) and Mark
Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). However,
Salinger's novel has attracted controversy as well as acclaim:
although popular, it has been removed from many high school
reading lists for fear that its expletives, sexual content and the
'anti-social' behaviour of its protagonist may corrupt young
readers.
Set in 1949, Catcher tells the story of the two days just before
Christmas that 16-year-old Holden Caulfield spends in New
York after he has been expelled from his boarding school, Pencey
Prep. As he wanders around the city he reflects on his past, his
family and friends, drinks, smokes and thinks about sex, a subject
that frightens and fascinates him. He is angry, melancholy and
alienated, and shares his feelings with the reader in a unique
voice. Although it is perhaps not difficult to see why parents
SALINGER'S THE CATCHER IN THE RYE
might be doubtful about Holden's suitability as a role model, it

is important to acknowledge that he is sensitive and kind as well
as rebellious, with a keen sense of right and wrong. In many ways
Holden is a product of his time and place - although he is some-
times read as the archetypal adolescent, a universally recogniz-
able teenager - and he faces the uncertainties of being young in
post-war America with insight and anxiety.
This chapter places the novel in context by offering a brief
biography of the author, including information about his other
work, and exploring the society of the time.
SALINGER'S LIFE AND CAREER
Jerome David Salinger, nicknamed 'Sonny' by his family, was

born in New York on 1 January 1919. His father, Solomon, made
a good living importing luxury foods from Europe and had
moved his wife Miriam and daughter Doris to New York from
Chicago before his son was born. Sol's growing business success
in the 1930s, despite the constraints of the nation's economic
slump, enabled Salinger to move from state to private school
when he was 13. Although he enjoyed writing and drama, he had
little academic success at his new school, McBurney, and was
asked not to return at the end of his second year there.
Concerned that his son was more interested in acting than busi-
ness, Sol sent him to Valley Forge Military Academy near
Philadelphia, a school that prioritized discipline and physical
activities. Perhaps surprisingly, Salinger performed well in this
environment: Valley Forge may share some aspects with Pencey
Prep (not least the cannon on the hill that symbolizes the school's
traditional values), but Salinger seems to have been a happier,
less wayward student than Holden Caulfield. This is not to deny
that Catcher is, in some respects, autobiographical: during the
several years that he took to complete the novel, Salinger referred
to Holden more than once as a version of his younger self
(Hamilton 1998: 66).
After Valley Forge, Salinger drifted. He knew he wanted to be
a writer, but Sol wanted him to join the import business. To
appease his father, Salinger went to Europe to gain business
CONTEXTS
experience, a trip he summed up in a biographical note written

to accompany one of his earliest publications:
He visited [. . .] Vienna when he was eighteen, winning high

honors in beer hoisting. In Poland he worked in a ham factory
and slaughterhouse and on returning to America [. . .] he
attended Columbia, and studied with Whit Burnett's short-
story group. (Alexander 1999: 72-3)
Salinger's writing teacher became his first publisher when his

story The Young Folks' appeared in Whit Burnett's journal,
Story, in 1940. From then on, Salinger was 'intent on placing his
work in magazines' (Fosburgh 1974: n.p.), and his work was pub-
lished regularly in prestigious American titles such as the
Saturday Evening Post. However, the magazine every American
short-story writer of the time wanted to appear in was The New
Yorker, which had a reputation for publishing the bestfictionby
the most famous names in literature. Salinger had a story
accepted by The New Yorker when he was only 22, a significant
achievement.
Disappointingly, this success was marred by events beyond
Salinger's control. The New Yorker had agreed to publish a
story titled 'Slight Rebellion off Madison', which featured a new
character named Holden Caulfield. Home from school for
Christmas, Holden goes on a date with his girlfriend Sally. The
story suggests that Holden is a conventional upper middle-class
Manhattan adolescent, until his 'slight rebellion': he urges Sally
to run away with him and live in a cabin in the countryside, but
she refuses because 'You can't just do something like that'
(Salinger 1946: n.p.). Many of the events in the story appear in
Catcher, but one significant difference between the two is that the
story has an omniscient (an all-knowing third-person) narrator,
while the novel uses the instantly recognizable voice of Holden
in the first person. The New Yorker planned to run 'Slight
Rebellion' in December 1941, but on the 7th of that month,
Japanese forces attacked the American Naval Base at Pearl
Harbor, Hawaii, and the United States abruptly entered the
Second World War. Perhaps The New Yorker felt that Salinger's
story was too light for such a sombre time; whatever the reason,
they postponed publication.
By the time the story finally appeared (in December 1946),
references to Holden Caulfield had been made in stories Salinger
had published in other magazines, not least 'I'm Crazy' (1945),
which, narrated by Holden himself, describes his last day at
'Pentey' Prep, from which he has been expelled. The story is
dominated by Holden's description of his elderly teacher Mr
Spencer, whose advanced age obviously disgusts him. Holden then
goes home to his little sisters, Phoebe and Viola, and prepares to
face his parents' disappointment. Like 'Slight Rebellion off
Madison', much of 'I'm Crazy' survives more or less intact in
Catcher, including many incidents that the novel expands upon.
Both stories are funny and touching, like all of Salinger's best
work, but the latter has the advantage of featuring Holden's nar-
rative voice, which many consider to be Salinger's greatest achieve-
ment as a writer.
Participation in the war brought huge changes to American
society, and transformed Salinger's life when he was drafted in
spring 1942. After training in various locations in the USA he
became a member of the Counter Intelligence Corps and was
transferred to England in early 1944 to prepare for D-Day, the
invasion of occupied Europe by American, British and Canadian
forces. Salinger's active service was dangerous and exhausting;
many of his comrades were killed or badly injured in the long
battles of 1944 and 1945 in Western Europe that contributed to
the German surrender. Salinger's work continued to appear in
American magazines and his stories of this time were, unsurpris-
ingly, concerned with war and soldiers' experiences, expressing
admiration for the men involved, if not for the conflict itself.
During this period, Salinger began to establish a cast of char-
acters that he developed across hisfictionand through which he
could, apparently, represent himself: some of his wartime publi-
cations feature a soldier named John 'Babe' Gladwaller, who has
the same Army serial number and rank as J. D. Salinger. Babe,
like Salinger, has a miserable time on battlefields in France; his
friend Vincent Caulfield and Vincent's brother Holden are also
enlisted. Babe survives the war, but Vincent is killed at Hurtgen
CONTEXTS
Forest in Germany (where Salinger saw action) and Holden goes

missing in the Pacific. Salinger's characters in this era do not have
consistent biographies: in Catcher, Holden's brother is called
D. B., not Vincent (although both characters are writers) and
Holden himself is too young to have fought in the war. After
Catcher, Salinger dropped his Caulfield and Gladwaller charac-
ters and focused his writing on the extensive Glass family, con-
structing a dynasty whose biography tallies across several stories.
In these later works, Salinger appears to depict himself in both
Buddy Glass, a writer, and in his brother Seymour, a soldier so
traumatized by his wartime experiences that he commits suicide.
Although a collection of Salinger's post-war short stories was
published in 1953 (as Nine Stories in the USA and as For Esme -
With Love and Squalor in Britain), he has never permitted his
wartime or pre-war stories to be reprinted; in fact, he took legal
action against an unauthorized anthology {The Complete
Uncollected Short Stories) that appeared in the USA in 1974.
Salinger rarely agrees to interviews, but following this incident he
contacted a New York Times reporter to explain that he wanted
his early stories to 'die a perfectly natural death', claiming that
they 'were not worthy of publishing' (Fosburgh 1974: n.p.).
Despite Salinger's explanation, many readers would much prefer
to keep all of his work alive, evidenced by the fact that the pub-
lisher sold 25,000 copies of the illegal anthology in two months.
By 1965 Salinger had published one novel {The Catcher in
the Rye), five long stories ('Franny', 'Zooey', 'Raise High
the Roofbeam, Carpenters', 'Seymour: An Introduction' and
'Hapworth 16, 1924') and 30 short stories, of which only eight
have been collected (one of the Nine Stories was new for the
collection). References have been found to several other stories
which have either been lost or absorbed into published work. This
publication history means that much of Salinger's reputation
rests on his novel about Holden Caulfield (1951) and the longer
stories concerned with the Glass family (1955-65). His work prior
to the publication of A Perfect Day for Bananafish' (1948) in The
New Yorker is increasingly difficult to locate. While the period
between hisfirstpublished story and 'Bananafish' is only a matter
of eight years, it creates a significant gap in readers' knowledge of
Salinger's work. More significant still is the silence that began in

1965 after the appearance of 'Hapworth 16, 1924' in the New
Yorker, the story that is, to date, Salinger's final publication.
Despite great success with his short stories, Salinger struggled
with Catcher for several years and began to doubt that he would
ever finish it. He claimed to be 'a dash man not a miler', meaning
that he was more comfortable with the short story (the 'dash')
than the novel form (the 'mile'), and maintained that 'it is proba-
ble that I will never write a novel' (Hamilton 1998: 94). After ten
years, however, The Catcher in the Rye was finally ready for pub-
lication in July 1951 and it stayed on the New York Times best-
seller list for the rest of the year. It was a success almost in spite
of Salinger's efforts: he was reluctant to undertake publicity for
the novel, disliked the bright red cover (an image of a carrousel
horse) and accompanying author photograph, and tended to fall
out with his publishers, apparently distrusting their motives.
Although some later paperback editions would have even more
gaudy covers, Salinger eventually managed to have all of his work
produced in plain jackets without any notes, reviews, or author
photograph. Nothing about the presentation of the work adver-
tises, describes (or distracts the reader from) the text within.
Despite Salinger's apparent lack of enthusiasm, the novel was
reviewed widely in the USA, principally because of his status as
a New Yorker writer, and received much praise. Unusually for a
first novel, Catcher was the 'Book-of-the-Month' Club's choice
for summer 1951, guaranteeing substantial sales.
Salinger's response to Catcher's positive reception was ambiva-
lent: he commented in 1952 that he 'enjoyed a small part of it, but
most of it I found hectic and professionally and personally demor-
alizing' (Hamilton 1998:121), though it is not clear why he reacted
this way. The novel sold well and, once it appeared in paperback
in 1953, made Salinger famous, especially among young adult
readers. Catcher and the later Glass family fiction express chal-
lenging ideas about life in modern America that struck a chord
with post-war youth hungry for new perspectives. Before long,
Catcher was appearing on university reading lists, and by the late
1950s the first serious critical essays on the novel were appearing
in literary journals. In the more than 50 years since its publication,
CONTEXTS
millions of copies of the novel have been sold worldwide and the
flow of detailed analysis has been more or less constant.
Although Salinger continued to publish fiction for 14 years
after Catcher, the frequency decreased dramatically, and his final
story appeared after a six-year silence. He retreated from the
public eye, refused to give interviews and moved out of New
York to Cornish, New Hampshire, where he bought a remote
farmhouse in which he has lived ever since. He married Claire
Douglas in 1955 and had two children with her (Margaret and
Matthew) but they divorced after 12 years; Margaret has written
a memoir of her life, Dream Catcher (2000), which offers some
insight into her father's personality, not least the traumatic
impact of his war experiences. In 1972 Salinger had a relation-
ship with a young writer, Joyce Maynard, who describes her life
with him in her memoir, At Home in the World'(1998). Aside from
these texts, very little is known about Salinger and rumours
about him - from the plausible (he continues to write but chooses
not to publish) to the bizarre (he and the equally reclusive author
Thomas Pynchon are the same person) - haveflowedfreely since
he ceased to make public statements about his life and work.
POST-WAR AMERICA: SOCIETY AND CULTURE
Although Catcher is understood to be a novel that captures the

unease of American society in the 1950s and articulates the
emerging phenomenon of adolescent identity, the novel is in
many ways a product of the 1940s. It is set in 1949 and draws on
'Slight Rebellion off Madison', which Salinger had completed
before he joined the Army in 1942. The Second World War so
dominates the decade that the post-war 1940s tend to be forgot-
ten, but those years saw the beginning of social changes in the
US that would shape the 1950s and 1960s.
America's participation in the war pulled the country out of
the 'Great Depression' (the economic crisis that had a profound
effect on society in the 1930s) and by 1945 the US was prosper-
ous. Deploying the atomic bomb at the end of the war not only
presented 'a dramatic image of American power to the world'
(Henriksen 1997:15), forcing Japan to surrender, it also took the
world into a new age. The horror of conventional warfare (which

had taken 35 million lives in the Second World War alone) had
now been superseded by the threat of atomic war. Holden
assumes that such a disaster is inevitable and expresses both his
anti-war feelings and his preoccupation with death and suicide
when he comments, 'I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic
bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right
the hell on top of it' (Salinger 1994a: 127).
By the time that Catcher was published in 1951, the United
States was enmeshed in the Cold War. Although the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had been an ally to the US
against Nazi Germany, post-war America was anxious about
Communist ideologies that were taking hold in Eastern Europe
and China and the possibility that the Soviets would develop
atomic weapons, which they achieved in 1949, ending America's
nuclear monopoly. Despite the ever-present threat of a Third
World War, the Cold War against the Soviet Union concretized
rapidly. This was an ideological, rather than a physical, conflict
based on American hostility to Communism, the antithesis of its
capitalist principles.
Holden's anti-war beliefs and hatred of phonies can be related
to the ethos of post-war America, which was pre-occupied with
matters of secrecy and security. Government policies focused on
identifying anyone who might betray the nation. The 'House Un-
American Activities Committee' (HUAC) had been established
in 1937 to identify 'subversives', principally Communists, within
Federal government, union-organized workforces and, most
famously, Hollywood, on the basis that anti-American propa-
ganda might infiltratefilms.Those brought to trial by the HUAC
were asked to testify about their allegiance to Communism and
name other sympathizers: such accusations, even if untrue,
ruined many people's careers. From 1950, the HUAC's work
was supported by the rise to prominence of Senator Joseph
McCarthy, whose obsession with identifying subversives without
much regard for facts has made 'McCarthyism' a synonym for
persecution and government-sponsored repression.
McCarthy's so-called 'witch trials' were satirized in Arthur
Miller's play The Crucible (1953), which drew an analogy between
CONTEXTS
the self-serving deceptions of Puritanism and the betrayals pro-

voked by the HUAC's interrogations, but the danger of being
associated with Communism was well-established. For example,
while the campaign for the racial desegregation of schools was
given legal power by the 'Brown v. Board of Education' decision
(1954), progress towards equality for African Americans was
often undermined by propaganda that associated a desire for civil
rights with the 'evil' of Communism: thefilm/ was a Communist
for the FBI (1951) 'shows the [Communist] Party taking credit for
race riots' (Whitfield 1996: 21). However, the association of civil
rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr with Christianity
both reflected the high level of church-going among African
Americans - mirroring the post-war rise in church-going among
white Americans - and distanced the civil rights movement from
damaging associations with secular Communism.
A key aspect of Catcher's impact in the early 1950s is that it
presents a rebel against the status quo as its hero, critiquing the
equilibrium that government policy was struggling to maintain.
The fears provoked by the Cold War produced a conservative
ethos in American society in the 1940s and 1950s, supported by
an economic boom that was especially beneficial to middle-class
white Americans. More people than ever before were able to buy
their own home and car, and many moved to the new suburbs
which grew up as a result of the post-war surge in home-
building. The ideal of the time was to re-establish the conven-
tional family that had been disrupted by the war, with a father
who went out to work and a mother who stayed at home and
raised the children.
These values constituted a significant change from the previ-
ous decades of the twentieth century: 'Now, there was little
encouragement for women seeking professional careers and [. . .]
quite deliberate discouraging of it' (Halberstam 1993: 589). Six
million American women had entered the wartime workforce,
but when peace came, men needed jobs and so women were
encouraged - byfilmsand magazines as well as government and
employers' policies - to return to domestic life; to consume, that
is, rather than produce (Tallack 1991: 287). Although as many as
eighty per cent of women reportedly tried to keep their jobs, by
1947, female employment had dropped to the 1940 level (Tallack

1991:287). The message to women in the post-war years was that
work was unwomanly: 'true' women stay at home to raise chil-
dren, manage the house and purchase goods. Women who
worked were castigated, famously in Philip Wylie's Generation of
Vipers (1942), for raising juvenile delinquents, while Farnham
and Lundberg's social study, Modern Woman: The Lost Sex
(1947), contended that women could only be fulfilled by mother-
hood. Feminism, wrote Farnham and Lunberg, is 'a deep illness'
and education for women could only bring trouble: 'the
more educated a woman is, the greater chance there is of sexual
disorder' (Halberstam 1993: 590).
In Catcher, Holden's girlfriend Sally, interpreting his desire to
escape as simply an urge to travel, tells him 'we'll have oodles of
time to do all those things - all those things. I mean after you go
to college and all, and if we get married and all.' (Salinger 1994a:
119). Her comments suggest she is an archetypal feminine figure
of her moment: for example, her use of a childish word ('oodles')
makes her seem immature intellectually and emotionally; she
assumes that Holden will go to college (and she will not) and that
she will marry, even if she does not marry Holden. Sally is com-
fortable with her assumptions about her future and the novel
portrays her as attractive but unimaginative, with the conven-
tional ambitions of a woman of her class, time and place. She
accepts that 'gender, not talent' (Halberstam 1993: 589) is the
required qualification for a career, whereas Holden recognizes
and rejects exactly this passive acceptance of social norms in
women and men.
Holden is not alone in his perception that limited gender roles
are unsatisfactory, as key texts of the period by Betty Friedan and
Sylvia Plath confirm. While many women were content with the
era's emphasis on domestic life, others felt dissatisfied with a social
model that repressed any ambitions they may have had for educa-
tion and a career. Betty Friedan's famous study of middle-class
American women in the 1950s, The Feminine Mystique (1963),
revealed that many women who believed that they ought to be
happy with a life focused on marriage, children and home actually
felt 'a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning [. . .]
10
CONTEXTS
the problem that has no name' (Friedan 1965: 13-17). Although

the rise of Second-Wave Feminism (the movement that brought
issues of sexual inequality to public attention) is principally asso-
ciated with the revolutionary era of the 1960s and 1970s, it is fair
to attribute its earliest stirrings to those women who identified and
challenged the inflexible gender roles of the post-war period.
Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar (1963) similarly communicated
the debilitating inequalities of the era as Esther Greenwood,
Plath's clever, witty protagonist, struggles to form relationships
and forge a career as a writer in a society hostile to such ambitions.
The pressures of conformity were felt by men as well as
women, although what was expected of men may have allowed a
little more freedom than women were usually permitted: they
should marry, father and provide for children (although not
actively participate in their care) and pursue a career, ideally in a
large company offering a 'job for life' and prospects for promo-
tion. To reject a steady career was as unthinkable for a man in the
post-war years as choosing not to marry was for a woman and,
indeed, marriage was also crucial to a man's career progress, as it
implied a reliable character who fitted the norm in terms of
values, ambitions and sexual identity. In his conversation with
Sally about escape, H olden displays his reluctance to conform to
a future in which:
I'd be working in some office, making a lot of dough, and

riding to work in cabs and Madison Avenue buses, and
reading newspapers, and playing bridge all the time, and going
to the movies and seeing a lot of stupid shorts and coming
attractions and newsreels. (Salinger 1994a: 119-20)
Here Holden disparages a model of masculine prosperity consid-

ered ideal by many; despite the implications of Salinger's earlier
story, it is more than a 'slight' rebellion for a man of his class and
time to reject such privileges.
Conformity of the kind that Holden denigrates was variously
encouraged and critiqued by popular social studies of the period,
books published by academics for ordinary readers that offered
guidance on - or condemned - modern lifestyles. While Dale
11
Carnegie's enduring How to Win Friends and Influence People

(1936) advised men on how to make a success of their lives,
studies like David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd (1950) and
William A. Whyte's The Organization Man (1956) suggested that
conventional modern life might be having a negative impact on
men, encouraging unthinking submission to the norm and
sapping the kind of individuality that American society might
require in order to progress. Riesman complained that 'Both rich
and poor avoid any goals, personal or social, that seem out of
step with peer-group aspirations' (Riesman 2001: 305), a loss of
freedom that is socially as well as personally damaging. Similarly,
Whyte contended that those who 'belong' to (rather than simply
work for) an organization, even though they may use negative
terms like the 'rat race' and bemoan their lack of freedom, are
encouraged to believe that the 'ultimate need of the individual' is
'belongingness' (Whyte 1956:7), a concept entirely antithetical to
individualism. Holden wants to belong in the sense that he wants
to feel connected to those he loves, but he rejects conformity, a
rebellion symbolized by his red cap, which would normally only
be worn on a hunting trip.
Holden's narrative shows that he is preoccupied by sexual
issues as well as gender: he finds sex mysterious and frets about
his lack of experience. The lack of clear information about the
sexual practices of ordinary Americans was highlighted by the
furore provoked by Alfred Kinsey's studies, Sexual Behaviour in
the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behaviour in the Human
Female (1953). Based on interviews with hundreds of ordinary
men and women, Kinsey's work suggested that the monogamous,
heterosexual model promoted as the ideal and norm did not cor-
relate with many people's experiences. Kinsey's statistics sug-
gested that, for example, 37 per cent of the total male population
had 'at least some overt homosexual experience' between adoles-
cence and old age (Kinsey 1948: 650) and that 67 per cent had
some experience with prostitutes (Kinsey 1948: 597). Public
hunger for information about such previously unspeakable topics
is reflected in high sales of the books: in the case of both the Male
and Female studies, more than 185,000 copies were in print ten
days after publication. While outraged critics complained that
12
CONTEXTS
Kinsey'sfindingssuggested that American morality was akin to

the 'worst decadence of the Roman Empire' (Halberstam 1993:
280), many readers found great reassurance in these non-judge-
mental studies, which contributed to a new (and eventually more
liberated) view of American sexual identity.
Popular culture, especially television, encouraged conformity
during this period. When television arrived in the US, it rapidly
became a national pastime: in 1950, there were 7 million televi-
sions in the US; by 1960 90 per cent of American homes had a
set (Gidley 1993: 225, 232). Programme content tended to be
conservative, affirming rather than challenging the key values of
the era: long-running situation comedies like Father Knows Best
(1954-62) and Leave it to Beaver (1957-63) promoted the sup-
posedly ideal lifestyle of the newly prosperous suburban viewer,
with minor crises causing amusing (but temporary) disarray in
stable families that fitted the socially-approved model. Catcher,
however, is set just before television took over the nation, when
the dominant form of mass entertainment was cinema. Holden
claims that the 'movies' 'can ruin you. I'm not kidding' (Salinger
1994a: 94), because he views their representation of experience
as 'phony' to a dangerous degree, but he obviously watches many
films, referring in Catcher to musicals, romances and thrillers.
During the 1950s, cinema represented the rise of the teenager,
both infilmsabout adolescents and infilmsthat targeted the new
teenage audience. Adolescence had been recognized as a specific
social category in the US since at least the 1900s, but the 1950s
saw the phenomenon of the 'teen-ager' (as the word was origi-
nally spelled) forcefully established. High-school students were
excluded from the armed forces during the war, and post-war
prosperity allowed young people to have spending power. These
two factors created a peer-group culture in which young people
looked to each other (rather than parents or parent-figures) for
advice about how to live. Clothes, records, cinema, eating out and
magazines were all important aspects of teenage culture, which
was rapidly commodified. While their parents bought and fur-
nished houses, teenagers expressed their separateness from
adults with their purchases. Thomas Hine contends that 'From
the moment the word "teenager" was coined [. . .] it described
13
both an incipient social problem and an economic opportunity'

(Hine 1999: 225): teenage consumers were desired and feared.
Social studies suggested that teenagers could be a disruptive
force that was difficult to control: 'juvenile delinquents' who did
not attend school, committed crime, had sex outside of marriage,
drank under-age and were generally adrift from home and family
values were perceived by some commentators to be a menace in
post-war America that rivalled Communism.
Severalfilmsof the era explored the teenage experience and its
impact: in The Wild One (1953), Marlon Brando's character
Johnny Strabler, a motorcycle gang leader, famously responds to
the question, 'What are you rebelling against?', with a casual,
'What have you got?'. Suggesting an incomprehensible urge
among adolescents to damage decent, harmless people, the film
seemed a shocking verification of existing fears about the young.
James Dean's portrayal of disturbed good boy Jim Stark in Rebel
Without a Cause (1955) suggested, by contrast, that adolescents
need traditional parental role-models to keep them out of
trouble; this conservative ideology does, at least, shift blame away
from the teenagers themselves. Indeed, as Peter Biskind notes, in
Rebel it is the parents 'who are the delinquents' (Biskind 1983:
201). This is more radical than prevalent attitudes of the time
which suggested that parents played no part in how their children
(mis)behaved. Set in affluent suburbia, one of thefilm'skey asser-
tions echoes Catcher's suggestion that the middle classes are,
despite their privileges, as likely to produce socially disruptive and
unhappy children as any other class.
Catcher was not a typical best-seller in 1951: the most popular
novels of that year were all concerned with war, not least James
Jones's From Here to Eternity, which became a hugely successful
film in 1953, Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny and Nicholas
Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea. Although Jones's novel criticized the
army 'for crushing the spirit of individuality' (Whitfield 1996:61),
a position that echoed the anxieties of social commentators about
the negative impact of corporate culture, others, such as Wouk's,
negotiated issues of honour and discipline conventionally associ-
ated with military life. Unsurprisingly, many other novels of the
war and post-war years praised the valour of servicemen, and in
14
CONTEXTS
this context, Holden's anti-war stance - 'if there's ever another

war, they better just take me out and stick me in front of a firing
squad' (Salinger 1994a: 127) - is a serious challenge to common
values of the time. When the US became engaged in the conflicts
in Korea (1950-53) and Vietnam (1957-75), anti-war activism
among young people increased and in this sense Holden's
response to the Second World War anticipates that of future
generations.
The legacy of the World War was a more restricted society
than had been seen in America for many years. Women and
African Americans lost many of the freedoms brought by the
war, homosexuals were vilified and even heterosexual white men,
while still the most powerful sector by far, saw their options
limited as conformity and assent became the approved means of
maintaining the nation's safety and prosperity. However,
although individualism, free thought and alternative lifestyles
were discouraged, opposition can still be discerned in the period
and strengthened as time passed. The 1960s would be the decade
of radical activism in America, when a variety of groups
demanded the right to be recognized and treated fairly, some
encouraged by the work of social commentators like Friedan and
Kinsey, others by activists for racial equality, but the 1950s saw
the early stages of these campaigns for civil and human rights.
Holden Caulfield's was not the only dissenting voice in post-
war American art. The group known as the 'Beats' (or 'Beat
Generation') - the most famous of which were Jack Kerouac,
Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs - produced experimental
writing that detailed their drug-taking, unconventional relation-
ships and journeys around America. Kerouac began to write his
novel On the Road (1957), probably the most famous 'Beat' text,
in 1951. This suggests that, like Catcher, its origin can be found in
the unusual character of the post-war years. The Beats empha-
sized the strong link between their lives and their work: their
complex and innovative writing expressed their rejection of con-
formity and materialism. A novel less well-remembered but hugely
influential in its moment is Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Grey
Flannel Suit (1955): its white, middle-class and deeply dissatisfied
protagonists, Tom and Betsy Rath, mirrored the experiences of
15
many young Americans. Their reality is the stifling normalcy that

Holden anticipates. Despite their material advantages, the Raths
find their suburban lives frustratingly narrow: 'I don't know what's
the matter with us. [. . .] We shouldn't be so discontented all the
time', comments Betsy (Wilson 2002: 3). Though ultimately rec-
onciled to their situation, the Raths represent those who, although
privileged, dream of finding a more meaningful way to live.
For some artists, experimental forms as much as content
expressed new responses to American society. Rebellion was
evident in the work of abstract painters such as Action' artist
Jackson Pollock, who became as much a cult figure as James
Dean when he died young. In music, the influence of African
American forms was crucial: swing jazz mutated into the faster
bebop, and rock and roll combined rhythm and blues with
country music to create the music of the rebellious young, a con-
nection confirmed by the use of Bill Haley's 'Rock Around the
Clock' on the soundtrack of another of the era'sfilmsof teenage
rebellion, The Blackboard Jungle (1955). Poets of the 'New York'
school, like Frank O'Hara, wrote in a conversational style, pep-
pered with many references to the culture of the time. Later in the
decade, the 'Confessional' group of poets emerged: their challenge
to the repressions of 1950s society was to draw on the troubles of
their own lives to create poetry that bluntly explored taboo sub-
jects such as depression, suicide and sexual issues. The calm
surface of 1950s America hid turbulent undercurrents.
In his assertion that the era was characterized by 'a sense of
the counterfeit, the deceptive, the fraudulent, the artificial and
the imitational [. . .] the decade was itself a forgery' (Hendin
2004: 21), Frederick Karl highlights the relationship between
image and reality in post-war America. This perception of pre-
tence and dishonesty is in accord with Holden's sense that he lives
in a 'phony' society, peopled by superficial hypocrites. Although
he is often understood simply as the ultimate example of teenage
discontent, a privileged youth rejecting an unexciting but com-
fortable future, the context of the post-war years suggests that
Holden voices feelings of dissatisfaction shared by many
Americans. As John Updike says, Salinger'sfictionoffers 'revela-
tions' that present an 'expansive, post-war sense of American
16
CONTEXTS
reality' (Greiner 2006: 115). Holden's willingness to confront

taboo subjects and the novel's social criticism offers post-war
America an unexpected image of itself. This explains why The
Catcher in the Rye was a controversial text in its own moment and
remains so in some quarters today.
17
CHAPTER 2
LANGUAGE, STYLE AND FORM
The Catcher in the Rye is Salinger's only novel, but he published

many short stories before Catcher and several 'long short stories'
(or novellas) after it. This chapter examines the novel and short
fiction in terms of language, style and form in order to illustrate
that Catcher typifies the literary techniques that define his work.
Since the early stories are so difficult to find, this discussion is
confined to the fiction that Salinger allows in print: the short
story collection Nine Stories/For Esme - with Love and Squalor
(1953), 'Franny' (1955), 'Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters'
(1955), 'Zooey' (1957) and 'Seymour: An Introduction' (1959).
His final story, 'Hapworth 16, 1924' (1965), has never been
reprinted, so it is not included in this discussion.
Salinger's writing has an instantly recognizable style, which is
colloquial, humorous and intimate. He achieves this through his
idiosyncratic use of narration, dialogue, characterization, use of
humour and intertextuality. The form of the fiction mirrors his
themes. He often writes about children, typically representing
them as the embodiment of innocence and clear-sightedness. His
adult and adolescent characters tend to be rule-breakers who,
dissatisfied with a superficial and materialistic society, turn to
religion, philosophy and literature for comfort. John Wenke
observes that 'dead brothers and dead friends [. . .] haunt
Salinger'sfiction'(Wenke 1991: 7). Allie Caulfield's death haunts
his brother Holden throughout Catcher; in the story Teddy'
(1953), it seems certain that someone has died, probably Teddy
himself; Seymour Glass commits suicide in A Perfect Day for
19
Bananafish' (1948) and his brother Walt is killed in an accident;

Esme's mother has died and her father has been killed in the war
in 'For Esme - With Love and Squalor' (1950); in 'De Daumier-
Smith's Blue Period' (1953), the narrator is thrown into a crisis
by his mother's death; Jimmy Jimereeno (although only an imag-
inary friend) is hit by a car in 'Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut'
(1948); and the heroic 'Laughing Man' (1949) dies after many
adventures. As this extensive list indicates, Salinger is preoccu-
pied with the psychological trauma of loss and grief, which he
communicates through a range of techniques.
NARRATION
Salinger makes use of both first- and third-person narration in

hisfiction.He often employs unreliablefirst-personnarration to
indicate a character's state of mind. A novel with a first-person
narrator is inevitably narrow in its perspective: the reader can
only know what the narrator chooses to reveal, and has no access
to the thoughts of other characters. Conventionally, the use of
first-person narration creates a close bond between reader and
narrator and a great potential for intimate engagement with the
main protagonist. If, however, the narrator is not telling the
truth, it is difficult for the reader to judge what is happening in
the text. In Catcher, Holden is often inaccurate in his judgements
about himself and others, a trait he inadvertently reveals
throughout the text. For example, he cannot understand why the
women he meets at the Lavender Room treat him like a foolish
teenager (Salinger 1994a: 67), even though he is not old enough
to order alcohol at the bar, and he denies that he is shouting at
Sally despite her requests that he lower his voice (Salinger 1994a:
119). In both cases, the disparity between his perceptions and the
evidence provided by other characters suggests a lack of self-
awareness that is a product of his poor mental health.
Another example of Salinger's use of first-person narrative to
reveal a character's blind spots is 'The Laughing Man'. Whereas
Holden's misperceptions can be attributed to his grief, in this case
the narrator lacks understanding of adult relationships because
he is nine years old. He describes the liaison between the leader
20
of his after-school club and his girlfriend Mary, but cannot

explain what causes their relationship to end. His comments
allow the reader to draw some conclusions (although these are
never confirmed). The narrator describes Mary on the last day
she spends at the club, sitting 'sandwiched between two nurse-
maids with baby carriages' and later, distracted by wondering
what has upset Mary, he 'bump[s] smack into a baby carriage'
(Salinger 1994b: 50-1). Although he notes these facts without
comment, their occurrence in the text at this stage implies that
Mary is pregnant, a disaster for an unmarried woman in 1928,
when the story is set.
In both first- and third-person narratives, a typical feature of
Salinger's technique is his refusal to offer definitive answers to
questions raised by the text, which encourages the reader to par-
ticipate in the construction of meaning. Doubt about the denoue-
ment of the narrative is used to great effect in Teddy', when the
events that the gifted boy of the title has predicted (that his little
sister may accidentally kill him by pushing him into an empty
swimming pool) seem to have taken place, but are not described,
leaving the reader to deduce the outcome from the reported 'all-
piercing, sustained scream - clearly coming from a small, female
child' (Salinger 1994b: 149) that ends the story. The reader must
decide whether Teddy has met the death he predicted or has mur-
dered his sister, Booper, as the third-person narration offers no
decisive answer. Anthony Kaufman contends that the latter
outcome makes 'nofictionalsense' because 'the signals of Teddy's
approaching suicide are too strong' (Kaufman 1998:138), but the
story's conclusion is ultimately a matter of interpretation.
Uncertainty also characterizes the end of Catcher. Holden
appears to finally achieve happiness at the carrousel when he
realizes that he can cope with the trials of growing up. However,
the shortfinalchapter suggests that he has not entirely recovered
from his breakdown as he remains unsure about his capacity to
'apply' himself in the future (Salinger 1994a: 192). This makes
the close of the novel ambivalent and undermines the impression
that Holden has survived his crisis. Furthermore, his otherwise
detailedfirst-personnarrative is intriguingly vague on key issues
such as the reason for his stay in hospital and what happened
21
after his moment of apparent revelation at the carrousel. By

leaving gaps in his narratives, Salinger suggests that meaning is
elusive, and underlines the uncertainty of life.
Salinger also reveals characters' mental states and generates
uncertainty by shifting from first to third person within a story,
without explanation. This can have a disorienting effect on the
reader, who is left unsure as to whose perspective the text is pre-
senting. In Tor Esme', an unidentified first-person narrator
looks back on his Army service in Devon just prior to D-Day,
during which he meets 13-year-old Esme. After a break, the story
recommences in the third person, describing the situation of
Sergeant X in Germany at the end of the war. Plainly, the first-
person narrator and Sergeant X are the same person; this is con-
firmed by the letter from Esme to X that brings the story to its
conclusion. This shift implies that X's traumatized state is too
difficult for the initial narrator to describe with the intimacy
implied by thefirst-person.X's mind is now as unstable as inse-
cure luggage on an overhead rack' (Salinger 1994b: 77-8) and his
anonymity suggests that his identity and happiness have been
erased by the war.
DIALOGUE
Salinger's work is dominated by dialogue: how a character looks

may be outlined briefly and there are often details of clothes and
personal habits, such as smoking, but the physical scene itself
tends to be barely described. Holden's detailed description of
exhibits in the Natural History Museum in Catcher is quite
unusual. More typical is the opening of 'Bananafish', which offers
substantial information about Muriel's application of nail polish
('she went over the nail of her littlefinger,accentuating the line
of the moon. She then [. . .] passed her left - the wet - hand back
and forth through the air') but very little about her appearance
or the room she is occupying (Salinger 1994b: 1).
Typically, Salinger uses speech to communicate a character's
mental state. When Lionel, the small boy in 'Down at the Dinghy'
(1949), is upset, his speech becomes disjointed: 'Sandra - told Mrs
Smell - that Daddy's a big - sloppy - kike' (Salinger 1994b: 63).
22
Lionel knows his father has been insulted but does not realize that
'kike' is an anti-Semitic word. Instead, he thinks that his father
has been likened to 'one of those things that go up in the air [. . .]
With string you hold' (Salinger 1994b: 64). As this statement illus-
trates, Lionel's speech flows smoothly when speaking about a
subject that makes him feel more relaxed. In Catcher, Holden's
repetitive questions about the ducks communicate his fear of loss:
'By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks,
when it gets all frozen over? Do you happen to know, by any
chance?' (Salinger 1994a: 54). Likewise, in 'Pretty Mouth and
Green My Eyes' (1951), repetition conveys Arthur's anxieties
about his marriage: 'Yeah. I know. I know. I don't know, though'
(Salinger 1994b: 88).
One of the defining characteristics of Salinger's dialogue is
unfinished sentences. Like his use of narrative gaps, this encour-
ages the reader to participate in the construction of meaning. In
Catcher, the most striking example of what is left unsaid is
Antolini's statement 'I'm simply sitting here, admiring - '
(Salinger 1994a: 172) when Holden wakes to find his teacher
touching him. The unfinished sentence prompts the reader to
imagine how it might end and consider the implications of the
unspoken 'you'. In 'Bananafish', Muriel's telephone conversation
with her mother offers further examples. Sometimes it is clear
what the end of a sentence would be, if it is a familiar phrase: 'I've
been worried to - '; 'Muriel, you gave me your word of - '
(Salinger 1994b: 2). These unfinished cliches contribute to the
realism in the dialogue, but also invite the reader to provide the
words 'death' and 'honour', which, in the context of a story about
the suicide of a soldier, are weighted with significance. At other
times there is less certainty about how a phrase might end and
more comedy as a result. There is also greater opportunity for the
reader to infer what the speaker is referring to, as with 'What
[Seymour] did with all those lovely pictures from Bermuda - '
(Salinger 1994b: 3). Unexplained and unfinished remarks about
Seymour are an effective way of revealing something of his char-
acter's eccentricity without making it possible to really know him,
which is essential in creating a scenario in which his suicide can
be both surprising and believable.
23
The realism of Salinger's dialogue is further established by the

abbreviated or coded speech typical between those who know
each other well. In Catcher the intimacy between Holden and
Phoebe is communicated through her question, 'Oh, why did you
do it?', which Holden understands but has to explain to the
reader: 'She meant why did I get the ax again' (Salinger 1994a:
151). In 'Bananafish', Muriel's mother says that the family
doctor has been told 'everything. [. . .] The trees. That business
with the window. Those horrible things [Seymour] said to
Granny about her plans for passing away. [ . . . ] - everything'
(Salinger 1994b: 3). No further details are needed to understand
both that Seymour is a troubled figure who breaks social rules,
and that some of his actions are probably quite entertaining, if
not to Muriel's mother. Comments are also left unfinished in
Salinger's work because characters cut across each other, as in
'Pretty Mouth': 'Arthur, listen, this isn't - ' ' Wait a second - I'll
tell ya, god-damn it' (Salinger 1994b: 89). This strategy not only
creates realistic dialogue but also emphasizes the difficulties
inherent in communication.
Salinger evokes the spoken word through his use of italic. In
Catcher, Holden's narrative is given nuance by italics on whole and
parts of words, as in 'I can even get to hate somebody, just looking
at them' (Salinger 1994a: 97). Italic also evokes accent and speech
mannerisms, as 'Pretty Mouth' illustrates: 'Use your imagination.
The two of 'em probably dragged Joanie bodily-' 'Listen. Nobody
ever has to drag Joanie awywhere' (Salinger 1994b: 88). The empha-
sis provided by italics communicates how willing Joanie is to join
in on activities, much to her partner's consternation.
Further, accent is used to communicate class status. Although
he often uses expletives and colloquialisms, Holden's language is
generally presented in standard American English, while the
working people he meets, such as cab drivers and Sunny the pros-
titute, tend to speak in dialect: for example, Sunny says 'I
awreddy got it' (Salinger 1994a: 92) and thefirstcab driver refers
to 'Ninedieth' street while Holden asks for 'Ninetieth' (Salinger
1994a: 54). In 'Down at the Dinghy', Sandra the housekeeper's
accent is evoked by italics and non-standard English: 'it drives ya
loony [. . .] Ya can't hear him, ya know' (Salinger 1994b: 56).
24
CHARACTERIZATION
In much of his fiction Salinger uses a familiar group of charac-

ters: although the Caulfield family appear in a few early stories -
and most notably in Catcher, of course - Salinger is mainly pre-
occupied with the Glass family. In 'Carpenters', Buddy Glass
explains that he has six brothers and sisters, the children of Les
and Bessie: Seymour, the oldest, then Buddy, Boo Boo, twins
Walter and Waker, then Zooey andfinallyFranny. Like Holden's
parents, Les and Bessie Glass are only peripheralfiguresand, like
Holden, the Glass siblings are far more interested in each other
than in their parents or friends. Holden's most significant rela-
tionships are with his siblings Phoebe and Allie. Martin Bidney
notes that 'In Salinger, life's ineluctable complexity arouses the
nostalgia of characters for an idealized childhood' (Bidney 2000:
128) and, for Holden, that ideal is embodied in Allie and Phoebe.
Across Salinger's stories, sibling relationships dominate: Teddy
has his sister Booper, Esme her brother Charles, Franny and
Zooey share the same needs and fears and, like Allie for Holden,
Seymour is as much a part of Buddy's life after his death as he
ever was.
Salinger often encapsulates what is essential about a person in
one telling statement. For example, Muriel in 'Bananafish' (1948)
'looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since
she had reached puberty' (Salinger 1994b: 1), which is all the
information that the reader needs to understand that she is
popular, pretty, confident, and probably wealthy. Similarly, the
hero of 'Daumier-Smith' is 'the hatless type, with a flat, black,
not particularly clean, Continental-type pompadour' (Salinger
1994b: 99), communicating that he is young and out of synch
with American society, being semi-European in style. In Catcher,
Salinger uses specific details to identify types of person. Ernest
Morrow is the 'kind of a guy' who 'snap[ped] his soggy old wet
towel at people's asses' (Salinger 1994a: 48) and George is 'the
kind of a phony that have to give themselves room when they
answer somebody's question' (Salinger 1994a: 114-15). In both
cases, small details encapsulate the person: Ernest is a bully,
George an exhibitionist.
25
Familiarfiguresrecur throughout Salinger's fiction. One such

figure is the saint or savant (a person with unusual depth of
knowledge and great insight): characters in this category often
die young. Another typicalfigureis that of the precocious, clever
child (sometimes combined with the role of saint or savant).
Children like Phoebe, Teddy and Esme are the embodiment of
clear-sightedness, and Salinger's most pointed critique of post-
war American values often comes from children, whose inno-
cence implies the truthfulness of their words. Criticizing the
shallowness of his society, Teddy, for example, comments that
'it's very hard to meditate and live a spiritual life in America.
People think you're a freak if you try to' (Salinger 1994b: 142).
Children, even if not gifted with insight (like Sybil in
'Bananafish', the narrator in The Laughing Man' and Ramona
in 'Uncle Wiggily'), are sacred figures in Salinger's writing.
Another keyfigureis the cynic, a character who often wishes for
a return to the innocence represented by children. The last of
Salinger's recurringfiguresis the writer. In Catcher, Holden is the
cynic, Phoebe the precocious child, Allie the saint and D. B. the
writer. The Glass family have all, at some time, been precocious
children: as adults, Buddy is the writer, Seymour and Walter the
(dead) saints, Zooey the cynic. That neither of the Glass women
fit Salinger's usual categories suggests that he is not interested in
adult women: Boo Boo is a conventional wife and mother,
Franny vulnerable and craving guidance. Indeed, most of
Salinger's central characters are male, whether young or old.
Many characters are outsiders who experience a sense of
difference from the norm, regardless of their age. The adolescents
Franklin and Ginnie in 'Just Before the War With the Eskimos'
(1948) are, like Holden, Sergeant X, Teddy and most of the Glass
family,figureswho set themselves apart from a society they find
uncomfortable for a range of reasons: because it is superficial,
violent, materialistic, rule-bound or corrupted. Holden certainly
feels lonely in Manhattan, but the 19-year-old narrator of
'Daumier-Smith' finds that, in New York in 1939, 'everything I
touched turned to solid loneliness' (Salinger 1994b: 99): he feels
rejected by society, rather than the reverse and, in that sense, is
an unusual character in Salinger's work.
26
Salinger uses characters to embody values that he either cri-

tiques or celebrates. In Tranny', Lane is an example of the 'prep
school jerks and college jerks' (Salinger 1994a: 76) that Holden
despises because they represent the superficiality of post-war
America. Franny, in contrast, who is reaching a point where she
can no longer tolerate the empty values of her society, is like an
older, more world-weary version of Holden. She explains her dis-
content to an uncomprehending Lane in words that could almost
come from Holden: 'It's everybody, I mean. Everything every-
body does is so - 1 don't know - not wrong, or even mean, or even
stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and sad-
making' (Salinger 1994c: 18). This echoes Holden's diatribe
against society, which leaves his girlfriend Sally as bemused as
Lane is by Franny's outburst.
More than any other character, Seymour epitomizes the values
that Salinger holds most dear. Exceptional in his capacity to find
goodness and beauty in what others cynically reject, Seymour is
the antithesis of the materialistic, shallow culture of post-war
America: a poet in a place and time that does not seem to value
high art, a follower of Buddhism and Hinduism in a period of
exclusive and overt Christian observance, an enthusiastic fol-
lower of writers, artists and philosophers from all over the world
in an era of fear and insularity. In this sense, he seems an adult,
more intellectually developed version of Allie, the saint-like
brother that Holden lost, who wrote poems on his baseball glove.
HUMOUR
Humour is one of the defining characteristics of Salinger's work,

even though his characters rarely aim to amuse: very often they
are serious or tragic figures and their stories are frequently
melancholy in subject-matter. Importantly, the writing often
combines disturbing content with comedy in a way that does not
diminish the impact of either element. For example, the sadness
the reader feels at Seymour's death in 'Bananafish' is heightened
because his remarks in the previous scene with Sybil have been
entertaining, portraying him as a likeable eccentric: his quirky
response to her assertion that she 1ike[s] to chew candles' is
27
simply 'Who doesn't?' (Salinger 1994b: 10), and he replies to her

observation that his rubber float is deflating with 'You're right. It
needs more air than I'm willing to admit' (Salinger 1994b: 8).
Thefictiontends to use images and language that are amusing
rather than making jokes or setting up conventionally humorous
situations and, as with the dialogue, the words often imply more
than they state. In 'Uncle Wiggily', a bored and lonely housewife
named Eloise, apparently irritated by the physical resemblance
between her husband and daughter, wishes for 'a cocker spaniel
or something [. . .] Somebody that looks like me' (Salinger
1994b: 17). The implication that Eloise resembles a spaniel is
comic, but the statement is also poignant, suggesting the isola-
tion she feels. In 'For Esme', Sergeant X communicates his frus-
tration when he describes his free time during Army training:
'Rainy days, I generally sat in a dry place and read a book, often
just an axe length away from a ping-pong table' (Salinger 1994b:
65). 'Arm's length' would have implied cramped conditions; 'axe
length' makes clear that X is maddened by the ping-pong table
and would like to destroy it. In Catcher, Holden excuses himself
from sex with Sunny on the grounds that he has recently had an
operation on his 'wuddayacallit - my clavichord' (Salinger
1994a: 87). His amusing malapropism (the reference to an oper-
ation indicates that he is alluding to a body part, most likely the
clavicle, rather than a type of piano) communicates his panic at
the prospect of sex. Once again, this illustrates the techniques
that Salinger employs to reveal a character's mental state.
TEXTS WITHIN TEXTS
Salinger often includes a range of different texts within his stories.

Sometimes these offer alternative perspectives on events and
characters as, for example, in 'Carpenters' when Seymour's diary
permits the reader new insights into his abandonment of Muriel
on their wedding day. The use of texts within the text becomes
more common as Salinger's career progresses. In 'Carpenters',
Buddy's first-person narrative includes, in full, the Taoist tale
Seymour reads to Franny, a letter from Boo Boo to Buddy telling
him to attend Seymour's wedding, a quotation from the Greek
28
poet Sappho, from which the story takes its title - 'Raise high the
roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far
than a tall man' (Salinger 1994d: 41) - and substantial sections
from Seymour's diary. In contrast, in an earlier text like Catcher,
Holden simply summarizes D. B.'s story The Secret Goldfish'.
The interweaving of different kinds of texts, some of which
have another existence outside the fiction, has several functions.
First, allusions to other literary texts illuminate Salinger's themes
and concerns. For example, in Catcher, Holden's admiration for
The Great Gatsby reflects his concern with the destructive impact
of the American Dream. Second, because intertextuality brings
the past into the present, it echoes characters' nostalgia, and
functions as an antidote to loss. Third, mirroring Salinger's
theme of rebellion against authority, multiple texts subvert the
dominance of a single narrator. Last, including extracts from
earlier and non-Western cultures in a work of popular fiction
blurs the conventional boundary between 'high' and iow'
culture, and subverts dominant ideas about which kinds of texts
are important, reflecting Salinger's critique of dominant
American values. As the next chapter will show, this is one of the
key themes of The Catcher in the Rye.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What techniques are typical of Salinger'sfiction,and how do

they affect the reader's interpretation of the work?
2. Salinger's work often deals with serious subjects - loss of
innocence, death, prejudice - but he almost always uses
humour in his treatment of these subjects. Is this an effective
strategy?
3. What is the significance of children in Salinger's fiction?
29
CHAPTER 3
READING THE CATCHER IN THE RYE
Far from being simply the story of 'this madman stuff that hap-
pened [. . .] around last Christmas' (Salinger 1994a: 1), The
Catcher in the Rye is a complex and moving insight into many
aspects of Holden Caulfield's life. Told in retrospect, the main
strand of the narrative moves chronologically, beginning with
Holden leaving his school, then spending two days in Manhattan
encountering family, friends and strangers. Throughout his
description of these few days, Holden recalls people and events
from the past, and speculates about the future. He also pauses in
his account to consider related issues, including the hypocrisy of
his society, his confusion about religion and sex, his family, anx-
ieties about adulthood and death, and the dangers of the movies.
This detailed chapter-by-chapter reading explores key scenes,
explains significant references and discusses the novel's major
themes.
The novel seems to fall into four sections of roughly equal
length. In the first (chapters 1-7), all the action takes place at
Pencey Prep, Holden's school, on the Saturday afternoon and
evening that is to be his last day there. The second section (chap-
ters 8-14) is centred on the Edmont Hotel, Manhattan, where
Holden spends the remainder of Saturday night. In the third
section (chapters 15-20) Holden spends Sunday wandering
around the city, encountering friends and strangers in various
locations. The fourth section (chapters 21-5) contains three key
scenes: Holden and Phoebe at the family apartment on Sunday
night, Holden's visit to Antolini in the early hours of Monday
31
morning, and Phoebe at the carrousel on Monday afternoon.

The final chapter (26) returns to the novel's starting-point, the
time and place from which Holden tells his story, six months or
so after the events of the main narrative.
SECTION 1: AT PENCEY (CHAPTERS 1-7)
Chapter 1
The novel's opening chapter establishes several of its central
themes. It begins with Holden directly addressing someone,
'you', who is in effect also the reader. Salinger uses first-person
narration to evoke Holden, giving him a unique 'voice', and the
relationship established between him and the reader is intimate
from the outset, engendering sympathy. The opening line seems
a response to a question, but also communicates weariness - 'If
you really want to hear about it' (Salinger 1994a: 1) - as if the
narrator is reluctant to tell his story, implying that it will not be
a happy one. Holden makes clear both that he has a story to tell
and that he refuses to engage with the conventions of autobiog-
raphy: he will not tell 'you' about his childhood or his family,
'all that David Copperfield kind of crap' (Salinger 1994a: 1).
Although Holden distances himself from Charles Dickens's
novel, there are similarities between the two narratives: David
Copperfield (1849-50) is based on Dickens's life, as Catcher is
based loosely on Salinger's; and, like Catcher, David Copperfield
is written in thefirstperson, reviewing the events of Copperfield's
early life. A further link between the two novels can be found in
the narrators' names: they share 'field' and, furthermore,
Copperfield is born with a 'caul', a membrane over his face that
is sometimes taken as a sign of good fortune.
Dickens's novel is an archetypal example of the bildungsro-
man, or 'coming of age' novel, which conventionally tells the
story of a person's development from youth to maturity. Catcher
is, in its way, exemplary of the bildungsroman: although Holden's
story only covers three days, it does present many of the experi-
ences of his life. Typically, the protagonist of a bildungsroman
suffers a loss that encourages him to begin a journey that will
entail diverse and sometimes troubling encounters; he is changed
32
by these experiences and ends by reflecting on his situation in the

present. Holden is contending with the loss of Allie, his brother,
who died of leukaemia three years before; he undertakes a
journey around Manhattan and summarizes what he has learnt
at the novel's end. So although Holden says that he does not 'feel
like going into it, if you want to know the truth' (Salinger 1994a:
1), it' being his life story, he does in fact reveal a great deal and
observes the conventions of the bildungsroman to a significant
extent. By making use of a traditional and respected literary
form, this controversial novel of teenage rebellion encourages
readers to view it as a serious work of literature.
In the opening paragraph Holden discusses those members of
his family who feature least in the rest of the novel; they are sig-
nificant despite, or because of, their absence. The brief comments
on his parents - they are 'touchy', though 'nice and all' - imply
distance, while his older brother, D. B., is 'being a prostitute'
(Salinger 1994a: 1) in Hollywood, where he has chosen to write
film scripts rather than more short stories like those in his book
The Secret Goldfish. This book's title story suggests one of
Salinger's recurring interests, the perspective of a child: but if
D. B. is an author-figure, he is one who has failed to be true to
his art, lured away by money and fame. This establishes the
theme of corruption, which Holden pursues throughout his
narrative.
Looking back, Holden decides that 'Where I want to start
telling is the day I left Pencey Prep' (Salinger 1994a: 1). The
school is one that 'you probably heard of (Salinger 1994a: 1),
indicating Holden's class status, even though he makes it clear
that it does not deserve its fame: the image it promotes is 'strictly
for the birds' (Salinger 1994a: 2), meaning that it is fake and
would only impress the gullible. This raises one of the novel's key
themes: Holden's hatred of the 'phony', that is, dishonesty,
superficiality and pretence. Holden's description of Selma
Thurmer, the headmaster's daughter, continues the theme: she
wears 'those damn falsies' (Salinger 1994a: 2), meaning a padded
brassiere. Although this suggests that she too is engaged in a pre-
tence, Holden believes her to be an authentic person because she
recognizes the hypocrisies of school life.
33
The novel's first reference to suicide, a recurring theme,

appears in this opening chapter when Holden comments cyni-
cally that 'you were supposed to commit suicide or something if
old Pencey didn't win' the football game (Salinger 1994a: 2). This
comment indicates that he does not share the school's ethos of
loyalty, and his distance from the school's values is conveyed by
the fact that he watches the game from afar, standing on a hill
beside the 'crazy cannon that was in the Revolutionary War and
all' (Salinger 1994a: 2). In one sense the school's cannon repre-
sents its traditional ideals by evoking the uprising against British
rule by American colonies (1775-83), a source of pride for many
Americans. However, as the war also implies rejection of author-
ity and questioning of those in power, the cannon establishes
Holden's status as a rebel.
Holden has not been a success at Pencey. As well as failing his
exams, he loses the fencing team's equipment on the way to a
match and is 'ostracized the whole way back' by the team (Salinger
1994a: 3). So, as much as he rejects the school, it in turn rejects
him. The fact that Holden's coat has been stolen by one of the boys
in the school confirms to him that 'Pencey was full of crooks'
(Salinger 1994a: 3): like its advertisements, the school's pupils are
dishonest. Despite this, Holden does have happy memories of
throwing a ball around at dusk with some friends. Remembering
this moment of play helps him to 'feel some kind of a good-by'
(Salinger 1994a: 4), as if he needs to identify a positive image of
the school in order to let it go. This suggests that Holden is afraid
of loss, another key theme, and develops strategies to make the
experience bearable. Even so, as he runs to Mr Spencer's house
Holden feels that he is 'sort of disappearing' (Salinger 1994a: 4).
This feeling recurs for Holden as he falls further into crisis later in
the novel and his sense of loss intensifies.
Chapter 2
Developing the theme of rebellion, Holden's visit to Mr Spencer
confirms that he is opposed to the conventional ideas that school
and society encourage in order to promote stability. Spencer,
Holden's History teacher, affirms the Headmaster's view that
'Life is a game' that should be played by rules, but Holden silently
34
disagrees: 'Game my ass' (Salinger 1994a: 7). Throughout the

novel, Holden is uncomfortable with social inequality and his
comment that life is only a game for those on the side of the
'hot-shots' (Salinger 1994a: 7) shows his awareness of such injus-
tice. As a young, affluent white man Holden is, of course, a priv-
ileged figure himself, but he recognizes - although he does not
always articulate it directly - that others are not so fortunate. For
example, one sector of the population very much on the 'losing
team' is Native Americans, who are invoked in the reference to
the 'Navajo blanket' that Spencer bought from 'some Indian in
Yellowstone Park' (Salinger 1994a: 6), a person whose social
status is conveyed by the fact that he is as anonymous as the
exhibit of 'Indians' in Holden's favourite museum (Salinger
1994a: 109).
The visit to Spencer establishes Holden's fear of death through
the theme of aging. Spencer, like the school, is linked to
American history: he lives on Anthony Wayne Avenue (named
after a Revolutionary War general) and seems ancient to Holden.
The term 'old' is used throughout the novel to imply affection
and familiarity ('old Phoebe') but here Holden uses it repeatedly
in a literal sense, making several comments about 'old guys [. . .]
their bumpy old chests [. . .] Old guys' legs' (Salinger 1994a: 6-7)
that express revulsion, indicating his fear of death. Holden is pre-
occupied by aging: he acts 'quite young for [his] age sometimes',
but has 'gray hair' (Salinger 1994a: 8), a contradiction that sug-
gests that he is neither child nor adult. However, his immature
behaviour could also be read as an attempt to resist death by
counteracting the aging process that his gray hair represents.
Books that Holden has read as part of his education reiterate
the theme of death and reflect other aspects of the novel. Beowulf
(c. 1000 AD) is an archetypal 'quest' narrative, and Holden's
journey around Manhattan is structured much like a quest in
which he tries to find sanctuary and the answers to troubling
questions. 'Lord Randall My Son' (a seventeenth-century ballad)
tells the story of a nobleman who dies young, probably poisoned
by his lover. The injustice of the death of young people is a recur-
ring concern in Catcher, epitomized by Allie and James Castle,
whose suicide Holden describes later. When he meets the nuns in
35
Chapter 15, Holden also notes how angry he feels about the
death of Mercutio in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1597).
Chapter 3
This chapter establishes that Holden's narrative is characterized
by contradictions, which point to his unstable state of mind. His
confession that he is 'the most terrific liar you ever saw in your
life' (Salinger 1994a: 14) is an early hint that the reader has no
way of knowing whether or not Holden's entire narrative is built
on dishonesty. Despite his tendency to lie, Holden is often angry
about deception: he condemns those he considers phony, such as
the undertaker and school benefactor, Ossenburger. To Holden,
he is a hypocrite who prays for personal gain: 'I can just see the
big phony bastard shifting intofirstgear and asking Jesus to send
him a few more stiffs' (Salinger 1994a: 14). The contradiction
between Holden's anger about phoniness and his own lies indi-
cates a lack of self-awareness that makes his narrative unreliable.
Once back in his room, Holden tries on his new 'red hunting
hat' (Salinger 1994a: 15), which he bought for himself after
losing the fencing team's equipment. It is no coincidence that he
buys this unusual hat after he has been ostracized by his team-
mates. He seems to be embracing the role of misfit before it is
applied to him by others, a self-protective strategy. His claim that
it is 'a people shooting hat' (Salinger 1994a: 19) raises the theme
of death once more and suggests aggression, which will surface
later in his interaction with his room-mate, Ward Stradlater.
Once again, Holden's reading-matter echoes themes raised so
far. The autobiography Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (published
in the USA in 1938) highlights the issue of phoniness: although
Holden does not comment on this, the book's author could be
termed a phony, as Dinesen is the pseudonym of Karen Blixen. In
a typical contradiction, Holden claims that he is 'quite illiterate'
but reads 'a lot' (Salinger 1994a: 15), and that he particularly likes
D. B.'s stories and the work of Ring Lardner. While his brother
may be a 'prostitute', selling his talent to Hollywood, Lardner
represents principles that Holden would approve of, as Lardner
was one of the 'Hollywood 10' who refused to respond to the
HUAC's questions about their political allegiance in 1947,
36
Lardner's appearance here therefore seems especially pointed.

Still on the theme of fiction, Holden wishes he could 'call up'
(Salinger 1994a: 16) certain authors, including Dinesen, Lardner
and Thomas Hardy. He excludes Somerset Maugham, having
read his semi-autobiographical bildungsroman Of Human
Bondage (1915), which, much like Catcher, addresses the difficulty
of coming to terms with adult sexuality. By rejecting Maugham,
Holden attempts to distance himself from the novel's protagonist,
a character with experiences similar to his own, suggesting that he
is reluctant to recognize his own isolation and confusion.
When Robert Ackley interrupts Holden's reading, he plays a
game with Ackley that suggests Holden is lost and seeking reas-
surance; it may also evoke death in its reference to darkness.
Holden pulls his cap over his eyes and starts 'groping around' as
if blind, calling to Ackley, 'Mother darling, everything's getting
so dark in here [. . .] Mother darling, why won't you give me your
hand? (Salinger 1994a: 18-19). Ackley, refusing to play along,
rejects the role of Holden's surrogate mother. Holden's game
hints that he isfiguratively'in the dark' and in need of guidance
from an older person; although an unlikely role model, Ackley
later tells Holden that he is 'old enough to be your lousy father'
(Salinger 1994a: 21). Since Holden's mother and father barely
feature in the novel, his apparent desire for parentalfiguressug-
gests that he misses the security they conventionally represent.
CHAPTER 4
This chapter introduces Stradlater and Jane Gallagher, key

figures in the novel. Stradlater is a phony and a conformist in a
narrative that disparages both: he is a 'secret slob [. . .] a Year
Book kind of handsome guy' (Salinger 1994a: 23), photogenic
but fake, with looks that conform to the ideal of the moment
rather than expressing individuality. Preparing for his date,
wearing Holden's jacket and 'Vitalis' (a hair product), Stradlater's
phoniness is emphasized through the implication that he is
impersonating Holden. He asks that Holden stand in for him by
writing his essay on 'Anything descriptive. A room. Or a house'
(Salinger 1994a: 24). This indicates that Stradlater is a social
37
success but lacks imagination; Holden, by contrast, is creative

and playful, shown when he entertains Stradlater by 'imitating
one of those guys in the movies' (Salinger 1994a: 25).
Although Holden mocks the weaknesses in Hollywood plots
and states that he 'hate[s] the movies like poison' (Salinger 1994a:
25), throughout the novel he uses roles from films to help him
cope with difficult feelings. In this chapter, he plays the role of
clown to please Stradlater, whom he positions as a father-figure:
while Holden watches him shaving, an activity that signifies adult
masculinity, he pretends to be 'The little ole goddam Governor's
son' (Salinger 1994a: 25) whose father does not want him to be a
dancer in the Ziegfeld Follies (1946). In a sense, Stradlater is the
'Governor', the dominant male, and Holden plays the role of
son, rebellious and yet desirous of his father's approval, asking if
Stradlater likes his hunting hat.
Holden's subordinate position is confirmed when Stradlater
tells him that a girl he has dated and rejected is 'too old' (Salinger
1994a: 26) for Holden, and again when he cannot hold Stradlater
in a wrestling grip: but a worse blow comes when he discovers
that Stradlater's date is Jane Gallagher, a girl he idealizes.
Stradlater has little interest in Jane (he misremembers her name
as Jean) or how Holden knows her, but Holden's comment that
he 'damn near dropped dead' (Salinger 1994a: 26) at the news
alerts the reader to Jane's importance, something the narrative
repeatedly affirms in later chapters. Stradlater's only interest in
Jane is sexual, but Holden's memory of playing checkers with
Jane suggests a different attitude: he recalls that Jane would not
'move any of her kings' because 'She just liked the way they
looked when they were all in the back row' (Salinger 1994a: 27).
Too nervous to speak to Jane, but anxious about her safety
because he is aware of Stradlater's sexual prowess and physical
dominance, Holden asks Stradlater to ask Jane if she 'still keeps
all of her kings in the back row' (Salinger 1994a: 29). In this way,
he attempts to remind her of the intimacy they shared, which his
room-mate cannot offer, and also warns Jane to stay on her
guard with Stradlater, that is, to keep herself as safe as the
kings. Holden's inability to speak to Jane himself suggests he
fears discovering that she will have changed and perhaps lost her
innocence; his reluctance also suggests a more general fear of

engagement with women.
CHAPTER 5
One of the most interesting moments in this chapter comes when

Holden decides not to throw a snowball at a car covered in fresh
snow because it 'looked so nice and white' (Salinger 1994a: 32).
Whiteness is associated with purity and innocence, qualities that
Holden values and hates to see spoiled, so his decision not to
throw the snowball represents his desire to preserve innocence, a
key theme of the novel as a whole. Although Holden uses 'nice'
more than 80 times in his narrative, diminishing its impact, it is
also used at important moments to convey his genuine apprecia-
tion, not least when he watches Phoebe on the carrousel and
begins to cry because 'she looked so damn nice' (Salinger 1994a:
191). Similarly, at this early stage in the novel, he is moved by the
still street scene, finding beauty in an ordinary moment despite
his troubled state of mind.
Holden is reluctant to write the essay that Stradlater
requested, which is unsurprising given that the topic ('a room or
a house') must evoke either school, from which he has been
rejected, or home, to which he cannot return without facing
his parents. Instead, he describes Allie's baseball mitt, which
his brother decorated with poetry. The essay Holden writes
becomes - in a manner typical of the novel - a springboard for
his memories and makes it clear that Allie's death dominates his
thoughts. When he says of Allie, 'You'd have liked him' (Salinger
1994a: 33), the intimacy between Holden and the reader is
increased: a three-way connection is implied between Holden,
the reader and Allie, the person Holden loves most. The informa-
tion that Holden offers about his brother enables the reader to fix
the date of the narrative: Allie died at the age of 11 in July 1946,
when Holden was 13; in Chapter 2 Holden says that 'I was sixteen
then [during the events he describes] and I'm seventeen now'
(Salinger 1994a: 8), indicating that the novel is set in 1949, just
before Christmas, a time associated with salvation and hope, feel-
ings Holden does not share.
The impact of Allie's death on Holden is one of the central

issues of the novel: although he speaks of it explicitly at times,
it drives his actions and responses in ways that he does not
necessarily recognize. In this chapter the pain he felt when Allie
died is evident:
they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I

broke all the windows in the garage. [. . .] I slept in the garage
the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with
myfist,just for the hell of it. [. . .] My hand still hurts me once
in a while [. . .] and I can't make a realfistany more. (Salinger
1994a: 34)
Holden does not, of course, break the windows 'just for the hell
of it' but as an expression of the frustration and grief he feels,
and these emotions erupt at points throughout the narrative.
However, the fact that this act has left him unable to make a fist
confirms that he is, essentially, not a violent person: although
much later in the narrative he wishes to 'smash' the head of
whoever wrote 'fuck you' on the wall of his sister's school
(Salinger 1994a: 181), he says earlier that he 'hate[s] fist fights'
and considers himself a coward (Salinger 1994a: 81). As the title
('catcher') and name of Salinger's protagonist ('Holden') indi-
cates, hands are a recurring motif in the novel. The image of
hands used in violent acts contrasts with other images of hands
that offer comfort, such as the hand that Holden remembers Jane
placing on his neck (Salinger 1994a: 72) and the hand that he
asks for when he pretends that Ackley is his mother (Salinger
1994a: 18-19). However, hands are also the source of trouble in
the much later scene with Antolini, who frightens Holden by
touching him on the head when he is sleeping.
Chapter 6
Events in this chapter exacerbate Holden's fear of loss and inabil-
ity to protect those he loves. The opening paragraph of this
chapter uses variants of 'worry' six times: the repetition has a
comic quality but also conveys Holden's fears that Stradlater, the
'unscrupulous' 'bastard' (Salinger 1994a: 35), will have corrupted
40
Jane by persuading her to have sex with him. For Holden, who
has developed strong feelings for Jane within the context of a
non-sexual relationship, physical intimacy signals a loss of inno-
cence and entry into the adult world, which he associates with
corruption. Stradlater is damaging not only to Jane's innocence
but also to the memory of Allie. When he rejects the essay Holden
has written for him, Stradlater effectively disparages Allie, inten-
sifying Holden's negative feelings. Holden notes that he feels
'nervous', unable to speak without his voice 'shaking' (Salinger
1994a: 37), but rather than nerves, Holden's language suggests
anger. The fact that Stradlater responds to these signs with
'playful' punches to Holden's shoulder could suggest either that
he is misreading Holden's volatile mood, or that, anticipating a
fight, he is reminding Holden of his superior strength.
Allie's death and Holden's situation are inextricably linked.
This is confirmed when Holden, lashing out at Stradlater, cannot
hurt him due to the injury he sustained when Allie died. Further,
Stradlater's refusal to reveal what he has done with Jane confirms
Holden's worst fears, and his rage is fuelled by his sense of frus-
tration: he could not save Allie from death and now he has lost
Jane to corruption. When Stradlater overpowers Holden and, in
response to relentless taunts of 'moron', eventually hits him quite
hard, Holden considers the relationship between this and the
fights he has seen in films, recognizing that in fact, 'It's pretty
hard to knock a guy out, except in the goddam movies' (Salinger
1994a: 39). This reminds the reader thatfilms,like the people that
Holden hates, are phony.
Chapter 7
Holden's fight leads to despair and provokes thoughts of death
once more. He escapes to Ackley's room but does not find sanc-
tuary there, confirmed by his repeated admission that he feels
'lonesome' (Salinger 1994a: 42-5). Not only does Holden 'almost
wish [he] was dead' (Salinger 1994a: 42), he feels 'like jumping
out the window' (Salinger 1994a: 43). His suicidal gloom not
only continues the theme of death, but prefigures both his
thoughts of jumping from his hotel window in Chapter 14 and
the story Holden later tells of James Castle's suicidal jump from
41
a school window in Chapter 22. There is a further link between

Holden's two moments of suicidal misery: the first occurs when
he fears that Stradlater has sexually exploited Jane, the second
when he fails to have sex with Sunny. On both occasions, Holden
is humiliated by more dominant, sexually experienced men: first
Stradlater and then Maurice, Sunny's pimp.
Throughout the novel Holden attempts to escape his situation,
beginning when he decides to leave the school and 'take a room
in a hotel in New York' (Salinger 1994a: 45), avoiding his family
home and his parents' response to his expulsion. Although he
claims not to know why he is crying as he leaves Pencey, suggest-
ing a lack of self-awareness, it is obvious that Holden is lost and
lonely: alienated from his peers, unable to relate to adults, full of
fear and anger. His final action at the school - shouting 'Sleep
tight, ya moronsV (Salinger 1994a: 46) - is immediately followed
by him slipping on peanut shells. This accident introduces the
theme of falling that pervades the narrative in references to sui-
cidal leaps and Holden's own dream of saving children. In addi-
tion, the mixture of comedy and poignancy creates sympathy for
Holden without making the novel sentimental. Finally, this
moment suggests that when Holden attempts to do something
that makes him anxious, his body lets him down as if it is express-
ing his reluctance to face what is ahead. Further examples of this
occur when Holden falls over his suitcase when the prostitute
comes to his hotel room, suggesting his anxiety about sex
(Chapter 13); attempting to appear sophisticated to the nuns he
meets at Grand Central Station, he accidentally blows cigarette
smoke in their faces (Chapter 15); and when, trying to kiss Sally
in the taxi, he falls off his seat, betraying his inexperience and
reluctance to be physically intimate with her (Chapter 17).
However unreliable his narrative, Holden's body language reveals
a great deal about his state of mind.
SECTION 2: AT THE EDMONT HOTEL (CHAPTERS 8-14)
Chapters
Throughout his narrative, Holden is persistently preoccupied
with gender roles, sexuality and relationships. On the train to
42
Manhattan, he mocks the type of magazine story that has 'a lot
of phony, lean-jawed guys named David in it, and a lot of phony
girls named Linda or Marcia that are always lighting all the
goddam Davids' pipes for them' (Salinger 1994a: 47). Holden rec-
ognizes that, as in the 'movies', these stories of men who are
defined in terms of cliched signs of masculinity (lean-jawed' and
pipe-smoking), and the women who defer to and serve them, offer
an exaggerated, fake representation of relationships. Holden's
revulsion for men like Stradlater and the generic 'Davids' of con-
ventionalfictionleads to confusion about his own sexual feelings.
Not wishing to be similarly objectifying or exploitative of women,
Holden feels uncomfortable when he is attracted to the 'very
good-looking' woman who joins him on the train: 'I don't mean
I'm oversexed or anything like that - although I am quite sexy. I
just like [women], I mean' (Salinger 1994a: 48). One of the things
he likes about women is that they are 'always leaving their
goddam bags out in the middle of the aisle' (Salinger 1994a: 48),
as the woman on the train has done. This very specific example of
what Holden perceives as typical female behaviour suggests that
he sees women as endearing but impractical. His view of women
is therefore ambivalent: although he worries about how men treat
women, he also holds some traditional views.
The woman he meets on the train is the mother of Ernest
Morrow, 'the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey' (Salinger
1994a: 48). Holden's description of Ernest exemplifies Salinger's
strategy of using one detail to explain a character. Ernest is 'the
kind of a guy' who snaps his 'soggy old wet towel at people's
asses' (Salinger 1994a: 48). It is left to the reader to guess what
kind of person commits such an act, but cruelty disguised as
playfulness is implied, along with a homo-erotic element. Holden
tells Mrs Morrow that his name is Rudolph Schmidt (the name
of the school janitor), which is the first time he lies about his
name in the novel. His repeated use of pseudonyms positions him
as a phony, but also highlights the instability of his identity. This
instability is confirmed when he tells the women he meets at the
hotel that his name is 'Jim Steele', an ultra-masculine name suit-
able for a man who might meet women in a bar or solicit a pros-
titute, as Holden goes on to do, using the same name. On this
43
occasion, his chosen name suggests that he wishes to escape his

social class; later, he will imagine himself in blue-collar job, 'at a
filling station somewhere' (Salinger 1994a: 178).
Holden's attraction to Mrs Morrow is complicated by the fact
that she is a mother. He lies to her to about her son's popularity to
encourage her to feel warmly towards him, believing that 'mothers
aren't too sharp' (Salinger 1994a: 50) and do not know the truth
about their children, suggesting that he feels distant from his own
parents. His belief that 'mothers are all slightly insane' (Salinger
1994a: 49) may be based on his own mother's difficulties since
Allie's death: 'she hasn't felt too healthy since my brother [. . .]
died' (Salinger 1994a: 97). By making a connection between his
mother and Mrs Morrow, Holden desexualizes their encounter.
Seeking the sympathy of a maternalfigure,Holden tells her that
he has a 'tiny little tumor on the brain' (Salinger 1994a: 51), but
realizes from her shocked reaction that his lies have gone too far,
at which point he withdraws from her. Having built his conversa-
tion on lies, Holden has sabotaged exactly the kind of connection
he craves with an older person who might guide him. This illus-
trates both his vulnerability and his instability.
Chapter 9
From this chapter onwards (until Chapter 26, which returns to
California) the novel is set in Manhattan. As the encounter with
Mrs Morrow shows, Holden seeks connection with others and,
throughout the narrative, either makes, or plans to make, many
telephone calls. However, at this stage, he cannot think of anyone
to call, not even Jane: just as he never managed to see her at
Pencey, he never manages to reach her on the phone, often com-
menting that he does not 'feel like' calling (Salinger 1994a: 53).
Holden relies on memories of ideal moments to sustain him; if
Jane has been changed by her date with Stradlater, his memories
of the tenderness they shared will be irrevocably spoiled.
Repeatedly, Holden's anxieties about loss are indirectly
expressed through his concern about the ducks in Central Park.
He first considers their fate when listening to Mr Spencer in
Chapter 2, linking his teacher's advanced age to death and loss,
symbolized by the ducks. Now that he is in the city the question
44
recurs. The ducks signify absence: it is winter and they have left
the Park that Holden knew in childhood. Like Allie, the ducks
are part of Holden's past and hefindstheir absence inexplicable.
He asks a taxi driver where the ducks have gone and he takes the
response to his question - 'He [. . .] looked at me like I was a
madman' (Salinger 1994a: 54) - as evidence of its complexity. Yet
when Holden comments later that he is fond of a museum display
of 'birds flying south for the winter' (Salinger 1994a: 109), he
reveals that he knows about migration, which offers the most
obvious explanation for the ducks' disappearance. His inability
to answer his own question thus suggests that, traumatized by
Allie's death, he sees incomprehensible loss everywhere.
Holden's experiences at the Edmont Hotel are all associated
with gender and sex. First, Holden is shocked by the people he
sees from the window of his room. One man, 'very distinguished-
looking', is doing 'something you wouldn't believe if I told you'
(Salinger 1994a: 55), although Holden does in fact tell us that the
man is cross-dressing, an act that challenges the strict gender
boundaries that Holden has been socialized to understand as
normal. He then sees a couple squirting liquids at each other, but
although he can see that they are having fun - 'They were in hys-
terics the whole time' - he considers them 'perverts' (Salinger
1994a: 55). His condemnation indicates his confused feelings
about sex: he is both repelled and fascinated by what he sees, con-
ceding that the couple may be having fun but maintaining that he
does not 'like the idea' (Salinger 1994a: 56) of their actions. This
is because Holden sees sexual activity as something imposed by
a man on a woman: 'if you do like [a girl], [. . .] you ought to be
careful about doing crumby stuff to [her]' (Salinger 1994a: 56).
A product of the repressive post-war era in America, when
sexual desire was considered unspeakable and clear information
about sex was rare, Holden comments twice in this chapter that
he does not understand sex and is uncertain about the bound-
aries of behaviour. However, he is full of curiosity and unfulfilled
desire: 'In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever
saw' (Salinger 1994a: 56). Desperate to gain experience, he
attempts to arrange a date with Faith Cavendish, but flounders
as he adopts a contrived persona and Faith mishears his name
45
as 'Mr Cawffle' (Salinger 1994a: 58). This misunderstanding

underlines the uncertainty of his identity, reflecting his position
between childhood and adulthood.
Chapter 10
In this chapter Holden reflects on his relationship with his sister
Phoebe, who will prove to be one of the centralfiguresin the nar-
rative. As he gets ready to visit the hotel's nightclub, the Lavender
Room, Holden compares himself with his siblings: Phoebe is
'really smart' and Allie 'was a wizard', while Holden is 'the only
dumb one in the family' (Salinger 1994a: 60), indicating his low
self-esteem. Similarities between Phoebe and Allie provoke
Holden's affection, but also increase his fears: if Allie can be lost,
so can his sister. Phoebe is a sophisticated child who enjoyed The
Baker's Wife (1938), a French film about a village that acts
together to return the baker's wayward wife to him so that he will
resume making bread, suggesting that Phoebe favours social
order. However, her favourite film is The 39 Steps (1935), whose
plot is concerned with escape, injustice and identity confusion.
The moment in thefilmthat Holden describes, when the 'profes-
sor [. . .] that's really a German spy' (Salinger 1994a: 61) reveals
that the hero is in danger from someone he hoped would help
him, parallels Holden's later encounter with his former teacher,
Mr Antolini (Chapter 24). Holden trusts Antolini but is fright-
ened when his teacher touches him while he sleeps: as with the
bogus professor in thefilm,who is identified as a villain by having
part of a finger missing, the actions of Antolini's hands suggest
that he may not be an ally after all.
In this description and in later encounters with Phoebe,
Holden expresses some discomfort about Phoebe's emotional
openness: she is 'a little too affectionate sometimes' (Salinger
1994a: 61) and 'Sometimes she's even too affectionate' (Salinger
1994a: 146). Given his fondness for his sister, it is difficult to
understand why he would feel uncomfortable about her displays
of affection. Perhaps, because he struggles to express his own
emotions, he is unnerved by Phoebe's openness; or perhaps phys-
ical contact with her reminds him of the loss of Allie: damaging
his own hands when Allie died may have signified Holden's with-
46
drawal from physical as well as mental connection with others,

erecting a barrier that Phoebe attempts to cross.
One of the recurring phrases that characterizes Holden's nar-
rative is 'killed me', meaning that something or someone made
him laugh. Here he uses the phrase in relation to Phoebe to
express how much she amuses him, but he also comments that
'She killed Allie, too. I mean he liked her, too' (Salinger 1994a:
61). Since Phoebe has no responsibility for Allie's death,
Holden's redundant clarification indicates that he is constantly
aware that Allie is dead.
In the nightclub Holden meets three women - evoking the
three witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth - named Bernice, Marty
and Laverne. Their names signify their working-class status,
compared with the girls that Holden knows, Phoebe, Sally and
Jane. Once again, Holden displays his ambivalent attitude to
women, previously seen in his meeting with Mrs Morrow:
although he makes insulting remarks about the women in the bar,
commenting that they are 'pretty ugly' and 'three real morons',
he concedes that one of them is 'sort of cute' (Salinger 1994a:
62-3). Despite his condemnation of Stradlater's objectification
of women as sexual objects, Holden disdainfully mocks their
small-town roots, their aspiration to see a celebrity, their
manners and intelligence, which suggests that he too values
appearance over personality: despite his negative attitudes, he
says he is 'about half in love with' (Salinger 1994a: 65) Bernice
because she dances so well.
The episode with the women in the Edmont Hotel typifies the
way in which Holden's unreliable narration reveals his lack of
self-awareness, itself a sign of his troubled state of mind. Holden's
self-perception is often at odds with the way he is seen by others,
but the reader has to interpret details of his narrative to discern
this, because he does not. For example, he believes that the women
are giggling at him because they are 'ignorant' (Salinger 1994a:
65), but it seems more likely that 16-year-old Holden, although
assured of his superior social skills, actually looks like what he is,
a teenager pretending to be an adult. He does not recognize the
significance of the women's repeated questions about his age and
whether his father is available for a date, or understand why they
47
keep 'kidding' him about drinking Cokes (Salinger 1994a: 67).

This disparity between Holden's perception and that of those
around him recurs throughout the narrative.
Chapter 11
Holden's reactions to women and sexual matters are one of the
central themes of the novel. This has been established by his
complex relationship with Jane, his blunders with Mrs Morrow,
his anxious fascination with the hotel's guests and his failure to
connect on any level with the women in the Lavender Room.
Now his thoughts return to Jane: his understanding that 'You
don't always have to get too sexy to get to know a girl' (Salinger
1994a: 69) confirms, in contrast to Stradlater, his desire to
develop a relationship with a woman that is not simply sexual.
Holden's description of Jane shows that she is an ideal partner
for him: she reads, she is interested in Holden's stories about
Allie, they are 'friends' (Salinger 1994a: 69) and, like Allie and
Phoebe, Jane 'kill[s]' him (Salinger 1994a: 70). Although he
claims that he likes it best 'when you can kid the pants off a girl'
(Salinger 1994a: 70), a phrase that conveys sexual playfulness,
the girls Holden likes the most are 'the ones I never feel much like
kidding' (Salinger 1994a: 70), like Jane, for whom he has both
loving and sexual feelings.
This chapter makes clear what is implied in Chapter 6 when
Holdenfightswith Stradlater: Jane is a centralfigurein Holden's
life and her loss is painful to him, even though he feels sure that
'she wouldn't let [Stradlater] get to first base with her' (Salinger
1994a: 72). He now recounts the incident when, having been
reduced to tears by her stepfather, Holden kissed her repeatedly,
though never on the lips. He describes this as 'the closest we ever
got to necking' (Salinger 1994a: 71), but the reader recognizes
that their intimacy is more than sexual. Similarly, the two spend
much time just holding hands: Jane 'was terrific to hold hands
with' (Salinger 1994a: 71) and in these moments, Holden com-
ments, All you knew was, you were happy. You really were'
(Salinger 1994a: 72). Jane's hand resting on the back of Holden's
neck is another sign of genuine intimacy and comfort, one that
is almost maternal.
48
Having apparently lost Jane, however, Holden is himself lost,

moving aimlessly around the city. On his way to a nightclub, he
returns to the subject of those who consider themselves superior
to others, in this case Ernie, 'a big fat colored guy that plays the
piano' (Salinger 1994a: 72). Despite his condemnation of other
people's superficiality, Holden's description of Ernie indicates
that he judges people in terms of appearance and reproduces a
racial hierarchy that positions whiteness as the norm, against
which other races are defined. Likewise, Holden later expresses
disgust about a 'very Cuban-looking guy' that he sees in a bar
(Salinger 1994a: 82), and praises a 'colored' singer (Salinger
1994a: 104) named Estelle Fletcher for her 'whorehouse' style of
singing. Although sometimes sensitive to inequalities of class,
Holden is less aware of the ways in which he reproduces racial
stereotypes that were common in the USA in this era, such as the
sexualization of African Americans.
Chapter 12
Holden's unhappy emotional state is made clear by his continued
focus on the ducks in Central Park. The cab driver, Horowitz, is
more concerned about the fish, because he believes that they are
frozen in the ice: 'It's tougher for thefish,the winter and all, than
it is for the ducks' (Salinger 1994a: 75). His comments imply that
it is harder to stay behind and face difficulties than it is to leave:
Holden would, in this metaphor, rather be a duck than a fish.
Horowitz's theory suggests arrested time, like the exhibits in the
museum, but he contends that 'If you was afish,Mother Nature'd
take care of you, wouldn't she? Right? You don't think them fish
just die when it gets to be winter, do ya?' (Salinger 1994a: 76). In
Holden's experience, however, certain living things are simply
allowed to die, not least his brother Allie: 'Mother Nature' did not
take care of him and this disturbs Holden's faith in nature.
Throughout the novel, Holden is sensitive to the possibility of
corruption: and he sees several examples at Ernie's. He considers
Ernie's playing to be 'show-offy' for an audience of 'morons' and
'dopes' (Salinger 1994a: 76) who do not appreciate real skill: the
audience is a corrupting force that encourages Ernie to be
'phony'; if Holden were a pianist he claims that he would 'play it
49
in the goddam closet' (Salinger 1994a: 77). As with his earlier

comments about his older brother D. B., Holden suggests that
the lure of audience approval taints an artist.
Sitting in the club, Holden again reflects on gender roles and
relationships. A couple nearby is composed of a 'boring' man
and an 'ugly' woman (Salinger 1994a: 77). She 'had to listen' to
him because she is unattractive: 'Real ugly girls have it tough. I
feel so sorry for them sometimes' (Salinger 1994a: 77). Although
a cruel description, Holden seems to be motivated by sympathy
for women who are under social pressure to attract a man at any
cost. Another couple evoke Holden's preoccupation with death
and his discomfort about sex. The 'Joe Yale-looking guy' (a
wealthy student of a prestigious Ivy League university) and
'terrific-looking' girl (Salinger 1994a: 78) have all the socially-
approved attributes. However, the man is telling his partner
about someone he knew who committed suicide while 'giving her
a feel under the table' (Salinger 1994a: 78), putting the woman in
the difficult position of having to appear sympathetic to the story
while trying to discourage his sexual advances. The man's manip-
ulative act evokes Stradlater, while the subject of the conversa-
tion anticipates James Castle, whose suicide Holden has not yet
disclosed, and echoes Holden's own suicidal thoughts.
Chapter 13
Holden's anxieties about sex, heightened by his recent experi-
ences, prompt him to get himself in a 'big mess': 'against [his]
principles and all' (Salinger 1994a: 82), he agrees to have a pros-
titute sent to his room. He reveals that he is a virgin and claims
that the main reason for this is that when a girl tells him to stop,
he does, although he believes that 'Most guys don't' (Salinger
1994a: 83). This confirms that Holden refuses to exploit the girls
he dates in the way that Stradlater does, although it also suggests
Holden fears sexual contact as much as he desires it. His argu-
ment that a passionate girl 'just hasn't any brains' (Salinger
1994a: 84) suggests that some of the girls he has dated are willing
to be physically intimate and it is Holden who, in the guise of
protecting them, sets the boundaries on their sexual activities, a
reversal of conventional gender roles.
50
Holden's encounter with Sunny confirms his nervousness

about sex. As when he leaves Pencey and slips on peanut-shells,
his encounter with the prostitute has a slapstick element: he
'damn near broke [his] knee' (Salinger 1994a: 85) falling over his
suitcase when Sunny arrives. Believing himself to be 'noncha-
lant' and 'suave' (Salinger 1994a: 85), he notes that she is 'very
nervous, for a prostitute' (Salinger 1994a: 85). While that may be
true, it is likely that Holden has nervous feelings that he is reluc-
tant to acknowledge and projects these onto Sunny. Even his
manly persona, 'Jim Steele' (Salinger 1994a: 85), does not protect
him from feeling 'peculiar' when she begins to undress. His
comment, 'I know you're supposed to feel pretty sexy when
somebody gets up and pulls their dress over their head, but I
didn't' (Salinger 1994a: 85-6) is oddly phrased, since he uses
words that are not gender-specific although he is talking about a
woman. This indicates a desire to disengage just at the moment
when he might be expected to feel most involved. Holden's dis-
comfort is confirmed by the fact that he then tries to delay having
sex by engaging Sunny in conversation.
As with his desire to protect Jane from the corrupting influence
of male sexual desire, Holden's empathy with Sunny and sadness
at her exploitation makes it impossible for him to have sex with
her. He learns that Sunny comes from 'Hollywood' (Salinger
1994a: 86), which links her to his brother D. B., who is in
Hollywood, 'being a prostitute' (Salinger 1994a: 1) in the film
industry. As Salinger's childhood nickname was 'Sonny', the
implied link between D. B. and Sunny extends to him, suggesting
that he too is uncomfortable with prostituting his art to entertain
an audience. Apparently conscious of issues of exploitation,
Holden asks Sunny if she minds very much if they don't 'do it'
(Salinger 1994a: 87), seemingly concerned that he might offend
her by refusing. By applying the same standards of behaviour to
his liaison with Sunny as he does with any other woman, Holden
demonstrates his naivety but also his respect for women.
Holden justifies his decision to refuse sex by noting Sunny's
enjoyment of the movies. Interestingly, she compares him to an
actor, one who plays the role of a 'kid brother [. . .] that falls off
this boat' (Salinger 1994a: 87): as well as demoting him to a
51
subordinate role now that he has revealed himself to be too afraid

to have sex, her comment offers a reminder that Holden's own 'kid
brother' is the source of much of his sadness. The reference to
falling is also noteworthy in a text that contains several images of
boys falling to their deaths. The film she refers to is probably
Captains Courageous (1937), a classic coming-of-age tale in which
Freddie Bartholomew plays Melvyn Douglas's son. Bartholomew
falls from an ocean liner, is rescued by a fishing trawler and
learns some important lessons from the men he meets there.
Bartholomew was 13 years old when he made thefilm,so the sim-
ilarity that Sunny claims to see between Holden and Bartholomew
once again undermines his perception of himself as an adult and
reminds the reader of Holden's unreliability as a narrator.
Chapter 14
Holden's response to the episode with Sunny shows that his rela-
tionship with Allie has taken on an almost religious dimension.
Shaken, he begins talking to Allie, 'sort of out loud' (Salinger
1994a: 89). Being 'sort of an atheist', Holden cannot pray: but
his prayer-like words to Allie have a calming effect, and he begins
to think about Jesus, who he likes, and 'other stuff in the Bible',
like Christ's Disciples, who 'annoy the hell out of him (Salinger
1994a: 89). Holden's sense that the Disciples let Christ down
reflects his own anxiety that he let Allie down in some way, and
Allie's almost saint-like persona underscores the parallel with
Christ in this situation. Holden also likes the 'lunatic' (Salinger
1994a: 89) who is described in Mark, Ch. V: possessed by demons,
he yearns to be saved from madness and begs Christ to cleanse
him. Later, at the height of his crisis, Holden calls on Allie to save
him: 'Allie, don't let me disappear' (Salinger 1994a: 178). This
endorses the implied parallel between Allie and Christ and
between Holden and the 'lunatic'. Such a parallel does not mean
that Holden understands Allie to be literally Christ-like, but sug-
gests that he, like Christ, represents the possibility of salvation.
Like his failure to have sex with Sunny, Holden's fight with
Maurice (Sunny's pimp) undermines his sense of masculinity.
Although he tries to stand his ground, Holden, like a child, is in
his pyjamas while Maurice is fully dressed, his adult masculinity
52
further signified by his exposed 'big fat hairy stomach' (Salinger

1994a: 91). Earlier, Holden does not notice anything about
Maurice: he is simply 'the elevator guy' (Salinger 1994a: 82).
Now he perceives him to be 'a huge sonuvabitch' (Salinger 1994a:
91): but Holden, although scared, refuses to comply with
Maurice's demand for an extra five dollars for Sunny's services,
contradicting his earlier self-assessment as 'yellow' (Salinger
1994a: 81). Once again, Holden's perceptions of himself and
others are revealed to be inconsistent. Maurice ends the discus-
sion with brute force, punching Holden in the stomach after
'snapping] his finger very hard' on Holden's pajama trousers
(Salinger 1994a: 93), an act with a sexual undertone that seems a
mocking reminder of Holden's inability to have sex with Sunny.
Once alone, Holden imagines himself as an actor in afilmwho
pretends to have been shot in the stomach. This strategy shields
him from the reality of his situation, because - as he has estab-
lished - films are 'phony' and the painful situations they repre-
sent are not real. Through thisfilmscenario, Holden imagines a
different outcome to his encounter with Maurice, in which he
becomes a cliche of hyper-masculinity: despite having 'a bullet in
my guts', he hunts down Maurice, who is 'screaming [. . .] in this
very high-pitched, yellow-belly voice, to leave him alone'
(Salinger 1994a: 93-4). Humiliated and emasculated by Maurice,
Holden takes revenge by reversing their roles in his fantasy.
Despite the bravado of his daydream, Holden's vulnerability is
increasingly evident. Although he recovers some sense of himself
as sexually successful by imagining Jane tending his wounds, his
comment 'The goddam movies. They can ruin you. I'm not
kidding' (Salinger 1994a: 94) shows his awareness that his movie
fantasy is fake. The comfort it offers is therefore short-lived:
within the hour Holden feels like 'committing suicide' (Salinger
1994a: 94). He attributes his decision not to 'jump [. . .] out the
window' (Salinger 1994a: 94) to his fear of further exposure to
the gaze of strangers like Sunny and Maurice. This fear becomes
more understandable later, once the death of James Castle has
been described: Holden relates Mr Antolini's efforts to save the
dead boy, who has jumped from a window, from the gaze of 'a
bunch of stupid rubbernecks' (Salinger 1994a: 94).
53
SECTION 3: AROUND MANHATTAN (CHAPTERS 15-20)
Chapter 15
This chapter begins a section of the novel in which Holden
seems increasingly anxious and his attempts to make meaning-
ful connections with other people become ever more desperate.
Still not 'in the mood' (Salinger 1994a: 95) to call Jane, despite
her prominent role in his fantasy, Holden turns to Sally Hayes.
Instead of reaching out to the person he really cares for, he turns
to someone that he is not 'too crazy about' (Salinger 1994a: 95),
perhaps because there will be little emotional risk in spending
time with Sally. Sally's value is principally sexual - she is 'a pain
in the ass, but she [is] very good-looking' (Salinger 1994a: 96) -
and Holden needs to retrieve some sense of himself as sexu-
ally successful. His next destination, Grand Central Station,
emphasizes that he is in transit, not only between places - he
acknowledges that he has 'no place to go' (Salinger 1994a: 96) -
but between stages in his life, past and future, childhood and
adulthood.
The theme of social and financial privilegeflowsthrough this
chapter. Noting that he is low on money, Holden reveals directly
what the text has already implied, that his father is 'quite wealthy'
(Salinger 1994a: 97). By contrast, the 'inexpensive-looking suit-
cases' (Salinger 1994a: 97) carried by the nuns Holden meets at
the station signify their vows of poverty and their difference from
his social circle. This leads Holden to remember Dick Slagle, a
room-mate from a previous school who also had cheap cases.
Holden recalls his painful awareness that, as with the nuns, these
possessions symbolize wider issues: although Holden and Dick
got along well, their suitcases were evidence of the social inequal-
ity between them, which tainted their relationship. Holden rec-
ognizes the difficulty of transcending the boundaries of wealth
and privilege in a competitive, class-conscious society. Similarly,
he feels guilty that he has more money and greater social status
than the nuns. He attempts to assuage his guilt by offering to pay
for their food and donating money to their charity but is then
embarrassed by the thanks he receives, which only confirms the
inequalities between them.
54
Like the scene with Ernest Morrow's mother, Holden's

meeting with the nuns establishes that he strives to place women
in one of two standard, mutually exclusive categories: maternal
or sexual. By likening one of the nuns to Mrs Morrow, the nar-
rative suggests that Holden views her as a mother figure.
However, his attempt to categorize her as maternal is frustrated
by her enthusiasm for books with 'a lot of sexy stuff in them'
(Salinger 1994a: 99). Holden is embarrassed to discuss Romeo
and Juliet with her. By disparaging Romeo - 'I never liked Romeo
too much' (Salinger 1994a: 100) - he rejects the archetypal
romantic male role, attempting to keep the discussion away from
sex. Equally, his focus on Mercutio reflects his fears, guilt and
grief, since there is an obvious link to Allie in his comments that
'it drives me crazy if somebody gets killed - especially someone
very smart and entertaining and all - and it's somebody else's
fault'(Salinger 1994a: 100).
Chapter 16
The opening paragraphs of this chapter are concerned with
Holden's understanding of different models of femininity.
Initially, he considers the differences between the nuns and the
privileged women of his own social circle, whom he disparages
for their reluctance to undertake charity work. This is evidence
of his tendency to place men and women in separate spheres:
Holden clearly does not consider charity men's work. Holden
also has diverse expectations of women of different races. The
record he buys for Phoebe, 'Little Shirley Beans' by 'this colored
girl singer' (Salinger 1994a: 104), Estelle Fletcher, has a 'whore-
house' quality, despite its bland subject matter. He contends that
a white singer would make the song 'cute\ suggesting innocence,
'but old Estelle Fletcher knew what the hell she was doing'
(Salinger 1994a: 104). These comments suggest that Holden
views black women as more sexual than white women, a common
racial prejudice. For all his rebellious attitudes, Holden is unable
to shake off certain cliches about racial identity.
Leaving the station, Holden witnesses a scene that reflects his
sense of isolation: a six-year-old boy is walking in the road,
ignored by his parents on the pavement, symbolizing the gulf
55
between adults and children. Highlighting the significance of the

novel's title, the boy is singing 'that song, "If a body catch a body
coming through the rye'" (Salinger 1994a: 104). It is not clear
whether Holden mishears or whether the boy has got the words
wrong: as Phoebe later points out (Chapter 22), the correct words
to the poem by Robert Burns, 'Comin' Through the Rye' (1796),
are 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye' (Salinger
1994a: 155). The misinterpretation removes the poem's sexual
connotations, which are very strong in Burns's original, under-
scoring Holden's discomfort with adult sexuality. Equally impor-
tant in a narrative containing numerous references to falling is
the song's focus on catching a body. No wonder Holdenfindsthe
boy and his song engaging, given that they mirror his own
situation and concerns.
As with earlier allusions to Holden's choice of reading matter,
this chapter contains references to texts that reiterate the narra-
tive's themes. After yet another failed attempt to contact Jane,
Holden buys tickets for the play, I Know My Love (1949) by S. N.
Behrman, featuring 'the Lunts' (Salinger 1994a: 105), the
common name for the theatrical couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn
Fontanne. The title of the show is striking given that rumours of
homosexuality followed the Lunts throughout their long mar-
riage. Holden is fascinated by homosexuality, even though he
feels uncomfortable about it, as shown in his anxious comments
about Carl Luce in Chapter 19: Holden is shocked by Luce's rev-
elations about actors who are not as heterosexual as they seem
and, in Chapter 24, he is alarmed to find that Mr Antolini - a
married man - seems to desire him.
The rumours about the Lunts' sexuality also suggest that they
may be phony, and not simply because they are actors, who in
Holden's opinion 'never act like people' (Salinger 1994a: 105).
Holden's second example of the failings of actors is Laurence
Olivier, whose version of Hamlet (1948) did not meet Holden's
expectations that Hamlet should be portrayed as a 'sad, screwed-
up type guy' (Salinger 1994a: 106), which is how Holden appears
to the reader. As with the Lunts, biographers have suggested that
Olivier had homosexual relationships, which makes a suggestive
link between these actors, and points up the difficulty of being
56
open about sexual identity in a repressive era: if they are 'phony'

in terms of their sexuality, these actors may not be so from
choice.
Holden's comments on Olivier'sfilmalso echo another of the
novel's central concerns, relationships between siblings. The only
part of Olivier's film that Holden enjoyed is when Ophelia is
'horsing around' (Salinger 1994a: 106) with her brother, since it
evokes his affection for Phoebe; even the names of the two girls,
which contain the same letters, 'oph'/'pho', are similar. He does
not comment on the hint of incest between Ophelia and Laertes,
an act of desexualizing censorship comparable to his error with
the lyrics of 'Comin' Through the Rye'. Unable tofindPhoebe in
Central Park, Holden decides to walk to the Museum of Natural
History, a place that he visited as a child and which he expects
she has visited recently, as a way of feeling connected to her. As
well as talking to a girl Phoebe's age in this chapter, Holden also
tries to play with two boys on a seesaw, but realizes that 'they
didn't want me around' (Salinger 1994a: 110): Holden may still
long for his childhood and the company of children, but to them
he is an adult, further evidence of his position between the two
states.
The Museum is an important location in the narrative, a place
that Holden is drawn to in his memories and in his journey
around Manhattan, because it represents the preservation of the
past. Walking through Central Park he remembers that he 'loved
that damn museum' (Salinger 1994a: 108) as a child, and has
vivid memories of seeing the life-size models of Indians and an
Eskimo when he visited with his school class. All the exhibits are
static, in glass cases, and it is this immobile quality that Holden
finds comforting: 'The best thing, though, in that museum was
that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move'
(Salinger 1994a: 109). Change, for Holden, means loss: time
passes, people die or leave, experience corrupts innocence.
However, while the exhibits do not change, Holden has to
concede that people inevitably do. 'Nobody'd be different', he
says, meaning the model people, The only thing that would be
different would be you9 (Salinger 1994a: 109).
Holden is depressed by this gradual but inescapable process
57
of change because, for him, it has no positive consequences:

'Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to
be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave
them alone' (Salinger 1994a: 110). Although this is an image of
isolation and unnatural stillness, Holden prefers it to the danger
he associates with change. At the end of the chapter Holden
reaches the museum and cannot bring himself to enter: 'I would-
n't have gone inside for a million bucks' (Salinger 1994a: 110).
The strength of his reaction suggests that he is afraid to find that
the museum, the only place of stillness and safety he can imagine,
has changed after all or that he will no longer feel the same as he
did in the past.
Chapter 17
This chapter describes Holden's date with Sally, during which he
reflects on gender identity, and reveals his deteriorating mental
state. Having imagined the static exhibits in the museum, Holden
now turns to another kind of 'sightseeing' (Salinger 1994a: 111):
in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel, waiting for Sally, he watches
'girls', using the word nine times to suggest the number and
variety he sees. As he catalogues these women with a mixture of
voyeurism and affection, he wonders 'what the hell would happen
to all of them' (Salinger 1994a: 111). He believes that 'most of
them would probably marry dopey guys' (Salinger 1994a: 111),
showing his awareness that his social class values the perceived
safety of marriage. He then turns his attention to the flaws he
perceives in 'guys', including being boring, which reminds him of
yet another school room-mate, Harris Macklin, who, although a
bore, was a good whistler. As so often in the novel, a small detail
is used to make a broader point: when Holden concludes that it
might be acceptable for a girl to marry a boring guy if he is a 'ter-
rific whistler' (Salinger 1994a: 112), he suggests that the most
unpromising people can have special qualities. This illustrates
that, although Holden is often distracted by superficial appear-
ances, as when he watches the girls, he has the capacity to see
beneath the surface, in relation to men at least.
Holden is increasingly troubled by contradictory feelings and
has difficulty discerning the reality of a situation. When Sally
58
arrives, he says 'I felt like marrying her the minute I saw her. I'm
crazy. I didn't even like her much' (Salinger 1994a: 112). Some of
his enthusiasm may come from desire - Sally 'looked terrific'
(Salinger 1994a: 112) - but Sally is also the first familiar face
Holden has seen since leaving Pencey and his eagerness reflects
his loneliness. His self-perception becomes increasingly skewed
during his date with Sally, evidenced by his comment that 'I told
her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I
meant it when I said it' (Salinger 1994a: 113). If he speaks sin-
cerely, he does not tell a lie, but it seems more likely that the
untruth exists in the claim that he ever 'meant it' at all. His rela-
tionship with Sally, like his liaison with Mrs Morrow in Chapter
8, is built on lies and destined to fail, which, in the context of
Holden's fear of sexual intimacy, is the outcome he uncon-
sciously desires. Holden's unreliability as a narrator is further
illustrated by his belief that he is being 'seductive as hell'
(Salinger 1994a: 113) in the taxi, even though he falls off his seat
twice, suggesting sexual incompetence.
The performance by the Lunts that Holden and Sally attend
evokes that of Ernie, the nightclub pianist (Chapter 12): all are
'showing off5 (Salinger 1994a: 114) in Holden's view, too aware of
their audience. 'George something' (Salinger 1994a: 114), who
Sally meets in the interval, is also performing: he was 'the kind
of a phony that have to give themselves room when they answer
somebody's question' (Salinger 1994a: 114-15). Holden resents
George's overbearing presence and his disdainful attitudes
towards 'shows and books and women' (Salinger 1994a: 115),
which implies that all are comparable objects. Holden's sense
of difference from George and his circle increases his feelings of
isolation and desire to escape.
Holden's reason for not jumping from his hotel room window
(Chapter 14) was that he does not like to have his vulnerabilities
made into a spectacle for others, and his sense of exposure con-
tinues on his date with Sally. At the skating rink, they are so inept
that he feels humiliated by the gaze of 'rubbernecks' (Salinger
1994a: 116), exactly the same term he uses earlier to imagine
those who would stare at his dead body (Salinger 1994a: 94).
Feeling vulnerable, Holden encourages Sally to run away with
him, and this conversation shows that he has little awareness of

his behaviour. For example, while he outlines his plans to Sally
and complains about what he hates about Manhattan and life at
school, Sally tells him 'Don't shout, please' (Salinger 1994a: 117).
He thinks this is 'very funny, because I wasn't even shouting'
(Salinger 1994a: 117), further evidence that Holden is unreliable.
Refusing to participate in his plan, Sally adds, 'stop screaming at
me, please', but very soon has to tell Holden that she cannot hear
him: 'One minute you scream at me, and the next you - ' (Salinger
1994a: 119).
Although Holden denies that he was raising his voice, this
difference in point of view is reminiscent of misunderstandings
that Holden has experienced with other characters: the women he
meets at the Lavender Room, the children he meets in the park,
the taxi drivers who become heated or do not seem to understand
him, Maurice (when he demands more money). Holden presents
all of these characters as people who misunderstand him, inex-
plicably feel uncomfortable with him, or try to cheat him.
However, his assessment is thrown into doubt as the narrative
continues, not because Holden reveals himself to be the 'terrific
liar' (Salinger 1994a: 14) that he claimed to be earlier, but because
it becomes increasingly clear that he is losing the ability to under-
stand himself and relate to those around him. This has an impact
on the reader's experience, too: because a first-person narrator
allows no other perspective on events or characters, Holden's
crisis of understanding is as inescapable for the reader as it is for
him. By placing the reader in the same position as Holden,
Salinger creates empathy for his protagonist.
Despite his misperceptions of his own behaviour, there are sug-
gestions that Holden is becoming aware of his approaching break-
down. His complaints about school - 'full of phonies' (Salinger
1994a: 118) - are much as they have been in earlier chapters, but
his perception, 'I'm in bad shape. I'm in lousy shape' (Salinger
1994a: 118), suggests that, even if he is focusing on his physical
health, he knows that something is wrong. He envisions escaping
the city for a simpler, rural existence, starting a new life with Sally
in a cabin in Vermont. She sees this for the fantasy it is, however,
and quashes it further by refuting that they are free to make adult
60
plans: 'In the first place, we're both practically c/n/dren' (Salinger
1994a: 119). She confirms this immaturity by using the childish
word 'oodles' when she tries to convince Holden that his plan will
still be possible 'after you go to college and all, and if we get
married and all' (Salinger 1994a: 119). Sally's vision of a conven-
tional future highlights the difference between the two characters:
imagining himself 'working in some office, making a lot of dough,
riding to work in cabs' (Salinger 1994a: 119-20), Holden knows
that his chance to escape will be lost for good, while Sally does not
consider such a conventional future undesirable.
Chapter 18
Having alienated Sally, Holden is desperate for company and a
sense of purpose. Killing time before his meeting with Carl Luce,
a boy from a previous school with extensive sexual knowledge,
Holden visits Radio City Music Hall. This is a further example
of his contradictory behaviour, because he regularly disparages
the 'movies' and claimed to be 'depressed' (Salinger 1994a: 67) by
the eagerness of the women he met in the Lavender Room to
attend the same venue. The vast Radio City is famous for its stage
shows, although Holden is unimpressed by the Christmas show:
concerned as always with what is 'phony', he identifies the incon-
gruity of celebrating Christmas with 'fancy costumes' rather
than 'anything religious or pretty' (Salinger 1994a: 124). That
Sally considers his negative response - rather than the show itself
- to be 'sacrilegious' (Salinger 1994a: 124) demonstrates the
irreconcilable differences between them. Holden's earlier claim
that he 'like[s] Jesus and all' (Salinger 1994a: 89) is confirmed
here by his awareness of the disparity between the show's com-
mercialism and the spiritual meaning of Christmas: 'Jesus prob-
ably would've puked if He could see it' (Salinger 1994a: 124).
However unimpressed by the show, Holden does appreciate the
'guy that plays the kettle drums' (Salinger 1994a: 124). Like the
figures in the museum, the drummer has been part of the show for
as long as Holden can remember and, like them, he hardly ever
moves. The drummer thus represents the past and stands for con-
tinuity, which counters Holden's sense of loss. The link to Holden's
childhood is emphasized by Allie's fondness for the drummer.
61
Typical of Holden's apparently unwitting contradictory com-

ments, he says of the film he then watches, 'It was so putrid I could-
n't take my eyes off it' (Salinger 1994a: 124). Described in great
detail, the film is similar to Random Harvest (1942), in which a
shell-shocked First World War soldier loses all memory of his pre-
war life and marries, only to have his memory return after an acci-
dent that wipes all memory of his post-war life. After a complex
series of coincidences, the soldier's memory returns and he is
reunited with his wife. The film emphasizes the cruelty of random
events, but ensures that order is ultimately restored, a comforting
result that engages Holden despite his cynicism. However, he can
never fully escape his preoccupations: the woman he sees crying
over the film is actually 'as kind-hearted as a goddam wolf
(Salinger 1994a: 126) because she will not take care of her child
and thus epitomizes the phoniness that Holden despises.
This chapter contains further literary references that mirror the
novel's preoccupations. A novel about adversity in childhood by
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (1838), Ernest Hemingway's novel
about loss during Italy in the First World War, A Farewell to Arms
(1929), and F. Scott Fitzgerald's definitive novel about 1920s
decadence, The Great Gatsby (1925), appear here along with the
First World War poet Rupert Brooke and the innovative nine-
teenth-century poet, Emily Dickinson (Salinger 1994a: 125-7).
Hemingway and Brooke are directly associated with the 1914-18
war, as is the film Holden has been watching, while Dickinson,
although not usually associated with war poetry, is famed for her
powerful poems about death. This may be why Allie considered
Dickinson a better war poet than Brooke, since Brooke is most
commonly associated with his few poems that romanticize death
in wartime and thus could be considered a phony.
Holden found the hero of Hemingway's novel 'phony' (Salinger
1994a: 127) too, but D. B., who was in the Army during the
Second World War, thought it 'terrific' (Salinger 1994a: 127), sug-
gesting that it resonates for those who have experienced war
directly. Cushioned from such trauma, Holden prefers Fitzgerald,
whose novel critiques the false promises of American society,
much like Holden's narrative. However, Holden's comments make
it clear that he trusts D. B.'s assessment of the war - 'the Army
62
was practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were' (Salinger

1994a: 126) - and his claims that he would rather be shot than face
combat and will 'volunteer' to 'sit right the hell on top' (Salinger
1994a: 127) of the atomic bomb in the event of war are radical.
Reiterating his rebellious stance, Holden suggests that the prac-
tice of war is not honourable and that he will refuse to participate
in any future hostility, comments that are both 'un-American' and
redolent of the anti-war counter-culture that would arise over
later conflicts, such as that in Vietnam.
Chapter 19
The subject of this chapter, Holden's encounter with Carl Luce
at the Wicker Bar, could be read as a comic interlude, but it
echoes some of the novel's key themes, especially sexuality. They
meet in a bar frequented by 'phonies' and 'flits' (Salinger 1994a:
128-9), the latter a word used to refer to homosexual men.
Holden's comments suggest a parallel between phoniness and
homosexuality, although the man he sees 'snowing hell out of the
babe he was with' (Salinger 1994a: 129) is equally phony. The
theme of homosexuality, which will reappear in Chapter 24 when
Holden visits Mr Antolini, is dominant in the early stages of this
chapter. Holden explains that Luce has an encyclopaedic knowl-
edge of 'sex, especially perverts and all. [. . .] And flits and
Lesbians' (Salinger 1994a: 129). In the repressive post-war era,
Luce's information about homosexual 'movie actors' is particu-
larly surprising, since it would destroy an actor's career. Luce's
extensive knowledge may imply that he is himself a member of
the gay subculture, and Holden notes that Luce is 'sort of flitty'
(Salinger 1994a: 129). Whatever the truth about Luce's sexuality,
he has certainly frightened younger boys with his claims that 'you
could turn into one [a 'flit'] practically overnight' (Salinger
1994a: 129). Since Holden already has many anxieties about sex,
Luce's suggestion that sexual identity is unstable intensifies his
discomfort.
The conversation focuses on sex. Several of Holden's ques-
tions suggest that he is drunk, emphasized by the contrast
between his abrupt questions and sloppy pronunciation and
Luce's calm statements:
63
'I simply happen to find Eastern philosophy more satisfactory

than Western. Since you ask.9
'You do? Wuddaya mean "philosophy"? Ya mean sex and
all? You mean it's better in China? That what you mean?'
(Salinger 1994a: 132)
Holden copies Luce's words, suggesting that he sees him as a role

model: he tells Luce to 'relax', which is what Luce has just said
to him; Luce uses the word 'Listen' (Salinger 1994a: 130-31)
early in the conversation, suggesting his command of Holden's
attention, and Holden uses the same word (Salinger 1994a: 132)
when he tries to make Luce divulge personal information. Twice,
Luce asks Holden when he is 'going to grow up' (Salinger 1994a:
130,131) and several of Holden's questions are childish, reiterat-
ing his immaturity. However, Holden's insistence that he regards
sex as 'a physical and spiritual experience' (Salinger 1994a: 132)
and that he 'can never get sexy [. . .] with a girl I don't like a lot'
(Salinger 1994a: 133) actually suggest a maturity that an older
boy like Stradlater has not yet achieved. Luce suggests that
Holden see a psychoanalyst, indicating that his troubled state of
mind is obvious to others if not to himself. When Luce leaves
Holden at the bar, he feels 'lonesome as hell' (Salinger 1994a:
134), indicating his deepening crisis.
Chapter 20
Attempting to avoid his emotional pain, Holden once again imag-
ines that he has been shot in the stomach, transforming his psy-
chological wounds into physical ones. As when he was punched by
Maurice (Chapter 14), this fantasy diverts him from his sense of
isolation. He comments that, by placing his hand under his jacket,
he is 'concealing the fact that I was a wounded sonuvabitch'
(Salinger 1994a: 135), but he is merely striving to conceal this from
himself. As always, his impulse to contact Jane falters and he calls
Sally instead, continuing his fantasy by telling her, They got me.
Rocky's mob got me' (Salinger 1994a: 136), probably a reference
to the archetypal gangster film, Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), in
which James Cagney plays the murderous hoodlum Rocky
Sullivan. Holden's sense of vulnerability intensifies when the bar's
64
pianist tells him several times to 'go home' and he has to reveal
that he has 'No home to go to' (Salinger 1994a: 137). It may be this
realization that causes Holden to start crying and, leaving the bar,
he nears his lowest point, 'damn depressed and lonesome'
(Salinger 1994a: 138).
Holden's decision to look for the ducks in Central Park leads to
one of the turning-points in the novel: his resolution to go home
to visit his sister. First, he 'drop[s] old Phoebe's record' (Salinger
1994a: 138), which breaks. The dropped record echoes the theme
of falling established by Holden's plans to jump from a window,
his later revelations about James Castle, and, in the novel's final
stages, his own sense of 'going down' (Salinger 1994a: 178) when
he crosses the street. The ducks are absent from the lake, which is
'partly frozen and partly not frozen' (Salinger 1994a: 139), an
unstable, in-between state that mirrors Holden's age and state of
mind; that his hair is also partially frozen confirms this parallel.
Cold, Holden imagines that he will 'probably get pneumonia and
die' (Salinger 1994a: 139), linking himself to Allie. Imagining his
own tombstone, he thinks of Allie's grave and his young brother,
'Surrounded by dead guys' (Salinger 1994a: 140), as if he were not
also dead. To a great extent, of course, Allie is not dead to Holden:
he thinks of him constantly and talks to him in times of crisis. The
depth of his grief is communicated through the unusual distance
he places between himself and 'you', the reader, at this point.
Describing the unfairness of Allie's death, he states, 'You didn't
know [Allie]. If you'd known him, you'd know what I mean'
(Salinger 1994a: 140). This shift suggests that Holden is no longer
sure that his audience can empathize with the extent of his loss,
showing that his despair causes him to feel as alienated from 'you'
as he does from other characters.
SECTION 4: HOME, ANTOLINI AND THE CARROUSEL

(CHAPTERS 21-5)
Chapter21
This is the climactic section of the novel, which takes Holden
through a range of locations and ends with his moment of
insight at the carrousel. Dominated by Holden's relationship
65
with Phoebe, the section begins with three chapters devoted to

his conversations with her. In the Park at the end of the previous
chapter Holden convinces himself that he should visit Phoebe in
case he 'died and all' (Salinger 1994a: 141). This allows him to
justify going home, something he has unconsciously wanted to
do ever since he arrived in Manhattan and 'gave the driver my
regular address, just out of habit and all' (Salinger 1994a: 53).
Returning home, he finds Phoebe in D. B.'s room: sleeping in
his bed and using his desk makes her seem a small version of him,
just as later she will seem a miniature of Holden when she wears
his cap and carries his case. These images confirm the strong
bonds between the siblings, while their parents remain shadowy
figures. Like Holden, Phoebe plays with her identity, choosing
the gender-neutral 'Weatherfield' as a middle name, rather than
'Josephine' (Salinger 1994a: 144). He takes great comfort from
being in her presence, and 'just felt good, for a change' (Salinger
1994a: 144), but when Phoebe awakes, he finds her enthusiastic
greeting overwhelming. The repetition in his description con-
firms his discomfort: 'She's very affectionate. I mean she's quite
affectionate, for a child. Sometimes she's even too affectionate'
(Salinger 1994a: 146). His uneasiness suggests that Holden is
saddened, rather than comforted, by displays of love, perhaps
because he cannot reciprocate.
Themes of death and gender roles recur in Phoebe's conversa-
tion with Holden: she tells him that she is playing Benedict Arnold
in her school Christmas pageant and that 'It starts out when I'm
dying' (Salinger 1994a: 146). Arnold, a general in the American
Revolution, became notorious for changing his allegiance to the
British side. He is thus an emblem of unreliability and betrayal,
like other authorityfiguresin the novel. The reference to his death
is thematically linked to the deaths of young people in Holden's
narrative, especially as Phoebe says 'I'm dying' rather than 'he',
thus presenting herself as afiguretouched by death. This is con-
tinued by Phoebe's enthusiasm for afilmshe has just seen, in which
a doctor is imprisoned for committing euthanasia on a child, once
again conveying the vulnerability of children.
Like the broken record Holden gives her, Phoebe has fallen:
she tells Holden that a boy has pushed her down stairs in the park
66
(the place where Holden dropped the record) during a disagree-

ment. Holden's response to this story is to ask Phoebe, 'What are
you - a child, for God's sake?'; Phoebe replies, 'No' (Salinger
1994a: 148), but of course she is a child, and it is odd that Holden
chastises her for the quality he treasures most, her youth and the
innocence it implies. When Phoebe perceptively realizes that
Holden must have been expelled from school, her reaction is that
of a child, repeatedly saying, 'Daddy'll kill you!' (Salinger 1994a:
149). This phrase also offers another example of the way that
'kill' is used in the novel, to mean murder as well as amuse.
Holden's assertions that 'Nobody's gonna kill me' (Salinger
1994a: 149) are significant in a novel so preoccupied by untimely
death (either through illness or suicide), since his claims still
allow for the possibility that he might kill himself.
Chapter 22
Like the Pencey fencing team in Chapter 1, Phoebe 'ostracizes the
hell out of (Salinger 1994a: 150) Holden because of his expulsion.
The phrase's mixture of colloquial and formal language empha-
sizes the instability in his perception and, by implication, his iden-
tity. When Phoebe asks him, 'Oh, why did you do it?' (Salinger
1994a: 151), Holden claims that he is 'sick of everybody asking me
that' (Salinger 1994a: 151), but there is no evidence in his narra-
tive that anyone apart from Mr Spencer has discussed his expul-
sion with him. His response suggests, then, that he has been asking
himself this question, and he has an answer, telling Phoebe that he
'just didn't like anything that was /opening at Pencey' (Salinger
1994a: 152). She responds to this by asserting 'You don't like any-
thing that's happening' (Salinger 1994a: 152), which Holden
denies. This exchange exemplifies the way that Salinger uses italics
for emphasis in dialogue: Holden and Phoebe both say the same
thing, but the italics demonstrate the difference between their per-
spectives in a subtle way, since Holden's complaint is specific to
Pencey, while Phoebe observes that he is unhappy generally.
Phoebe's role in this chapter is to force Holden to face his prob-
lems: as a child, she is the source of clear-sightedness and com-
passion that Holden cannot locate in the adult world. She
challenges her brother to 'name one thing' (Salinger 1994a: 153)
67
that he likes: but he cannot 'concentrate too hot' (Salinger 1994a:

153) on her question. Instead, he thinks of James Castle, the boy
at one of his schools who committed suicide rather than take
back unkind comments about another boy, even when tormented
by 'repulsive' punishments (Salinger 1994a: 153). The possibility
that Holden will jump from a window like James has already
established a link between them, and although he emphasizes
that he did not know the other boy well, he now reveals that
James was wearing Holden's sweater when he died, strengthening
the connection between them. Although James is the subject of
his thoughts, Holden tells Phoebe that he likes Allie and her:
when she responds that Allie's dead' (Salinger 1994a: 154), like
Castle, Holden becomes agitated and refutes that his brother
should be excluded for that reason. This reaffirms that despite -
indeed because of - his death, Allie dominates Holden's life.
This chapter makes clear the significance of the novel's title
and, in doing so, reveals the depth of Holden's fears. When
Phoebe asks him to name something he'd 'like to be' (Salinger
1994a: 155), he rejects the role of lawyer as potentially phony and,
in doing so, implicitly rejects his father. As Holden builds towards
one of the novel's key statements, his sister points out his error
with the lyrics of the song he finds so significant. By replacing
'meet' with 'catch', he articulates his desire to 'catch' those in
danger of falling, be that into death (like Allie and James) or out
of innocence and into corruption (like Jane and Phoebe). He
imagines himself as 'the catcher in the rye and all', a lone adult in
a field of rye edged by a 'crazy cliff, with 'Thousands of little
kids' (Salinger 1994a: 156) that it is his responsibility to save from
going over the precipice. Hefindsthis vision of responsibility for
the safety of children comforting, indeed, it is 'the only thing I'd
really like to be' (Salinger 1994a: 156). The ways in which this
vision articulates Holden's fears is, understandably, beyond
Phoebe, who can only respond with another 'Daddy's going to kill
you' (Salinger 1994a: 156). Her vision of punishment contrasts
with Holden's imagined scene of salvation and highlights the con-
trast between his fantasies and the reality of his situation. In
response, Holden decides to reach out to another father-figure,
his former teacher, Mr Antolini.
68
Chapter 23
Antolini, Holden explains, is the teacher who picked up Castle's
body and 'didn't even give a damn if his coat got all bloody'
(Salinger 1994a: 157). Although the teacher did not 'catch' James
when he fell, he did save him from the gaze of those onlookers,
the 'rubbernecks' (Salinger 1994a: 94, 116) that disgust Holden,
and he hopes that Antolini will rescue him too. His progress
towards this idealized figure of salvation is thwarted by the
sudden return of his parents,figureshe - like Phoebe - associates
with punishment. Forced to hide in Phoebe's closet, Holden is
physically close to his mother, but cannot see her: thus she
remains a shadowy figure. The scene reinforces the closeness
between the siblings and the distance between Holden and his
parents. Although he has said that he does not care if he encoun-
ters them, Holden now wants to get out of the apartment
without seeing them, 'Not that they'd would've killed me or any-
thing' (Salinger 1994a: 160) he insists, denying Phoebe's con-
viction. His feelings about his parents are unstable and
contradictory: soon he confesses that he does not 'give much of
a damn anymore' if they do catch him and 'almost wished they
[would], in a way' (Salinger 1994a: 162). Clearly, although he
fears his parents' disapproval, he would like to be 'caught' by
them and saved from the crisis he is falling into. Once the chance
of being caught by his parents has passed, Holden falls again
over 'ten million garbage pails' (Salinger 1994a: 162) outside the
family home, emphasizing his increasing vulnerability.
Chapter 24
The opening paragraph of this chapter establishes that Holden
has a significant relationship with Mr Antolini, whom he obvi-
ously admires. The teacher reminds him of D. B. - both are 'witty'
(Salinger 1994a: 163) - so Antolini may be as much a surrogate
older brother to Holden as a fatherfigure.When Holden arrives
at his door, Antolini says, 'I expected to see a day-old infant in
your arms. Nowhere to turn. Snowflakes in your eyelashes'
(Salinger 1994a: 164). This image feminizes Holden, picturing
him as a stereotype from a nineteenth-century novel, a young
mother alone in the world and seeking charity. Holden is certainly
vulnerable, but this comment is a reminder that his self-

perception conflicts with how other characters view him. In fact,
the whole chapter is concerned with differences of perspective,
failures to communicate and inappropriate behaviour.
Although he passed English, Holden confesses to Antolini that
he 'flunked' Oral Expression, which leads to his anecdote about
his class-mate who digressed and received an 'F' grade. Even
though he received the same grade, Holden values digression,
which he employs throughout his narrative and which mirrors his
attempt to avoid emotional pain. Although Antolini suggests that
digression may not be the best strategy for success, echoing
Spencer's belief in playing the game of life 'by the rules' (Salinger
1994a: 7), Holden insists on creative thinking: 'lots of times you
don't know what interests you most till you start talking about
something that doesn't interest you most' (Salinger 1994a: 166).
Holden's complaints about the punishment given for digression
emphasize that he values rule-breaking and spontaneity in others.
This attitude has more in common with the ethos of the rebels of
the 'Beat Generation' than of the conservative middle class of the
1950s: for them, as for Holden, a single, narrow vision of exis-
tence is not possible or desirable, so there is no merit in aiming to
'unify and simplify9 (Salinger 1994a: 166). In defending digression
and advocating rebellion, Holden is also defending himself.
Highlighting once again the theme of falling, Antolini tells
Holden, 'I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a ter-
rible, terrible fall' (Salinger 1994a: 168). Antolini's words echo
the many images of falling in the narrative, but his version of a
'fall' is social failure: Holden will not fulfil his potential and will
become a bored and bitter adult, hating others for petty reasons.
When Holden misunderstands Antolini, he tries again: 'This fall
I think you're riding for - it's a special kind of fall, a horrible
kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit
bottom. He just keeps falling and falling' (Salinger 1994a: 169).
This image anticipates Holden's later perception that he is
falling, going 'down, down, down, [. . .] nobody'd ever see me
again' (Salinger 1994a: 178), when he crosses the street.
Despite Holden's incomprehension, Antolini pursues his theme,
quoting the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel. Stekel, whose suicide
70
in 1940 adds extra significance to his role in the chapter, said that
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for
a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live
humbly for one' (Salinger 1994a: 169). Since Antolini imagines
that Holden will die 'nobly [. . .] for some highly unworthy cause'
(Salinger 1994a: 169), the Stekel quotation implies that Holden is
psychologically immature and, in this, Antolini echoes Carl Luce's
contention that Holden's 'mind is immature' (Salinger 1994a:
133). This emphasizes the link between Antolini and Luce as men
who have or will let Holden down when he turns to them, and who
are also sexually ambivalent, as Antolini will soon prove to be.
Holden is puzzled by his teacher's monologue and, although his
wide knowledge of literature suggests that Antolini is correct
when he observes that Holden is 'a student - whether the idea
appeals to you or not. You're in love with knowledge' (Salinger
1994a: 170), his final argument is almost as conservative as Mr
Spencer's. Through education, Antolini contends, Holden will
find that:
you're not the first person who was ever confused and fright-
ened and even sickened by human behaviour. [. . .] Many,
many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually
as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of
their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as
someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn
something from you. (Salinger 1994a: 170)
As Catcher is a record of Holden's troubles, from which readers

learn that their feelings are not unique, the narrative may be read
as his attempt to follow Antolini's advice, showing that he -
already a reader of other people's experiences - has 'something
to offer' others in return.
The close of this chapter includes one of the novel's most dis-
turbing scenes, in which Antolini, rather than saving Holden,
frightens him by crossing a sexual boundary. Conceding that
Holden is exhausted, Antolini begins a new conversation:
'How're all your women?' (Salinger 1994a: 171) he asks, refer-
ring to Sally and Jane. In light of later events, this question may
71
be a means of establishing the extent of Holden's heterosexu-

ality. Similarly, Antolini's observation about Holden's long
legs, his comment that he will be in the kitchen (rather than
going to bed with his wife) and casual 'Good night, handsome'
(Salinger 1994a: 172) signify an ambiguous sexual identity.
When Holden wakes to find Antolini 'petting or patting me on
the goddam head' (Salinger 1994a: 172), the teacher contends
that he is 'admiring - ' but, because Holden interrupts him, he
never finishes his sentence. Although it is difficult to imagine
any closing words that would reasonably explain his actions,
the uncertainty allows Holden to avoid the full implications of
the situation when he reviews it. However, his claim that 'per-
verts' are 'always being perverty when I'm around' (Salinger
1994a: 173) suggests that, in the moment, Holden does believe
that Antolini's actions are sexual. Including a sexually preda-
tory, almost paedophilic, homosexual character in the novel
reflects prejudices that were common in the sexually repressive
1950s.
After he has left Antolini's apartment, Holden claims, 'that
kind of stuffs happened to me about twenty times since I was a
kid' (Salinger 1994a: 174), suggesting sexual abuse in his past.
However, Holden tends to exaggerate numbers: a strong hand-
shake will 'break around forty of your fingers' (Salinger 1994a:
79), Mrs Antolini is 'about sixty years older' (Salinger 1994a:
163) than her husband, the carrousel plays the same tune it
played 'fifty years ago when I was a kid' (Salinger 1994a: 189).
His comment does imply, however, some experience of unwanted
sexual contact, which may shape his perception that sex corrupts
children. It is also possible that Holden's recent meeting with
Carl Luce has brought his own fears about sexuality to the fore-
front of his mind. Rather than finding refuge with Antolini,
Holden once again finds himself alone and drifting, let down
badly by someone he trusted. This experience pitches him into
the final stage of his crisis.
Chapter 25
This chapter presents the culmination and resolution of Holden's
crisis; he reaches his lowest point, but arrives at a moment of
72
revelation. Spending the rest of the night in Grand Central

Station leaves him 'more depressed than I ever was in my whole
life' (Salinger 1994a: 175). Exhausted, he wonders if he misread
Antolini's actions: 'maybe he just liked to pat guys on the head
when they're asleep' (Salinger 1994a: 175). This is an attempt to
desexualize the incident, typical of Holden's capacity for denial.
However, he comes to an important conclusion, one of those
flashes of maturity that characterize his narrative, when he com-
ments that, 'even if [Antolini] was a flit he certainly'd been very
nice to me' (Salinger 1994a: 175). He recognizes that his teacher
may have begun to cross a boundary, but he is not a demon and
does care about Holden's well-being. Ironically, it is his teacher's
willingness to touch Castle when he died that makes it possible
for Holden to excuse the inappropriate way that Antolini touches
him.
Holden's concern with his failing health, established in his
earlier comment to Sally about being in 'lousy shape', is exacer-
bated by reading a magazine article that convinces him that, like
Allie, he has cancer and will be 'dead in a couple of months'
(Salinger 1994a: 176). Roaming Manhattan, distraught, he
sees signs of Christmas approaching, but the ideal image of
Christmas as a time of peace and goodwill is undercut by the two
men who struggle and swear over a Christmas tree: 'Hold the
sonuvabitch upV (Salinger 1994a: 177). Holden, too, is out of
sync with the traditional Christmas atmosphere, which he
remembers fondly from the past, but currently feels too ill and
saddened to enjoy.
The novel's many references to falling culminate in the crisis
that overtakes Holden in this key chapter. He starts to fantasize:
Every time I [. . .] stepped off the goddam curb, I had this

feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I
thought I'd just go down, down, down and nobody'd ever see
me again. [. . .] Every time I'd get to the end of a block I'd
make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I'd say to him,
'Allie, don't let me disappear. [. . .]' And then when I'd reach
the other side of the street without disappearing, I'd thank
him. (Salinger 1994a: 178)
73
This experience echoes Holden's sense of disappearing when he

crossed the road on the way to Spencer's house only two days
before, but now his very sense of self is at risk. He is afraid of dis-
appearing, or dying, being lost forever like Allie. Holden asks his
brother to save (that is, catch) him, as if Allie is a benevolent
spirit watching over him. Already presented as a saint-like figure,
Allie emerges as a martyr appropriate to the Christmas setting.
Despite his earlier comments about wishing he were dead,
Holden is now desperate not to die. This change of heart may be
prompted, paradoxically, by his sense that death is nearer than
before.
Holden dreams of freedom: 'I decided I'd never go home again
and I'd never go away to another school again' (Salinger 1994a:
178). However, his fantasies of escape suggest that he does not
wish to cut himself off from society entirely. His plan to go
'somewhere out West' (Salinger 1994a: 178) is archetypally
American: he will follow the trail of pioneers who sought
freedom and prosperity on the frontier. Countering the conven-
tional aspect of this fantasy, Holden rejects the expectations of
his social class and the American Dream of material wealth: he
will take a blue-collar job and pretend to be deaf-mute to avoid
'stupid useless conversations'(Salinger 1994a: 179). He expresses
further ambivalence about escape when he imagines himself
living in a cabin 'near the woods' (Salinger 1994a: 179) but not in
them, suggesting that he will live on the margins. His plan to
marry a 'beautiful' girl and have children likewise suggests con-
ventional ambitions, despite his rebelliousness.
Visiting Phoebe's school to leave her a note explaining his
plans to leave, he is engaged by its unchanging nature. The
comfort Holden finds in static places, like the museum, is under-
scored here by the repetition of the word 'same' six times
(Salinger 1994a: 180) in his comments about the school. The
brief sense of tranquillity that Holden achieves by being recon-
nected to his past (and to Phoebe) is shattered when he notices
'Fuck you' written on the wall (Salinger 1994a: 180-81). This
drives him 'damn near crazy' (Salinger 1994a: 181) because he
interprets the expletive as an attack on children's purity. His
violent reaction, in which he imagines beating the culprit 'till he
74
was good and goddam dead and bloody' (Salinger 1994a: 181),
is a protest against all attacks on innocence, not least the
encroachment of adulthood, which he considers inherently
corrupt. Although he can rub out this graffiti, he soon finds
another example, and begins to realize that it is impossible to
remove all offensive words or protect children from every dam-
aging experience: in other words, it is impossible to be the
'catcher' of falling children. This realization, which will resolve
his crisis, comes to fruition at the end of the chapter as he
watches his sister ride the carrousel.
Holden's progress towards the resolution of his crisis is sig-
nalled by the fact that he now enters the museum. He takes two
boys to see the Egyptian 'wwmmies - them dead guys' (Salinger
1994a: 182). The boys appeal to Holden for several reasons: one
is their lack of self-consciousness (one is not embarrassed by his
unzipped trousers), which he attributes to innocence; another is
that they are brothers, like Holden and Allie. Although they
abandon Holden in the Egyptian display, the boys have helped
him enter one of his most cherished locations, which he could not
bear to do before. However, Holden is immediately faced with
another Tuck you' (Salinger 1994a: 183). The implication is that,
in corrupted post-war America, it is not possible to find a sanc-
tuary: everywhere is vulnerable to attack, even the grave. As
Holden says, 'if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I
have a tombstone and all, it'll say "Holden Caulfield" [. . .] then
right under that it'll say "Fuck you"' (Salinger 1994a: 183).
Although this is a melancholy statement, it makes interesting use
of the word if: throughout the text Holden has sought death
and thought it inevitable, but his phrasing here suggests
increased optimism.
Holden's vision of escape is shattered when Phoebe arrives car-
rying his suitcase and wearing his red cap, desperate to join him.
His angry response indicates his discomfort over what her
actions reveal about his plans: Phoebe's commitment to him
shows that, in fact, he is not 'cool as all hell' (Salinger 1994a: 184)
about leaving his family, as he claims, as they will be distressed
by his departure. Equally, her struggle with his suitcase is a
symbol of the difficulty and impracticality of his plans, an
75
indication that Sally was right to refuse to accompany him. He

'almost hated' Phoebe (Salinger 1994a: 186) because she is
willing to miss her Christmas play to be with him and is, there-
fore, willing to sacrifice one of the pleasures of childhood.
Holden now begins to assume a more responsible role. When
Phoebe throws the cap back to him, rejecting the role of rebel, he
does not put it on, signalling his decision to stay. Similarly, when
Phoebe insists that she is 'not going back to school' (Salinger
1994a: 186), Holden responds, 'you have to go back to school'
(Salinger 1994a: 187). Holden's maturity is further established
when he reassures Phoebe that she is not too big to ride the car-
rousel (affirming her status as a child and his as an adult that she
may turn to for guidance), and when he, metaphorically moving
away from his own childhood, decides to sit on the bench with
the parents of other children.
This new maturity is signalled by an epiphany that releases
Holden from the impossible role of the catcher in the rye.
Watching Phoebe, although he is afraid that she will 'fall off the
goddam horse', Holden does not 'say anything or do anything',
realizing that 'The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the
gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they
fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them'
(Salinger 1994a: 190). In this key passage, Holden acknowledges
that his overwhelming need to protect Phoebe (and all children)
is inappropriate, since they have to learn about life's pitfalls for
themselves. Sometimes that process will be painful, as it has been
for Holden, but it is essential.
Despite his apparent move towards adulthood, the final para-
graph of the chapter confirms Holden's status as an adolescent.
Choosing not to take shelter with the parents when it begins to
rain, he is left in a position between the adults and children. His
red cap, which symbolizes individuality, provides the 'protection'
he needs, not only from bad weather, but also from the trials of
adolescence. Finally, he feels 'so damn happy all of a sudden, the
way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn
near bawling, [. . .] she looked so damn nice' (Salinger 1994a:
191). Holden has had few moments of happiness in the narra-
tive and most have been provoked by Phoebe, who represents
76
innocence and, now, the possibility that change need not entail
loss. On the carrousel, Phoebe moves but always returns, just as
growing up will not mean that Holden will lose her. Mirroring
the enduring connection between Holden and Phoebe, the final
sentence re-establishes Holden's intimacy with 'you' that was
temporarily disrupted when he suggested that the reader could
not empathize with his loss: 'I wish you could've been there'
(Salinger 1994a: 191).
Chapter 26
Just as Phoebe goes 'around' on the carrousel, so Holden's nar-
rative returns to its starting-point in the short final chapter. The
ending of a conventional bildungsroman summarizes the hero's
current situation, which is typically a positive resolution to the
trials he has undergone. In contrast, Holden's narrative ends on
an uncertain note that undercuts the optimistic mood of the pre-
vious scene. The reference to a 'psychoanalyst guy' (Salinger
1994a: 192) suggests that he is spending time in a facility for those
with poor mental health. This conflicts with any implication that
Holden's revelation at the carrousel resolved his crisis.
Salinger further challenges the conventions of the bildungsro-
man by subverting the principle of the protagonist's develop-
ment and by resisting closure. Holden's future seems no clearer
to him after his time in therapy: asked if he will 'apply' himself
when he goes back to school, he wonders, 'how do you know
what you're going to do till you do it?' (Salinger 1994a: 192).
Similarly, when D. B. asks his brother what he thinks about what
happened to him, Holden responds with uncertainty: 'If you
want to know the truth, I don't know what I think about it'
(Salinger 1994a: 192). The narrative also challenges one of the
central tenets of psychoanalysis. Holden's closing remark sug-
gests that telling his story has not formed a part of the healing
process, as psychoanalysis purports it will: 'Don't ever tell
anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody'
(Salinger 1994a: 192). The novel's melancholy final line thus
implies that there are no easy cures for Holden, or simple answers
to the questions raised by the process of growing up in post-war
America.
77
1. Holden's narrative 'voice' is considered by many critics to be

Salinger's greatest achievement as an author. What are its
characteristics and how do these shape our understanding of
Holden as a narrator?
2. Holden has often been described as a 'typical' or 'universal'
adolescent. Do you agree?
3. What impact do Holden's experiences in the past have on his
responses to the present and future?
78
CHAPTER 4
CRITICAL RECEPTION AND PUBLISHING

HISTORY
Since The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951, it has sold
millions of copies and has been discussed by critics in hundreds
of essays and many books. Now one of the most famous novels
to emerge from post-war America, it is difficult to imagine a time
when it was simply the first novel by a fairly well-known short-
story writer named J. D. Salinger, who had a strong reputation
principally based on his appearance in The New Yorker, at that
time the most prestigious publisher of short stories in America.
Readers who knew Salinger's stories were interested in his first
novel, little knowing that it would also be his last, and that the
extraordinary success of the novel would eventually cause
Salinger to reject the role of publishing author, an occupation
that had been his ambition for most of his life. This chapter
explores the ways in which the novel has been analysed since it
was published, showing the range of critical approaches
employed to read the text and how perspectives on it have devel-
oped over time.
On publication, Catcher was promoted by the Book-of-
the-Month Club, which recommended a particular book to its
members every month in the hope of mail-order sales. This guar-
anteed publicity for the novel and probably encouraged more
newspapers and magazines to review it than might otherwise have
been the case. Published in hardback (priced $3) with a bright
image of a carrousel horse on the front of the dust jacket and a
photograph of Salinger taken by the eminent photographer Lotte
Jacobi on the back, Catcher sold respectably throughout 1951,
79
appearing on the New York Times' bestsellers list. As the novel's

unexpected success became more evident, Salinger requested that
his photograph be removed from reprints and, although some
of the paperback editions of Catcher in the mid-1950s had
bright covers bearing artists' impressions of Holden Caulfield,
Salinger's wish to have his work presented in plain jackets without
any information about the text or the author eventually prevailed
in American and British editions.
Although the novel was reviewed in almost 200 publications,
many offered only brief comments. However, several newspapers
and magazines did present substantial reviews and, although a
few were extremely negative, critics' comments were broadly
favourable. Reviewers tended to focus on the creation of Holden
as a character and the way in which Salinger constructed a
unique 'voice' through thefirst-personnarrative. Many were also
interested in what the novel implied about post-war American
society and, in particular, the experiences of young people, an
issue of increasing concern at the time. Several critics, for
example, were troubled by the use of expletives in the novel.
'Ugly words [. . .are] peculiarly offensive' (Laser and Fruman
1963: 9) when spoken by young people, commented Virgilia
Peterson in the Herald Tribune, while the reviewer for Catholic
World found that the 'coarse language' in the novel made it
'monotonous and phony' (Salzberg 1990: 31). Similarly, The
Times Literary Supplement (TLS) was disturbed by what it per-
ceived as 'an endless stream of blasphemy and obscenity' (Laser
and Fruman 1963: 17) from the narrator. However, anxieties
about expletives did not distract critics from conceding that
Holden's language was one factor that made him a credible nar-
rator: even the TLS accepted that Holden is a 'normal specimen'
(Laser and Fruman 1963: 17) and, in the Atlantic Monthly,
Harvey Breit recognized that Salinger's narrator is 'bright, terri-
ble and possibly normal' (Bloom 1990: 6). The criticism, then, is
not that reviewers find Holden unbelievable: rather, reviewers
express anxieties that were common to their place and time about
the potential of adolescents to behave in socially disruptive ways.
Throughout its existence, Catcher has been banned, and is still
excluded from high school reading lists in the twenty-first
80
CRITICAL RECEPTION AND PUBLISHING HISTORY
century, usually due to complaints from parents who do not want

their children to be encouraged to read it. Their objections tend
to centre on the novel's language choices or Holden's 'immoral'
activities, such as smoking, drinking and engaging a prostitute.
One of its earliest reviewers, T. Morris Longstreth, voiced doubts
that have echoed across America since the mid-1950s: 'a book
like this given wide circulation may multiply [Holden's] kind'
(Bloom 1990:6). The possibility that the novel may be influential
could be taken as an indication of its credibility, but this anxiety
also reveals a misconception: Longstreth, like many other com-
mentators, seems to believe that the novel is aimed at an adoles-
cent audience. Although Salinger often writes about young
people and children, he does not write for them; Harold Roth,
writing in the Library Journal, recognized this when he noted that
Catcher is an 'adult book (very frank)' (Laser and Fruman 1963:
7). Many other reviewers agreed with Roth that the real value of
the novel lay in its representation of an adolescent perspective for
an older readership, allowing an adult audience to better under-
stand the adolescent experience, as well as offering a critique of
contemporary society.
Several commentators agreed with the critic in the New York
Times who believed that Holden's difficulties stem, not from any
wrongdoing of his own, but from 'a world that is out of joint'
(Laser and Fruman 1963:10). However, if the novel is 'a critique
of the [. . .] grown-up world' (Laser and Fruman 1963: 14), it is
also a very humorous book. For the reviewer in The New Yorker,
it is the contrast between Holden's 'literalness and innocence'
and the 'complicated and often depraved facts of life' (Laser and
Fruman 1963:13) that make the novel funny, though it might be
argued that this contrast is also the source of some of its
sadness. Although many critics were convinced that the novel -
because of the skill with which Salinger created Holden's
'voice' - was genuinely amusing, they were less certain as to the
effect of the humour. For some, the novel had important and
serious points to make about post-war American society, and
these were in danger of being drowned out by the humour; for
others, while laughter was always possible, the novel had 'a dark
whirlpool churning fiercely below [. . .] the surface' (Laser and
81
Fruman 1963: 13), and so it was never possible to forget its

serious aspects.
While critics were confident that Catcher was 'extremely funny'
or 'predictable and boring' or 'unusually brilliant' or 'truly
moving' (Laser and Fruman 1963: 8, 10, 13, 16) or 'absurd'
(Bloom 1990: 5), they cannot have imagined in the summer of
1951 how extraordinarily successful the novel would be. Six
months after publication, Salinger himself was 'tremendously
relieved that the season for success of The Catcher in the Rye is
over' (Hamilton 1998: 121) because he had not anticipated the
demands that publishing a popular novel would make on his time
and energy - but, of course, that season was only just beginning.
Despite Salinger's gradual withdrawal from public life and his
eventual decision to cease publishing his work altogether, interest
in his only novel increased annually, aided by paperback editions
and word-of-mouth popularity among students. Catcher spoke to
its moment in a way that no one could have predicted and,
perhaps most surprisingly given the enormous changes in
American society in the decades following the Second World War,
the novel would continue to resonate with new readers around the
world, never going out of fashion or coming to seem irrelevant or
out-dated. Holden's perspective on the world, his hatred of
hypocrisy and injustice, and his willingness to reject the aspira-
tions and values of his society made him a figure ideally suited to
the growing counter-culture of the 1950s, the radicalized 1960s
and 1970s, and beyond.
By the mid 1950s, Catcher was starting to appear on university
reading lists and academics began to produce essays that analysed
the novel. The first of these appeared in 1956 ('J. D. Salinger: Some
Crazy Cliff' by Arthur Heiserman and James E. Miller) and it
began a tradition in Catcher criticism of comparing the novel with
more canonical texts. Heiserman and Miller focused on the rela-
tionship between Catcher and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(1885) by Mark Twain, a connection that several other critics have
also pursued, although later commentators have also compared
the novel to such significant works as Shakespeare's Hamlet (c.
1600), Charles Dickens's David Copper field (1849-50), Fyodor
Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground (1864), James Joyce's
82
Ulysses (1922), T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land (\922\ and F. Scott

Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925), among others. In these
essays, critics typically focus upon the significance of a troubled
hero who undertakes a journey towards revelation, offering a com-
mentary on his society as he goes. In comparing Catcher to such
famous texts, critics are asserting that Salinger's novel is - despite
its expletives and its rebellious hero - an important work of liter-
ature that should be taken seriously by readers and academics.
As well as claiming that Catcher is a member of the elite group
of significant American novels that includes Huckleberry Finn, and
is therefore a part of the American literary tradition, Heiserman
and Miller also connect Catcher to one of the archetypal models
of European literature: the Quest. This is the structural pattern
most associated with the epic, in which an individual seeks an
answer to a question or struggles to attain a goal, facing challenges
along the way. This model is seen in Homer's Odyssey (c. 800 BC),
in myths and legends from many cultures and in major works
of literature, including Miguel Cervantes's Don Quixote (1605),
Herman Melville's Moby Dick (1851), and William Faulkner's As
I Lay Dying (1930), and is still seen in contemporary novels. In
Quest texts, heroes are usually either looking for something or
trying to find their way home: Heiserman and Miller argue that
Holden is 'engaged in both sorts of quest at once; he needs to go
home and he needs to leave it' (Heiserman 1956: 131). Holden
longs to leave home, to escape the 'phony' society he lives in, but at
the same time he seeks home, craving the security that has been lost
through Allie's death.
As well as its connections to epic and quest, Catcher's first
critics saw in Holden a figure comparable to Huck Finn: both
boys are on a journey and are non-conformists who offer 'insight-
ful criticism of American life' (Kaplan 1956: 77) through their
humorous and poignant first-person narratives. Like the early
reviewers, academic critics recognized that Holden offers adult
readers a new way of considering their society, but the common
ground with Huck Finn also emphasizes Holden's moral quali-
ties: the rebellion of both characters is justified because the
society that they reject is fundamentally flawed. Holden, argued
these early critics, is both universal and particular: he expresses
83
the alienation of an adolescent in post-war America and in that

sense he is a product of his place and time, but he is also an arche-
type undergoing familiar trials that have been represented
throughout the literary tradition.
Holden has an instantly recognizable voice, which may be
identifiably teenaged but is still very individual. Donald Costello
(1959) explores the elements that have been combined to create
that effect. First, he notes the repetitive quality of Holden's
speech: certain phrases, unremarkable in their own right, come
to suggest important aspects of his personality through frequent
repetition, such as 'and all', 'I really did', 'it really was'. Other
words that Holden uses - not least some of the words that critics
found objectionable - change their meaning depending on
context: 'sonuvabitch', for example, is not necessarily an angry
term, since Ackley is described with sympathy as a 'crazy
sonuvabitch' (Salinger 1994a: 34). Similarly, Holden never uses
an expletive when addressing 'you', the reader. He speaks in frag-
ments - 'Not one. Neither did I. I just watched him' (Salinger
1994a: 35) - and combines several simple words for emphatic
insults, as in 'You're a dirty moron [. . .] a stupid chiselling
moron' (Salinger 1994a: 93). Although he knows more complex
words, like 'ostracized' and 'exhibitionist', he more often falls
back on uncomplicated phrases like 'very, very tired' (Salinger
1994a: 92), and the narrative persistently uses italics for empha-
sis: 'Boy, did she hit the ceiling' (Salinger 1994a: 120). These
strategies convey Holden's personality through his 'voice' and
show that 'Salinger thinks of the book more in terms of spoken
speech than written speech' (Costello 1959: 180). It is this tech-
nique, which evokes direct address, that creates the intimate rela-
tionship between Holden and the reader. It is a measure of
Salinger's achievement that more than 40 years later reviewers of
the television series My So-Called Life praised its writers for
recreating teenage speech-patterns so effectively that the series'
female protagonist could be deemed 'a kind of Holden Caulfield
in Doc Martens' (Bell 1996: 47).
Other critics focused on psychological aspects of the novel.
Carl Strauch, writing in 1961, contended that Catcher was 'a
psychological drama of unrelenting terror and final beauty'
84
(Strauch 1961: 6). Holden undergoes 'neurotic deterioration'

provoked by the loss of Allie and Jane and his fear of adult-
hood's corruption, but recognizes in the scene with Phoebe at the
carrousel that he can stay joined to childhood through his con-
nection with his sister, entering maturity gradually as he parents
her. Much of what Strauch contends in his long and detailed
analysis remains central to many people's understanding of the
text, but plenty of other psychoanalytical readings have emerged
since then. Several of them focus on the issue of sex, which is
undeniably one of Holden's preoccupations throughout the
novel. For Brian Way, Holden's thwarted attempts to gain 'sexual
satisfaction' move him to 'mental collapse' (Way 1962: 77) in the
mid-section of the novel. Way considers Holden's responses to
Phoebe to be far less important than Strauch implies and believes
that it is the honest approach that the novel takes to the represen-
tation of adolescent sexuality that is its greatest strength.
Way is not the only critic to consider the importance of sex in
the novel. In 1974, James Bryan offered a new interpretation
that caused some controversy. Like other readers, Bryan believes
that Holden equates adult sexuality with corruption and chil-
dren with innocence. However, he contends that Holden's desire
to protect children from sexual corruption stems from his own
'confused feelings about Phoebe' (Salzberg 1990: 110). At 16,
Holden has transferred his sexual focus from his mother to his
sister in a process that will eventually allow him to focus on other
women. His desire for his sister is a product of his yearning for
innocence and his developing adult sexuality. Bryan suggests
that proof of this comes in Holden's comments that Phoebe is
'too affectionate' (Salinger 1994a: 146) and that he feels 'swell'
(implying sexual arousal) in her company (Salinger 1994a: 144).
Further, Bryan argues that Holden cannot answer Phoebe's
demand that he name something he likes because he cannot
admit that the answer is Phoebe herself. This interpretation is
likely to provoke a negative reaction from readers who identify
with Holden and, indeed, a critic named Dennis Vail published
an essay in 1976 refuting Bryan's analysis. Vail contends that it
is the genuine purity of Holden's relationship with his sister that
saves him from his breakdown: she helps him understand that he
85
cannot escape adulthood and he takes strength from his role as

her protector. For Vail, the novel shows that, despite Bryan's
interpretation, intimate relationships between siblings are
healing and 'such contact need not be corrupt' (Salzberg 1990:
117).
Psychoanalytical interpretations that consider Holden's sexual
identity did not end with Bryan, however. In 1977 Duane
Edwards contended that the desire which Holden represses is not
for his sister but for other men. His dreams of escaping are not
motivated by a desire to protect Phoebe but by his need to be free
from contact with men and his unspeakable desire for them.
Further evidence cited by Edwards in support of this analysis is
that Holden has difficulty contacting women, especially Jane, but
is effective in arranging meetings with Carl Luce and Mr
Antolini, both men with ambiguous sexual identities. According
to Edwards, Holden reacts so strongly to Antolini's approach
because the older man expresses the desire that Holden cannot
face in himself. His conviction, after leaving Antolini's apart-
ment, that he must himself be ill is a way of expressing the same-
sex desire that, as a young man in the repressive 1950s, he would
be socialized to perceive as an illness.
Even when not speculating about Holden's sexuality, critics
have often considered him in psychoanalytical terms. In 1984 R. J.
Huber analysed Holden in terms of Alfred Adler's theories of
'inferiority' and 'superiority' complexes. Although Holden is
often described as a typical adolescent, Huber reads him simply
as an unhappy person who has some accurate perceptions about
the problems of his society but exaggerates the negative aspects
in order to relieve his own sense of inferiority. Similarly, his
fantasy of being 'the catcher in the rye' is one in which he posi-
tions himself as god-like in order to cover his conviction that he
is a failure.
In 1990 James Mellard presented a reading of the novel, based
on the theories of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, which suggested
that, rather than seeing Phoebe as a lover, Holden has placed her
in the role of mother. Until he resolves his close identification
with Phoebe, he cannot progress from what Lacan terms the
'Imaginary' into the 'Symbolic' order, meaning that he will not
86
mature until he accepts his role in the social structures of adult-

hood and moves away from the childhood that Phoebe symbolizes.
For Mellard, earlier readings that focused on Holden's sexuality
are misguided, since it is Holden's struggle to become an adult
individual in his own right that drives the novel, not specifically his
sexual development.
Although psychoanalysis has been an important aspect of
Catcher criticism, it is not the only theory that has been employed
to construct interesting interpretations. Work by Carol and
Richard Ohmann in the mid-1970s challenged the by then widely
accepted idea that Holden's popularity can be attributed to the
fact that he is a 'universal' adolescent whose experiences repre-
sent those of any other adolescent, regardless of gender, race or
class. Like Huber and his Adlerian reading, the Ohmanns doubt
that Holden is a typical teenager, but their theoretical approach
is grounded in Marxism rather than psychoanalysis. They argue
that, far from being a universalfigure,Holden is a creation of a
specific period (the late 1940s) and place (New York) and that he
specifically represents middle-class, privileged society. They do
not see this narrowness as aflawin Catcher, but they do believe
that critics, in failing to see the precise nature of the novel, have
overlooked one of its greatest strengths, which is the ways in
which it comments on 'social relationships in mid-century
America' (Salzberg 1990: 122).
In the Ohmanns' analysis, Holden allows Salinger to critique
social inequality and the ways in which capitalist hierarchies have
a negative impact on relationships. One example of this is the
way in which Holden's friendship with Dick Slagle is ruined by
their different social positions. Holden's wealth and privilege is
represented by his high-quality suitcases: although Dick would
like people to believe that the cases are his own, the realization
that he cannot attain Holden's social status drives a wedge
between the two boys, despite their genuine liking for each other.
Inevitably, Dick will hate Holden for having advantages that he
is denied, and Holden's awareness of injustice is shown by his
sadness at losing a friend through social pressure. If the novel is
read without considering the context of its place and time, argue
the Ohmanns, this political significance is lost and Holden's
87
spoiled friendship with Dick is simply attributed to broad con-

cepts like 'corruption'. According to the Ohmanns, the novel's
strength lies in the way it presents ideas through Holden's narra-
tive that he cannot perceive himself, such as the incompatibility
of his admiration for those who challenge convention (such as
Allie, Jane, and James Castle) with the conformist, repressive
society in which he lives.
The first-person narrative technique of the novel creates an
intimate relationship between Holden and the reader. If the
reader is young and male there is a strong possibility that he will
identify with Holden and many critics have praised the novel
because it permits just such an identification, allowing male
readers to consider their own experiences and feelings in relation
to Holden's. While this is not problematic in itself, this aspect of
the novel seems to have encouraged a critical approach which
suggests that, because Holden is personally recognizable to a
white, middle-class male reader, he must offer the same sense of
recognition to all readers, even if they are not white, or middle-
class, or male. Surprisingly, perhaps, few critics have ever consid-
ered that the appeal of the novel for them may lie in their
similarity to Holden. This may account for the startlingly few
feminist readings of the text. In 1962 Leslie Fielder did concede
that Salinger's work represents 'the cleanest, politest, best-
dressed, best-fed and best-read' young people (Fiedler 1962:
128), a comment that recognizes the narrowness of the novel's
privileged characters - but does so in approving and ungendered
terms.
While the Ohmanns acknowledge that Holden is not a repre-
sentative of all American youth, it was not until 1990 that a critic
took issue with the relationship between Holden and male critics.
Catcher came to prominence during the surge in academic pub-
lishing of the late 1950s, a time when universities were dominated
by men who critiqued texts according to established masculine
values. These men were socialized to value texts which repre-
sented male experience (encouraging them to under-value novels
that depicted female lives) and which conformed to literary
models that affirmed male archetypes, such as the adventurous
men seen in Quest literature, a model many early critics saw in
Catcher. These critics 'fall in love with the novel [because] they see
in Holden [. . .] an incarnation of their youth' (Schriber 1990:
227); this sense of identification encouraged male critics to
promote the novel as if their experience is true for all readers.
Thus Holden comes in time to be seen as representative of ado-
lescence itself. Readers who are, for example, female, black, gay,
or from less privileged backgrounds must simply adjust their per-
ceptions and attempt to identify with Holden regardless of their
differences. One result of this is that, until very recently, no one
has questioned Holden's attitudes towards women, ethnic minori-
ties, or gay people, because readers are encouraged to see the
world through the hero's eyes. This combination of an implied
reader who is a white heterosexual male, and the accumulated
influence of Catcher studies, has thus limited the ways in which
the novel has been read.
A new wave of criticism emerged in the 1990s that placed the
novel in its historical context by considering it in relation to the
Cold War. For example, Alan Nadel's 1995 study of post-war
American culture includes a chapter on Catcher that considers
the ways in which the novel depicts a repressive and rule-
governed society and engages with characteristics of the Cold
War such as the government's preoccupation with secrecy and
identifying those with 'subversive' beliefs. Holden's rejection of
the 'phony' suggests that he values honesty and he often
promises to tell the truth, emphasizing his aims with phrases such
as 'I'm not kidding' (Salinger 1994a: 55). His red 'people shoot-
ing hat' (Salinger 1994a: 19) suggests that he is ready to hunt
down anyone who deceives him, suggesting that perhaps he
shares some of Joseph McCarthy's aims. However, like one of
McCarthy's victims, Holden 'names names': his narrative is pat-
terned with the names of the innumerable people he remembers
or meets, and he is willing to disclose details of their lives. Above
all, though, Holden is angered by the restrictions of the adult
world, the freedom he will lose when he begins a career: so, like
Huck Finn, he dreams of escape. However, Nadel argues that,
more than a place to escape to, Holden needs a space in which he
can think freely, because his rebellious ideas are at odds with the
highly controlled society in which he lives.
Published a little later, Leerom Medovoi's essay on the rela-

tionship between Catcher and the Cold War focuses on the
impact of the ethos of 1950s on youth culture. Despite or
because of its repressive nature, the era saw the beginning of
counter-cultural movements and campaigns for improved civil
rights for a range of previously oppressed groups, all of which
challenged the conservatism of the time. The rapidly developing
youth culture caused concern among some commentators, but
while delinquency may have been feared, youthful characters like
Holden and Huck Finn were praised for their principled rejec-
tion of corruption. This apparent contradiction - that youthful
rebellion is both frightening and commendable - is indicative to
Medovoi of the inconsistencies of the post-war years. That the
USA sees itself as a young and vibrant nation may contribute
further to the confusion: a nation that values the qualities asso-
ciated with youth cannot wholeheartedly repress those who
embody those qualities, which may be why youth culture was able
to flourish in the 1950s.
There are contradictions, too, in responses to the novel and to
Salinger as a writer. As early as 1959, the critic George Steiner
was complaining about the development of a 'Salinger Industry',
driven by an academic culture that was under pressure to publish
criticism. Promoting Salinger's work through their essays and
courses elevated the author beyond his actual worth, in Steiner's
opinion. Inevitably, many critics came forward to defend
Salinger and Holden from this disparagement. Even so, the
worth of the novel has often been debated, not least in the
context of censorship. In 1961 Edward Corbett defended Catcher
against those who sought to ban it on the grounds of its
immorality and expletives: the latter, he argues, is key to the
novel's 'integrity', while the fact that Holden is deeply troubled
by his 'immoral' activities, such as engaging a prostitute, affirms
his essentially moral core. For Corbett, Holden is a character of
'goodness, genuineness and sensitivity' (Corbett 1961: 443) and
his reactions to experience are essential to the book's meaning.
Forty years - and many instances of banning from high schools -
later, Pamela Hunt Steinle considers why the novel should
remain so controversial. Holden may reject certain adult values,
90
but he is angered by the corruption of children, the sexual

exploitation of women and is enraged by expletives scrawled on
a school wall. Controversy about the novel may stem from the
same issues that the Ohmanns and Schriber debated: how repre-
sentative of American youth is Holden, and how influential
might he be? America, suggests Steinle, may not know its young
people very well, may even fear them, and therefore remains
anxious about the impact of the novel upon them.
It is a testament to the richness of The Catcher in the Rye that
so many critics have been able to produce such varied responses
to it in the more than half a century since it was published, sup-
porting readers' own explorations of the text. There is no sign
that the novel is exhausted, either. In the twenty-first century,
critics have found new things to say: for example, Livia
Hekanaho reconsiders Holden in the light of queer theory,
arguing that he may be anxious about thefluidityof sexual iden-
tity, while Renee Curry argues that Holden's identity as white,
although never directly addressed by the text, shapes many of
his actions and attitudes (Graham 2007). Familiar ideas, such as
the importance of peers, siblings and role models to Holden,
and the significance of school and the museum, have been use-
fully re-examined in recent years (Salzman 1991 and Steed
2002). Salinger's sense that the overt Christianity promoted in
post-war America was not, in fact, the only possible form of
spiritual belief has been applied to analyses of Holden, not least
in Yasuhiro Takeuchi's (2004) work on the significance of Zen in
Catcher. One result of this sustained critical attention and the
novel's capacity to continually find new readers is that Catcher
isfirmlyembedded in the culture of many countries, informing
new works of literature, film, drama and music. The ways in
which the novel persists in surfacing in other texts and the effect
it has on their meanings is the subject of thefinalchapter of this
study.
91
1. Which of the critical approaches outlined above do you find

most interesting or useful, and why?
2. Why do you think critics have continued to be interested in
Catcher!
3. What aspects of the novel have been neglected by critics and
how do you account for such gaps in criticism?
92
CHAPTER 5
ADAPTATION, INTERPRETATION AND

INFLUENCE
Although The Catcher in the Rye is more than 50 years old, it

remains the novel against which all other texts about adoles-
cence are judged. In recent years, nine-year-old Oskar in
Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
(2005) has been compared with Holden Caulfield because
'Oskar wanders around New York City, lonely, alienated and on
the verge, possibly, of an emotional breakdown' (Kakutani
2005); the protagonist of Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep (2005) has 'a
voice as authentic as Salinger's Holden Caulfield' (Lamb 2005);
and Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides (1993), a novel about
five sisters set in 1970s Michigan, has been described as 'a
Catcher in the Rye for our time' {Observer 1993). Although these
connections with Catcher may be made to attract readers - in
itself a measure of the novel's enduring value - for many there
is no need for a new Catcher, since the original does not yet seem
dated or irrelevant to those who encounter it for the first time
every year.
Because it is such a significant part of American culture,
Catcher has had an influence in a range of ways, echoing
through films, novels, plays and music. Although it is always
difficult to measure how a text has made an impact on other
writers, it is reasonable to say that Catcher is one of the founda-
tion texts of the youth culture that developed in the USA in the
years following its publication, and its character and concerns
have echoed across the post-war years. Catcher did not, of
course, single-handedly provoke the revolutionary rise of the
93
teenager in the 1950s, but it did validate aspects of adolescent

experience (anxiety, alienation, confusion) that many readers
have identified as comparable to their own experiences. As well
as being a significant part of that group of texts, Catcher is a
narrative that, by evoking the speech and exploring the experi-
ences of a young person, often focusing on personal crisis, has
become the model for many later texts of adolescence. Other
texts refer to Catcher in their plots without actually mimicking
Holden's style, which reinforces the sense that the text has a cul-
tural weight that allows it to be used to symbolize a certain way
of responding to the world. Finally, Salinger himself has made
appearances, literally or disguised, in a few texts, in spite - or
because of - the mystery surrounding him. In some ways,
tracing Catcher's influence is a matter of opinion: some might,
for example, hear Holden's voice in a text when others do not.
However, there is no doubt that there are very many examples
of texts that form part of Catcher's legacy, and this chapter
discusses a few of the most interesting.
Many commentators on internet discussion groups speculate
about a film of Catcher, not least who would play Holden.
However, J. D. Salinger's dismay at the adaptation of his short
story 'Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut' into the film My Foolish
Heart (1949), which 'dishes up sentiment by the bowlful'
(Crowther 1950) according to the New York Times, probably
guaranteed that none of his other works would ever be made
available for adaptation. Although the rights to Catcher have
been highly sought-after, there has never been afilmof the novel.
However, a film that can be identified as clearly part of
the Catcher legacy, rather than simply being an example of the
'coming of age' genre, is The Graduate (1967), which strongly
evokes Holden's dismay at the prospects offered by adult life.
Benjamin Braddock, the graduate of the title, finds that he has
no interest in the world of business that his parents think he is
destined to enter. He has an affair with one of his parents'
friends, Mrs Robinson, and falls for her daughter Elaine, who
rejects him; thefilmdepicts his sense of loss and alienation from
adults and his peer group. His final triumph - stealing Elaine
away from her wedding to exactly the kind of 'Joe Yale' man that
94
ADAPTATION, INTERPRETATION AND INFLUENCE
Holden despises - is presented as a desperate act that neither of

them may be able to live with.
Although it has its comic moments (not least Benjamin mod-
elling his graduation present, a wetsuit, for his parents and their
friends) and a very distinctive visual style, The Graduate ends on
a melancholy note, highlighting the sadness and uncertainty that
is woven through the whole text, much as in Catcher. The film
was hugely influential and a key part of the 1960s youth counter-
culture: Benjamin's rejection of a career in 'plastics' - the name
itself evoking what Holden identified as phoney in the adult
world of capitalist venture - spoke to a generation that was dis-
satisfied with conventional career options and, in particular, had
no more desire to go to war in Vietnam than Holden had to fight
in the Second World War.
Holden's narrative offers a critique of the values of his society,
both in his direct comments on post-war America and in the
implication that the rigid expectations of his social class con-
tribute to his despair. ThefilmDead Poets Society (1989) focuses
on the experiences of a group of adolescents in an American
prep school in the late 1950s, and also considers the impact of
repression on young men. The setting allows some immediate
comparisons with Catcher, since the action takes place in much
the same location and era as the novel. Thefilmwas produced in
a newly conservative period in the USA, the 1980s, whose polit-
ical strategies were reminiscent of the 1950s and whose cultural
ethos promoted 'family values', material wealth, and conven-
tional roles for men and women.
Although the boys in thefilmare from the upper middle class
and are destined for university and business careers, a new
teacher provokes some of them into reconsidering their aspira-
tions. Thefilmcharts the difficulties they face in putting their new
plans into action in a society that values conformity. Although
sentimental and visually beautiful in a traditional manner, there
is a current of discontent running beneath the film: the boys'
rebellions may be relatively minor (one of them wants to act in a
play) but they are still rejections of the privileges and restrictions
conferred by the boys' gender, class and race. For such a group,
the 1980s (which thefilmsubtly reflects) was not so different from
95
Holden's post-war society or the version of the 1950s that the

film offers, and there is a subtle critique of both eras beneath the
slightly cliched soul-searching.
The release of the films Tadpole and Igby Goes Down in the
same year (2002) prompted the New York Times to ask: 'What
is it with The Catcher in the Rye these days? Is it just a coinci-
dence that in a matter of months, the J. D. Salinger classic has
rung two cinematic bells?' (Holden 2002: n.p.). Several review-
ers commented on the similarities between Holden and the
films' protagonists: each is a 'fresh-scrubbed, upscale teenage
rebel with a brain to match his attitude' (Holden 2002: n.p.). In
Tadpole (2002) the hero, 15-year-old Oscar Grubman, confides
in a friend on the train home from prep school for Thanksgiving
that he is in love with his stepmother and plans to steal her away
from his father. Once at home in Manhattan, an affluent setting
similar to that of Holden's family, Oscar's situation is compli-
cated by his liaison with his stepmother's best friend. The film
may echo Holden's pleasure in older women, but Oscar is a
more confident figure, both intellectually and sexually. Most
importantly, Oscar does not suffer from Holden's tormented
perspective on the world, which makes the film much lighter
than Catcher. In Igby Goes Down (2002), the title character has
been expelled from several prep schools and has just run away
from his military academy. Like Holden, he drifts around
Manhattan, getting into some awkward situations. For all his
privileges, Igby is a troubledfigure,as sensitive to the hypocrisy
and corruption of contemporary New York as Holden was 50
years before, and the film is consequently darker than Tadpole.
However, Igby is more comfortable with sex than Holden, both
with women of his own age and older; he also uses drugs, which
leads him into more dangerous situations than Holden's alcohol
and cigarettes ever could. Like Catcher, Igby has its comic
moments, but the trials faced by its twenty-first century Holden
suggest that life has become more complex for adolescents,
rather than less so.
As innumerable novels have been described as a Catcher in the
Rye for their generation, and so many protagonists identified as
'Holden-esque', it is difficult to choose the most relevant examples.
96
Brett Easton Ellis'sfirstnovel, Less Than Zero (1985), focuses on

privileged teenager Clay, who spends his Christmas holiday in Los
Angeles, taking drugs, going to parties and aimlessly driving the
freeways of California. As in Catcher, the season suggests a spiri-
tuality that the protagonists cannot actually locate in their society.
A sense of hopelessness pervades the novel: Clay's family and
friends are soulless people who do not appreciate their luxurious
lifestyles and have no sense of purpose; many of them are
attracted to acts of sexual abuse and cruelty. Thefirst-personnar-
rative makes clear that Clay's numbed perspective leaves him less
shocked by events than the reader is likely to be but, like Holden,
he is not without morality and feels increasingly alienated from his
erstwhile community.
The novel implies that Clay lives in a place and time that is
more superficial and much harsher than Holden's, and he has no
one like Phoebe to give his actions meaning. Holden fantasizes
about escaping to a Colorado ranch and does eventually go west
to California, as if the mythic freedom of the American West will
heal him; Clay has gone East to college, and he longs to return
there, believing it less immoral than California. These opposing
trajectories may suggest that America's identity has changed,
with the West no longer the site of renewal - but both novels
present a spiritual void at the heart of America. Holden resists
it, however, and is considered to be ill (as if the void is within
him) while Clay, although intermittently troubled, is resigned to
the emptiness in his society and simply tries to escape it to avoid
becoming as corrupted as his peers, rather than attempting to
effect change.
Nomi Nickel, the narrator of Miriam Toews's A Complicated
Kindness (2004) is, 'Like Holden Caulfield, [. . .] aghast at a world
she struggles to describe and explain' (Allen n.d.: n.p.), although
in many ways there could hardly be a less Holden-like character
than a 16-year-old girl who lives in a Mennonite religious com-
munity called East Village in Manitoba. While the name of her
town might invoke Manhattan, this is an isolated place that is not
merely rural: its inhabitants actually frown upon association
with the urban, modern world beyond. Nomi's future prospects
in the town are extremely limited, her mother and sister have
97
both fled and she lives with her father Ray, who is bereft at the
loss of half his family. Nomi's first-person narrative strongly
evokes Holden's attention to detail, his humour and melancholy;
the text makes great use of the richness of everyday language
without actually imitating Salinger's style. Recounting her
narrow life with her quiet, melancholy father, Nomi says, 'What
a riot. We have a ball. Recently, Ray's been using the word
stomach as a verb a lot. And also the word rally. We rally and we
stomach' (Toews 2005: 4).
So, like Holden, Nomi is bereaved; like him, she is dismayed by
her life now and in the future; like him, she relates all this in a
style that is intimate, honest (although she tells a few lies), funny
and believable. Unlike many texts of the adolescent genre, A
Complicated Kindness also shares with Catcher an interest in reli-
gious faith. Holden empathized with Jesus, but disparaged the
Disciples in a way that challenged Christian doctrine; he is both
uncomfortable with, and drawn to, those with religious faith.
Nomi lives in a community where the smallest details of people's
lives are shaped by belief; there are those who rebel against this
(including many of the adolescents Nomi knows) and those who
preach an unforgiving dogma, and in between there are people
like Ray, a gentle, good man who finds comfort in his faith.
Nomi's dilemmas are those of many adolescents, but religion
and the loss of her family are the issues that make her life most
complicated, just as Holden is doubly troubled as he faces
adolescence while dealing with Allie's death.
These novels, although part of the genre of adolescent narra-
tives, have a more obvious relationship with the style and con-
cerns of Catcher than other texts. However, as well as novels that
have an interest in representing adolescent experience, there are
texts that evoke Catcher's specific concern with the impact of
mental breakdown on a young person. From the popular socio-
logical studies of the 1950s to contemporary discussions in the
media about anti-social teenagers, adolescence has often been
represented as a problematic period in a person's life, something
to survive: at best, an experience like a minor illness, a 'difficult
age'; at worst, a period of transition between childhood and
adulthood that causes psychological crisis. Although Holden
98
could be understood to be a young person in mourning for his

brother - and the significance of Allie to Holden's narrative
would support this - Catcher is often read as a representation of
a person breaking down simply because he is an adolescent. So
Holden's main problems are often deemed to be the result of his
refusal or inability to reconcile himself to the adult world he is
about to enter.
Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (1963) is sometimes described as a
female equivalent of Catcher, more obviously autobiographical
than Salinger's text, it charts Esther Greenwood's journey from
a magazine internship in New York to a breakdown and hospi-
talization. Although Esther is slightly older than Holden, there
are echoes of his voice in herfirst-personnarrative; she shares his
anxieties about sex, is pessimistic about the society she lives in
and struggles to connect with either her peer group or a role
model. It is a bleaker novel than Catcher, because Esther is so
explicit in her descriptions of her depression and suicide
attempts, but it is also very witty. Acknowledging links between
Catcher and The Bell Jar, Louis Menand nonetheless contends
that the main difference between them is that 'no reader has ever
wanted to be Esther Greenwood' (Menand 2001: 87). Certainly,
it is hard to imagine anyone aspiring to suicidal depression - but
Holden is also suicidal. Furthermore, while Esther recovers
from her depression, Holden is still in hospital at the end of
Catcher. Given this, Menand's assumption that Holden's fate is
preferable to that of Esther suggests a critical double-standard
that celebrates male adolescent rebellion, but pathologizes
female protest.
While other worthwhile texts that address issues of female
mental health have been published since the The Bell Jar, texts
that address the issue of mental breakdown in young men are
rarer, perhaps because mental illness has historically been femi-
nized and understood to be a largely female experience. Two
exceptions to the troubling silence over male mental health are
Judith Guest's Ordinary People (1976) and thefilmDonnie Darko
(2001). Guest's novel, like Catcher, appears on the American
Library Association's list of '100 Most Frequently Challenged
Books, 1990-2000'. Like Catcher it is concerned with the impact
of the death of a sibling: Conrad Jarrett attempts suicide six

months after his older brother, Jordan, drowns in a sailing acci-
dent. Conrad is unable to escape the feeling that he is responsi-
ble for his brother's death and that his parents would have
preferred the charismatic Jordan to have survived instead of him.
Although paying close attention to Conrad's psychological
journey, the novel is, unlike Catcher, written in the third person,
and is therefore able to offer significant insight into the emotions
of many characters. Even so, Conrad echoes Holden, not only in
his sadness about his - he believes - superior brother, but also in
his bleak outlook. He thinks of himself as 'Conrad Jarrett the
Anxious Failure dress this guy in blue and gray' (Guest 1982: 2)
and, as in Catcher, the narrative style captures his idiosyncratic
voice.
Donnie Darko has been a hugely popular film despite, or
because of, the mysterious aspects of its plot. Donnie is an ado-
lescent from a comfortable middle-class family; he is close to his
parents and siblings so, refreshingly, there is no implication that
any of them are responsible for his unhappiness. Donnie is intel-
ligent, imaginative and funny; his main problems in the period of
time captured by the film are that he keeps seeing a man-sized
mutant rabbit and he believes that the world is about to end. The
film creates an intimate relationship between Donnie and the
viewer; as with Holden, we like him and empathize with his
difficulties. This intimacy allows the film to create a significant
ambiguity: we are so close to Donnie that we are not sure how ill
he really is. Clues throughout thefilmonly become suggestive at
the end of the narrative and leave us wondering if, perhaps, the
rabbit is actually Donnie's friend Frank and Donnie's theories of
time-travel are actually true, in the world of thefilmat least.
Donnie Darko bears interesting comparison with Catcher
because the latter also leaves the reader in doubt about Holden's
mental health and critics disagree on why Holden has to go to
California to 'take it easy' (Salinger 1994a: 1). Thefilmrefuses to
demonize mental illness - Donnie is unequivocally the hero of the
text - and it does not allow the viewer glibly to equate his prob-
lems with his age, as certain readers of Catcher have done. Donnie
also has Holden's unerring eye for the phoney, such as the lifestyle
100
guru Jim Cunningham, and although a film cannot truly have a

first-person narrator in the way a novel can, the camera presents
the world from Donnie's perspective, making the viewer as inti-
mate and empathic with him as the reader is with Holden.
Catcher itself is alluded to in certain texts, indicating its cul-
tural significance. British writer John Fowles published his first
novel, The Collector, in 1963. The text is narrated from the per-
spective of both Frederick, the collector, and Miranda, the
woman he kidnaps and keeps imprisoned. The story of their
relationship touches on issues of class and education: Frederick
considers Miranda to be more sophisticated than he and pro-
vides her with books and records of classical music during her
captivity. She demands that he read The Catcher in the Rye; that
he does so indicates the complex power balance between captor
and prisoner. Although Miranda expects Frederick to identify
with Holden, suggesting that she views them both as unstable,
Frederick considers Holden's problem to be that 'he doesn't try
to fit [in]' (Fowles 1989: 205). This suggests that, like Holden,
Frederick has a conventional core; unlike Holden, he does not
recognize his own psychosis, which makes him much more dan-
gerous. At the time that Fowles was writing, Catcher was making
its way onto college courses and the flow of academic criticism
of the novel was increasing rapidly. It is fascinating that a novel
so often associated with adolescent readers can be adopted by
Fowles to communicate that Miranda is a cultured, modern
adult and that Frederick is fatally lacking in empathy because he
does not engage with Catcher in the same way that Miranda
does.
The title of John Guare's play Six Degrees of Separation
(1990) refers to the theory that every person in the world is con-
nected to every other through no more than six links; the
difficulty, of course, is identifying what those links might be. In
this drama a young black man, Paul, arrives unexpectedly at the
home of wealthy white art dealer, Flan Kittredge, and his wife,
Ouisa. Claiming to be both the son of the actor Sidney Poitier
and a friend of the Kittredges' children, Paul tells Flan and
Ouisa that he has been mugged; excited by the proximity to fame
that he represents, they invite him to stay the night.
101
Paul is a charismatic figure, charming and intelligent, and he

helps the Kittredges secure an important art sale as well as
cooking them dinner; during this key scene he outlines the thesis
he claims to have been writing at college on The Catcher in the
Rye. Paul says that he wants to investigate how Catcher came to
be a 'manifesto of hate' through its connection with high-profile
murders. Paul suggests that, although Holden may be 'a pretty
accurate picture of a male adolescent', what the novel principally
communicates is 'the death of the imagination' (Guare 1992:
32-3). Although it later becomes apparent that Paul is a fraud
who has stolen his 'thesis' on Catcher from a college graduation
speech, it is significant to the play that he chooses this particular
text. Paul's reading of the novel suggests that what devastates
Holden is the impossibility of connection with others: - 'the
imagination is the passport we create to take us into the real
world' (Guarre 1992: 34), and so, if the imagination fails, the
essential connection with the world outside ourselves is severed.
As well as being a compelling interpretation of the novel, and
evidence of the playwright's certainty that the audience will
know the text, the interpretation that Paul offers emphasizes
both his own desire to connect with others and the ways in which
individuals often resist such connections, making Paul a Holden-
esque figure.
The Kittredges are indeed resistant to Paul initially, but once
they are assured that he is of their class and connected to the
famous, they are enraptured: Ouisa comments, 'I just loved the
kid so much. I wanted to reach out to him' (Guare 1992: 31).
Even when the truth about Paul's various deceptions is revealed,
they feel an obligation to help him, partly because 'He did more
for us in a few hours than our children ever did' (Guare 1992:
117), and partly because Paul has become an anecdote that they
can use to command attention for themselves. Six Degrees of
Separation is an absorbing play that unmasks social hypocrisy
and suggests that connections between people can be formed in
unexpected ways (and, indeed, that connections are not always
found where they might be expected to be). Further, the play
implies that social responsibilities do not end at the barriers of
race and class. In the centre of this drama sits Catcher, a text that
102
has connected with millions of readers and is, as Paul contends,

profoundly concerned with the need to connect with others and
the dangers of failing - or being unable - to do so.
As Paul notes, The Catcher in the Rye has been invoked by
Mark Chapman, who murdered John Lennon in 1980, and by
John Hinckley, the would-be assassin of US President Ronald
Reagan, in 1981. Whatever this might or might not reveal about
the state of mind of these two men - and some have read their
references to the text as indicative of their empathy with the out-
sider figure that Holden exemplifies - the connection certainly
keeps this already famous novel in the public eye. The film
Conspiracy Theory (1997) uses the Chapman/Hinckley connec-
tion in an unusual manner, to suggest that the recurrence of the
text in these crimes is not a coincidence but a sign of a govern-
ment conspiracy to assassinate high-profile figures. The film's
hero, Jerry Fletcher (sharing his first name with Salinger), is a
likeable, essentially moral character, who has a conspiracy theory
for every occasion. His obsession with Catcher seems to be proof
of his mental instability and therefore his unreliability, but it
transpires that, in fact, he has been brain-washed and is strug-
gling to communicate what he knows to be true about govern-
ment corruption. Far from being an assassin, his principal aim is
to be a saviour like Holden, a 'catcher'. Although the film is a
light Hollywood product, it illustrates the range of meanings that
a text can acquire over time. Reading the novel as a covert cri-
tique of the Cold War, or believing it to be a dangerously subver-
sive influence on the young may not be so far removed from
believing that the CIA record every sale of the novel as a way
of measuring counter-cultural activity, as Conspiracy Theory
playfully suggests.
The Good Girl (2002) is another film that makes intriguing, if
less dramatic, use of Catcher. Justine, the 'good girl' of the title,
lives in a small town in East Texas, works in a superstore and is
married to a dull but well-meaning man. The film is concerned
with the impact on Justine's life of her brief affair with 22-year-
old Tom, a college drop-out who calls himself Holden, says he is
a writer and tells Justine that Holden in Catcher is 'put upon by
society, the hypocrisy of the world', casting him as a victim rather
103
than a rebel. Justine and 'Holden'/Tom feel connected by their

shared sense of disillusionment but he is far less stable than
Holden Caulfield and, when his relationship with Justine ends, he
kills himself. Ironically, Justine - who has never heard of Catcher
- is Holden-esque in more subtle ways, struggling as he does with
the narrowness of everyday life. Despite her affair, she is an
ethical person who cannot bear to hurt another, especially her
husband; she narrates events retrospectively in a voice-over that
mimics the first-person voice of a novel; she dreams of escape
and is dismayed by the low expectations of those around her, but
ultimately she stays put, choosing convention over adventure.
Thus, while the principal reference to Catcher may seem to be in
the overtly disturbed, intense 'Holden' character, by focusing on
the disillusion of a 30-year-old married woman, thefilmsuggests
that struggling with conventional adult life is not only the pre-
serve of privileged young men.
An interesting variant on references to Catcher in texts is the
appearance of Salinger himself. In many ways thefilmFinding
Forrester (2000) covers similar ground to Good Will Hunting
(1997), both directed by Gus van Sant: the relationship between
a talented, misunderstood youth and a sympathetic father-figure.
However, Forrester features a reclusive writer who, some years
before, published a novel that is still taught in colleges and is very
popular among young people, but has published nothing since.
The similarities with Salinger seem undeniable, but the implica-
tions of this device are puzzling. Continued interest in Salinger
as afiguremay well have convinced the scriptwriters that a plot
that evoked him would be compelling; it also offers the opportu-
nity to imagine what might happen if someone were able to break
through the barrier that Salinger has constructed between
himself and his public. The friendship that develops between
Forrester and a gifted young black writer, Jamal, leads the oth-
erwise anti-social author to become the boy's mentor (exactly the
kind of role model that Holden craves) and ultimately results in
Forrester speaking at the boy's prep school. That Forrester is so
easily recognizable as a version of Salinger affirms the place still
occupied in American culture by an author who has neither pub-
lished any fiction, nor given an interview, in more than 40 years.
104
It is interesting that Forrester/Salinger has written a book that

resonates with an African American youth: as for Justine in The
Good Girl, the implication is that Catcher can illuminate lives
across boundaries of gender and race, affirming many readers'
sense that the novel has universal appeal.
Salinger appears even more directly in W. P. Kinsella's novel,
Shoeless Joe (1982), which was adapted into the film Field of
Dreams (1989). The novel's key phrase, 'If you build it, he will
come', refers to hero Ray Kinsella's decision to construct a base-
ball field on part of his farmland so that the ghosts of the dis-
graced Chicago Black Sox, baseball players accused of
deliberately losing the 1919 World Series, can continue to play.
Ray is, like Holden, afirst-personnarrator who shares his name
both with the author of Shoeless Joe and with two of Salinger's
characters: Richard Kinsella is the boy accused of 'digression' in
Catcher and there is a Ray Kinsella in Salinger's 1947 story, 'A
Young Girl in 1941 with No Waist at All'. The blending of the
novel's author with that of its narrator and with Salinger charac-
ters suggests that the boundary between fact andfictionis unsta-
ble; this theme carries through to the use made by Kinsella of
Salinger as a character in the novel. Ray convinces himself that
Salinger is in need of rescue, so he drives to his house and
effectively kidnaps him in order to show him the field where the
ghost team plays.
The fictional Salinger's responses to Ray's efforts seem feasi-
ble: he believes that Ray is insane and cooperates with him in case
he is dangerous. The ensuing narrative allows Kinsella (the
author) to imagine what Salinger might say if it were possible to
have a long conversation with him. It is disconcerting to find a
real person portrayed in a novel. Kinsella's 'Salinger' is con-
stantly afraid of being recognized, though he rarely is: the impli-
cation is that his fear of his readership is unjustified now that so
much time has passed. However, 'Salinger' is able to describe
what it has meant to him to be intruded upon by his readers,
however well-meaning they might be, and the text suggests that
his reclusive life has been driven by a fear that everyone he meets
will be as demanding and unreasonable as those who actively
seek him out; his adventures with Ray eventually assure him that
105
this is not so. The narrative offers 'Salinger' several opportunities

to state his reasons for his withdrawal from publishing as he
responds to Ray's questions about his life. When Ray tells
'Salinger' that he has 'touched [his] soul' through his work, the
writer responds:
the words on the page have no connection to the person who

wrote them. Writers live other peoples' lives for them. I don't
write autobiography. I'm a quiet man who wrote stories that
people believe. Because they believe, they want to touch me,
but I can't stand to be touched. (Kinsella 1982: 69-70)
Eventually, Ray's questions cause 'Salinger' to shout, 'Once and

for all, lam not Holden Caulfield^ (Kinsella 1982: 74). While it
may be that the real author would like to refute the speculation
that conflates him with his most famous character, Kinsella's
novel simply adds to the mystery that still surrounds Salinger,
although its deployment of him as a central character is very
bold and guarantees Shoeless Joe a unique place in the catalogue
of Catcher-related texts.
The appearance of Catcher references in popular music con-
firms that the novel still speaks to young people: rock bands
Green Day, The Offspring and The Bloodhound Gang all refer
to Holden and Catcher in recent work. Green Day's song 'Who
Wrote Holden Caulfield?' (1992) repeats the lines, 'There's a boy
who fogs his world and now he's getting lazy/ There's no motiva-
tion and frustration makes him crazyI He makes a plan to take a
stand but always ends up sitting/ Someone help him up or he's
gonna end up quitting'. The chorus of 'Get It Right' by The
Offspring (1992) runs, 'No way out/ Same old stuff always drags
me down' and the verse contains the lines, 'Like Holden Caulfield
I tell myself/ There's got to be a better way'. 'Magna Cum Nada'
(2000) by The Bloodhound Gang begins, 'Why try? I'm that guy/
Holden Caulfield from "Catcher In The Rye'7 Put away 'cause
he wasn't all there/ Like a jigsaw puzzle you might compare/Me
to him'. All three songs are performed in a fast-paced, aggressive
rock style that conveys anger and frustration appropriate both to
the lyrics and the spirit of the novel. Green Day's song suggests
106
empathy with Holden's situation, while the other two songs claim
more direct identification with his deep discontentment, further
evidence of the novel's capacity to connect across generations.
Catcher's influence is evident in other aspects of the music
industry: as well as several bands named Holden, 'Little Shirley
Beans' (the record Holden buys for Phoebe) has been taken as the
name of an independent record label based in New York, which
is also the home of the 'Caulfield Sisters', a group who describe
themselves intriguingly as 'the musical metaphor of Phoebe'.
Outside the USA, there are bands in Vancouver, ('Ryecatchers'),
Glasgow ('Catcher'), Beijing ('Catcher in the Rye'), and, in
Ireland, a group called 'Rollerskate Skinny', a reference to
Holden's description of Phoebe as 'quite skinny, like me, but nice
skinny. Roller-skate skinny' (Salinger 1994a: 60). These glimpses
of Catcher in the texts discussed in this chapter prove that this
archetypal story of teenage rebellion has a life far beyond its
pages, continuing to exert an influence more than 55 years after
Salinger's 'novel about this kid in New York during the
Christmas holidays' (Hamilton 1998: 20) first appeared.
107
FURTHER READING
SALINGER'S FICTION
It is a pity that Salinger's early stories are not in print, especially

the two forerunners of The Catcher in the Rye, Tm Crazy' and
'Slight Rebellion off Madison', since anyone who enjoys Catcher
would be interested in seeing how Salinger's narrative style devel-
ops in the years before the novel's publication. However, the
short story collection {For Esme - With Love and Squalor!Nine
Stories) is well worth reading. As Chapter 2 of this book sug-
gests, For Esme is not only an entertaining collection, but the
stories also share many of the characteristics of Catcher: an
emphasis on dialogue, a preoccupation with innocence and chil-
dren, a mixture of humour and melancholy. The later novellas
are more varied in style, but Raise High the Roof Beam,
Carpenters, Buddy Glass's account of his brother Seymour's
abandoned wedding day, is very engaging and Franny suggests,
in its representation of Franny Glass's disillusionment with the
society of 1950s America, that Holden Caulfield is not alone in
his troubles. Seymour: An Introduction and Zooey seem to have a
little less of Salinger's usual light touch, but any real enthusiast
will enjoy aspects of both.
Salinger, J. D. (1945) 'I'm Crazy'. Collier's 116, 36, 48, 51.

Salinger, J. D. (1946) 'Slight Rebellion off Madison'. The New
Yorker 22, n.p.
Salinger, J. D. (1994a) The Catcher in the Rye. London: Penguin.
109
FURTHER READING
Salinger, J. D. (1994b) For Esme - With Love and Squalor.

London: Penguin.
Salinger, J. D. (1994c) Franny andZooey. London: Penguin.
Salinger, J. D. (1994d) Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and
Seymour: An Introduction. London: Penguin.
BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL ON SALINGER
As outlined in Chapter 1 of this book, Salinger withdrew from his

career as a publishing author in the mid 1960s. Even before this
time, he rarely granted interviews and seemed reluctant to engage
with the reading public. It is no surprise, then, that no authorized
biography has been published, despite great interest in Salinger
and the continued steady sales of his fiction. Ian Hamilton's
attempt to write a definitive study of the author resulted in legal
action. Hamilton had to redraft his book so extensively that it
became as much about the difficulties of writing a biography of
Salinger as a study of him; even so, it contains much useful mate-
rial. Paul Alexander's unauthorized biography makes use of some
of the information uncovered by Hamilton and is interesting, if
not particularly detailed. Margaret Salinger, the author's daugh-
ter, and Joyce Maynard, Salinger's partner in the early 1970s, have
both written memoirs that are well-written and engaging books
in their own right as well as offering rare insights into Salinger as
a person. The New York Times online resource offers good quality
material on the author, not least the account of his brief conver-
sation with reporter Lacey Fosburgh about the unauthorized
reprinting of his early short stories.
Alexander, Paul (1999) Salinger: A Biography. Los Angeles:

Renaissance Books.
'Featured Author: J. D. Salinger', The New York Times on the
Web. www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/13/specials/salinger.html
Fosburgh, Lacey (1974) 'J. D. Salinger Speaks About His Silence',
New York Times, www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/13/specials/
salingerspeaks.html?_r=2&oref = slogin&oref = slogin
Hamilton, Ian (1998) In Search of J. D. Salinger. London:
Bloomsbury.
110
FURTHER READING
Maynard, Joyce (1998) At Home in the World. London:

Doubleday.
Salinger, Margaret A. (2001) Dream Catcher: A Memoir.
London: Scribner.
CRITICISM OF SALINGER'S FICTION

The majority of books and essays listed here have been discussed
in detail in the study, principally in Chapter 4. The recent
anthologies that contain 'classic' and/or new critical essays are
especially helpful: Salzberg (1990), Salzman (1991), Steed (2002)
and Graham (2007). John Wenke's exploration of the short
fiction is the only volume of its kind and will be very useful to
anyone expanding their reading of Salinger beyond Catcher. An
additional suggestion is Morris Dickstein's Leopards in the
Temple, which includes discussion of Salinger's work, but is
especially recommended for the way it places Salinger in the
context of other key writers of the post-war period, such as
Philip Roth, Ralph Ellison, Vladimir Nabokov and Jack
Kerouac.
Bell, Barbara (1996) 'Holden Caulfield in Doc Martens: The

Catcher in the Rye and 'My So-Called Life". Studies in Popular
Culture 19,47-57.
Bidney, Martin (2000) The Aestheticist Epiphanies of J. D.
Salinger: Bright-Hued Circles, Spheres, and Patches;
"Elemental" Joy and Pain'. Style 34, 117-31.
Bloom, Harold (ed.) (1990) Holden Caulfield. Philadelphia:
Chelsea House.
Bryan, James (1974) 'The Psychological Structure of The
Catcher in the Rye\ PMLA 89, 1,065-74.
Corbett, Edward (1961) 'Raise High the Barriers, Censors: Some
Thoughts on The Catcher in the Rye'. America 104, 441-4.
Costello, Donald (1959) 'The Language of The Catcher in the
Rye\ American Speech 34, 172-81.
Dickstein, Morris (2002) Leopards in the Temple: The
Transformation of American Fiction 1945-1970. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
111
FURTHER READING
Edwards, Duane (1977) 'Holden Caulfield: "Don't Ever Tell

Anybody Anything'". English Literary History 44, 554-65.
Fiedler, Leslie (1962) 'Up from Adolescence'. Partisan Review 29,
127-31.
Graham, Sarah. (2007) / D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.
London: Routledge.
Greiner, Donald J. (2006) 'Updike and Salinger: A Literary
Incident'. Critique 47, 115-30.
Grunwald, Henry Anatole (ed.) (1962) Salinger: A Critical and
Personal Portrait. New York: Harper Colophon.
Heiserman, Arthur and Miller, James (1956) 'J. D. Salinger:
Some Crazy ClifF. Western Humanities Review 10, 129-37.
Huber, R. J. (1984) Adlerian Theory and its Application to The
Catcher in the Rye - Holden Caulfield', in Joseph Natoli
(ed.), Psychological Perspectives on Literature. Hamden, CT:
Archon.
Kaplan, Charles (1956) 'Holden and Huck: The Odysseys of
Youth'. College English 18, 76-80.
Kaufman, Anthony (1998) '"Along This Road Goes No One":
Salinger's "Teddy" and the Failure of Love'. Studies in Short
Fiction 35, 129-40.
Laser, Marvin and Fruman, Norman (eds) (1963) Studies in J. D.
Salinger: Reviews, Essays, and Critiques o/The Catcher in the
Rye and Other Fiction. New York: Odyssey Press.
Mellard, James (1990) 'The Disappearing Subject: A Lacanian
Reading of The Catcher in the Rye\ in Joel Salzberg (ed.),
Critical Essays on Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Boston:
G. K. Hall.
Menand, Louis (2001) 'Holden at Fifty: The Catcher in the Rye
and What it Spawned'. The New Yorker 77, 87.
Medovoi, Leerom (1997) 'Democracy, Capitalism, and American
Literature: The Cold War Construction of J. D. Salinger's
Paperback Hero', in Joel Foreman (ed.), The Other Fifties:
Interrogating Midcentury American Icons. Urbana: University
of Illinois Press.
Nadel, Alan (1995) 'Rhetoric, Sanity, and the Cold War:
The Significance of Holden Caulfield's Testimony', in
Containment Culture: American Narratives, Postmodernism
112
FURTHER READING
and the Atomic Age. Durham & London: Duke University

Press.
Ohmann, Carol and Ohmann, Richard (1976) 'Reviewers,
Critics, and The Catcher in the Rye\ Critical Enquiry 3, 15-37.
Salzberg, Joel (ed.) (1990) Critical Essays on Salinger's The
Catcher in the Rye. Boston: G. K. Hall.
Salzman, Jack (ed.) (1991) New Essays on The Catcher in the
Rye. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schriber, Mary Suzanne (1990) 'Holden Caulfield, C'est Moi', in
Joel Salzberg (ed.), Critical Essays on Salinger's The Catcher
in the Rye. Boston: G. K. Hall.
Steed, J. P. (ed.) (2002) The Catcher in the Rye: New Essays. New
York: Peter Lang.
Steinle, Pamela Hunt (2000) In Cold Fear: The Catcher in the Rye
Censorship Controversies and Postwar American Character.
Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Strauch, Carl (1961) 'Kings in the Back Row: Meaning Through
Structure: A Reading of Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye\
Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature 2, 5-30.
Takeuchi, Yasuhiro (2004) 'The Zen Archery of Holden
Caulfield'. English Language Notes 42, 55-63.
Vail, Dennis (1976) 'Holden and Psychoanalysis'. PMLA 91,
120-1.
Way, Brian (1962) "Tranny and Zooey" and J. D. Salinger'. New
Left Review May/June, 72-82.
Wenke, John. (1991) / D. Salinger: A Study of the Short Fiction.
New York: Twayne.
POST-WAR AMERICA
This section contains details of key primary works of the post-war

period in the USA, such as those by Betty Friedan and Alfred
Kinsey: but the majority of titles here are historical or cultural
studies of the 1950s and all are strongly recommended for their
clarity and insight. Additional suggestions include William
Chafe's detailed and comprehensive historical overview of the era.
Useful companions to this volume are the essays on American
culture in Christopher Bigsby's collection and Martin Halliwell's
113
FURTHER READING
study of the culture of the 1950s, which contains commentary on

Catcher as well as a range of valuable material on relevant topics
including fiction, music and film. Elaine May's study of how the
structure of the American family changed in the Cold War era is
the essential volume on this important subject. Lary May's collec-
tion of essays focuses on the relationship between culture and pol-
itics in post-war America, including in its wide remit youth
culture, music, social science, suburbia, women and race.
Benedek, Laszlo (1953) The Wild One.

Bigsby, Christopher (2006) The Cambridge Companion to Modern
American Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Biskind, Peter (1983) Seeing is Believing. London: Bloomsbury.
Brooks, Richard (1955) Blackboard Jungle.
Chafe, William H. (2003) The Unfinished Journey: America Since
World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Douglas, Gordon (1951) / was a Communist for the FBI.
Friedan, Betty (1965) The Feminine Mystique. London: Penguin.
Gidley, Mick (1993) Modern American Culture: An Introduction.
London: Longman.
Halberstam, David (1993) The Fifties. New York: Fawcett.
Halliwell, Martin (2007) American Culture in the 1950s.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Hendin, Josephine (2004) A Concise Companion to Postwar
American Literature and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell.
Henriksen, Margot (1997) Dr Strangeloves America: Society and
Culture in the Atomic Age. Berkeley: University of California.
Hine, Thomas (1999) The Rise and Fall of the American
Teenager. New York: Harper Perennial.
Kinsey, Alfred C. (1948) Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male.
Philadelphia; London: Saunders.
May, Elaine Tyler (1999) Homeward Bound: American Families in
the Cold War. [no place]: Basic Books.
May, Lary (ed.) (1989) Recasting America: Culture and Politics in
the Age of Cold War. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Ray, Nicholas (1955) Rebel Without a Cause.
Riesman, David (2001) The Lonely Crowd (abridged and revised
edn). New Haven and London: Yale Nota Bene.
114
FURTHER READING
Tallack, Douglas (1991) Twentieth-Century America: The

Intellectual and Cultural Context. London: Longman.
Whitfield, Stephen J. (1996) The Culture of the Cold War.
Baltimore; London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Whyte, William (1956) The Organization Man. New York: Simon
and Schuster.
Wilson, Sloan (2002) The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit. New
York: Four Walls Eight Windows.
BOOKS, FILMS AND MUSIC RELATED TO THE CATCHER

IN THE RYE
As the discussion in Chapter 5 makes clear, tracing the influence

of Catcher is a difficult task. Many texts of the last 50 or so years
have been acclaimed as the 'new Catcher', and while this is often
revealed to be principally a marketing strategy, certain texts do
seem to bear comparison with Salinger's novel, either in terms of
content or style. Novels listed here by Brett Easton Ellis, Judith
Guest, Sylvia Plath and Miriam Toews are especially recom-
mended, as is John Guare's play and the films The Graduate, The
Good Girl and Donnie Darko. Texts about adolescence continue to
be popular and, although less clearly related to Catcher in terms
of narrative technique, Carson McCullers's The Member of the
Wedding (1948), James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain
(1953), Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye (1989), Jeffrey Eugenides's
The Virgin Suicides (1993) and Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep (2005) are
all narratives of exceptional quality that offer a diverse range of
representations of the experience of adolescence.
Allen, Karl (n.d.) 'A Complicated Kindness'. http://contempo-

rarylit.about.com/od/fiction/fr/kindness_2.htm
Arteta, Miguel (2002) The Good Girl.
Bloodhound Gang, The (2000) 'Magna Cum Nada\ Hooray for
Boobies. Interscope.
Crowther, Bosley (1950) T h e Screen in Review: "My Foolish
Heart". http://movies 2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_
id=103324
Donner, Richard (1997) Conspiracy Theory.
115
FURTHER READING
Ellis, Brett Easton (1986) Less Than Zero. London: Picador.

Fowles, John (1989) The Collector. London: Picador.
Green Day (1992) 'Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?' Kerplunk!.
Lookout Records.
Guare, John (1992) Six Degrees of Separation. London:
Methuen.
Guest, Judith (1982) Ordinary People. New York: Penguin.
Holden, Stephen (2002) 'On the Outs with Almost Everything'.
http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=260397
Kakutani, Michiko (2005) A Boy's Epic Quest, Borough by
Borough', www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/books/22kaku.html?
ex=1269147600&en=a01375fb9af5b575&ei=5090&partner=
rssuserland
Kelly, Richard (2001) Bonnie Darko.
Kinsella, W. P. (1982) Shoeless Joe. New York: Ballantine Books.
Lamb, Wally (2005) www.curtissittenfeld.com/prep.htm
Observer (1993) Review of The Virgin Suicides, www.bloomsbury.
com/Authors/Press/99.doc
Offspring, The (1992) 'Get It Right'. Ignition. Epitaph/Ada.
Nichols, Mike (1967) The Graduate.
Plath, Sylvia (1999) TheBellJar. London: Faber.
Robinson, Phil Alden (1989) Field of Dreams.
Sant, Gus van (1997) Good Will Hunting.
Sant, Gus van (2000) Finding Forrester.
Steers, Burr (2002) Igby Goes Down.
Toews, Miriam (2005) A Complicated Kindness. London: Faber.
Weir, Peter (1989) Dead Poets Society.
Winick, Gary (2002) Tadpole.
116
INDEX
Ackley, Robert 37 carrousel 21-2, 39, 76, 77, 85

Adler, Alfred 86 Castle, James 41, 50, 53, 68, 69
adolescents see, teenagers Catcher in the Rye, The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as autobiography 2
The (Twain) 7, 82, 83, 89, 90 banned book 80-1, 90
aging 35 first publication 6, 79-80
American Dream 29, 62, 74 likened to canonical texts
Angels with Dirty Faces 64 82-3
Antolini,Mr40,46,53,56, reviews on publication 80-2
69-73, 86 Salinger's difficulties in writing
Arnold, Benedict 66 6
atomic warfare 7, 8, 63 structure 31-2
'catcher in the rye' metaphor 68,
Baker's Wife, The 46 76,86
Beat Generation 15,70 catching 56, 68, 69, 74, 75, 76
BellJar, The (Plath) 11, 99 Caulfield, Allie 19, 25, 26, 27, 35,
Beowulf35 39-40,41,46,47,49,52,55,
bestselling novels of 1951 14 65, 68, 73-4
bildungsroman 32-3, 77 Caulfield, D. B. 33, 62, 69, 77
Blackboard Jungle, The 16 Caulfield family 25, 26
Bloodhound Gang, The 106 Caulfield, Holden in Salinger's
Book-of-the-Month Club 6, 79 fiction before Catcher 3-4
Brooke, Rupert 62 universalfigure87, 88-9
'Brown v. Board of Education5 9 Caulfield, Mr 33, 37, 54, 68
Burroughs, William 15 Caulfield, Mrs 33, 44, 69
Caulfield, Phoebe 24, 25, 26,
cannon at Pencey Prep 34 46-7, 57, 66-9, 75-7, 85-6
Captains Courageous 52 censorship 90
117
INDEX
change 57-8, 61, 74, 77 Ernie 49, 59

Chapman, Mark 103 escape 11,42,44,46, 59, 61, 74,
characterization 25-7 75, 83, 86, 89
children 19, 26,42, 56, 57, 66, 68, exaggeration 72
72, 75, 76, 85, 91 Extremely Loud and Incredibly
Christmas 39, 61, 73, 74, 76 Close (Foer) 93
cinema in post-war USA 13-14
Civil Rights Movement 9, 15 falling 34,42, 52, 56, 65, 66, 68,
Cold War 8, 9, 89-90 69, 70, 73
'Comin' Through the Rye' Farewell to Arms, A
(Burns) 56 (Hemmingway) 62
Communism 8, 9 father-figures see, Antolini,
Complete Uncollected Short Stradlater, Ackley
Stories (Salinger) 5 Feminine Mystique, The (Friedan)
Complicated Kindness, A (Toews) 10-11
97-8 Field of Dreams 105
Confessional poets 16 film adaptation of Catcher 94
conformity in post-war USA Finding Forrester 104-5
11-12,13,15 first-person narration 20, 32
in Catcher 37 Fletcher, Estelle 55
Conspiracy Theory 103 For Esme - With Love and
counter-culture in post-war USA Squalor (Salinger) 5,19, 109
15-16,90 'For Esme - With Love and
Crucible, The (Miller) 8-9 Squalor' (Salinger) 20,22,
25, 26, 28
David Copperfield (Dickens) 32 'Franny' (Salinger) 5, 25, 26, 27,
'De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period 109
(Salinger) 20,25, 26 'fuck you' 74-5
Dead Poets Society 95-6
death see also suicide 19-20, 35, Gallagher, Jane 38,40,41,44,48
36, 66, 73, 74, 75 Generation of Vipers (Wylie) 10
Dickinson, Emily 62 Ginsberg, Allen 15
dialogue 2 2 ^ Glass family 5,19, 20, 25,26, 27
digression 70 Good Girl, 77K? 103-4, 105
disappearing 34, 7 3 ^ Good Will Hunting 104
DonnieDarko 100-1 Graduate, The 94-5
'Down at the Dinghy' (Salinger) Grand Central Station 54
22-3, 24 Great Depression 7
ducks 44-5,49, 65 Great Gatsby, The (Fitzgerald) 1,
29, 62, 83
epic 83 Green Day 106
118
INDEX
Hamlet 56 Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, The

hands 37,40, 46,48 (Wilson) 15-16
Hayes, Sally 10, 54, 58-61 marriage 10-11
Hinckley, John 103 Marxist analysis of Catcher 87
'Hollywood 10'36 Maurice 52-3
homosexuality 56-7, 63, 72, 86 McCarthy, Joseph 8
House Un-American Activities men in post-war USA 11
Committee (HUAC) 8 Holden's views on 43, 58
How to Win Friends and Influence Modern Woman: The Lost Sex
People (Carnegie) 12 (Farnham and Lundberg) 10
Humour 27-8 Morrow, Ernest 25,43
Morrow, Mrs 43, 55, 59
/ Know My Love (Behrman) see mother-figures 37,44, 55
also Lunts, The 56 movies 13, 38,41, 51, 53, 61, 62
T m Crazy' (Salinger) 4 Museum of Natural History
Igby Goes Down 96 57-8,61,75
Indians 35 music industry, Catcher's
inferiority complex 86 influence on 107
innocence 39,41, 55, 57, 67, 68, My Foolish Heart 94
75, 77, 85
intertextuality see, texts within names 43,47, 66
texts narration 20-2
Native Americans see, Indians
'Just Before the War with the Nine Stories (Salinger) 5
Eskimos' (Salinger) 26 nuns 54-5
Kerouac, Jack 15 Of Human Bondage (Maugham)

37
Lacan, Jacques 86-7 Offspring, The 106
Lardner, Ring 36 O'Hara, Frank 16
'Laughing Man, The' (Salinger) Oliver Twist (Dickens) 62
20-1,26 Olivier, Laurence 56-7
Less Than Zero (Ellis) 97 On the Road (Kerouac) 15
linguistic analysis of Catcher Ordinary People (Guest) 99-100
84 Organization Man, The (Whyte) 12
Lonely Crowd, The (Riesman) Ossenburger 36
12 Out of Africa (Dinesen) 36
'Lord Randall My Son' 35
loss 34 'Perfect Day for Bananaflsh, A'
Luce, Carl 63-4, 71, 72 (Salinger) 19, 22, 23, 24, 25,
Lunts, The 56 26, 27-28
119
INDEX
phony 33, 36,41,43,49, 53, 56, 'Slight Rebellion off Madison'

59,60,61,62,63 (Salinger) 3, 7
Pollock, Jackson 16 social inequality 35, 54, 87
Prep (Sittenfeld) 93 Spencer, Mr 34-5
'Pretty Mouth and Green My Stekel, Wilhelm 70-1
Eyes' (Salinger) 23, 24 Stradlater, Ward 36, 37-8,40-1
psychological/psychoanalytical suicide 34, 35,41-2, 50, 53, 59,
analysis of Catcher 84-7 67,68
Sunny 24, 28,42, 51,53
quest 83, 88
Tadpole 96
racial prejudice 9,15, 35,49, 55 'Teddy'(Salinger) 19, 21, 26
Radio City Music Hall 61 teenagers
'Raise High the Roof Beam, in post-war America 13-14, 80,
Carpenters' (Salinger) 5, 19, 98
25,28,29,110 in Salinger's fiction 19
Random Harvest 62 Holden as teenager 35, 57, 65,
Rebel Without a Cause 14 76
red cap 12, 36, 37, 66, 75, 76, television 13
89 texts within texts 28-9
religion 9, 36, 52, 61, 98 39 Steps, The Ad
Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) Thurmer, Selma 33
36, 55
uncertainty 21-2
Salinger Industry 90 'Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut'
Salinger, J. D. biography 2-7 (Salinger) 20, 26, 28
final publication 6 United States, post-war society
first publication 3 and culture 7-17
military service 4-5 unreliable narration 20, 36,47,
reclusiveness 7 52,60
represented in fiction 104-6
'Sonny'51 Virgin Suicides, The (Eugenides)
sex in Catcher 45, 50, 51, 63-4, 93
85-7
in post-war USA 12 Wild One, The 14
Sexual Behavior (Kinsey) 12-13 Women, Holden's attitudes 39,
Shoeless Joe (Kinsella) 105-6 43,47-8,50,51,55,58,85,
siblings 25, 57, 66, 86 86, 89, 91
Six Degrees of Separation in post-war America 9-11
(Guare) 101-3 in Salinger's fiction 26
120

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SALINGER'S

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

Achebe's Things Fall Apart - Ode Ogede

© Sarah Graham 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Further Reading 109

I would like to thank the people who have contributed to the

This book is dedicated to P. P., with all my love.

When J. D. Salinger published The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, he

might be doubtful about Holden's suitability as a role model, it

SALINGER'S LIFE AND CAREER

Jerome David Salinger, nicknamed 'Sonny' by his family, was

experience, a trip he summed up in a biographical note written

He visited [. . .] Vienna when he was eighteen, winning high

Salinger's writing teacher became his first publisher when his

Forest in Germany (where Salinger saw action) and Holden goes

Salinger's work. More significant still is the silence that began in

POST-WAR AMERICA: SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Although Catcher is understood to be a novel that captures the

world into a new age. The horror of conventional warfare (which

the self-serving deceptions of Puritanism and the betrayals pro-

1947, female employment had dropped to the 1940 level (Tallack

the problem that has no name' (Friedan 1965: 13-17). Although

I'd be working in some office, making a lot of dough, and

Here Holden disparages a model of masculine prosperity consid-

Carnegie's enduring How to Win Friends and Influence People

Kinsey'sfindingssuggested that American morality was akin to

both an incipient social problem and an economic opportunity'

this context, Holden's anti-war stance - 'if there's ever another

many young Americans. Their reality is the stifling normalcy that

reality' (Greiner 2006: 115). Holden's willingness to confront

LANGUAGE, STYLE AND FORM

The Catcher in the Rye is Salinger's only novel, but he published

Bananafish' (1948) and his brother Walt is killed in an accident;

Salinger makes use of both first- and third-person narration in

of his after-school club and his girlfriend Mary, but cannot

after his moment of apparent revelation at the carrousel. By

Salinger's work is dominated by dialogue: how a character looks

The realism of Salinger's dialogue is further established by the

In much of his fiction Salinger uses a familiar group of charac-

Familiarfiguresrecur throughout Salinger's fiction. One such

Salinger uses characters to embody values that he either cri-

Humour is one of the defining characteristics of Salinger's work,

simply 'Who doesn't?' (Salinger 1994b: 10), and he replies to her

TEXTS WITHIN TEXTS

Salinger often includes a range of different texts within his stories.

1. What techniques are typical of Salinger'sfiction,and how do

READING THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

morning, and Phoebe at the carrousel on Monday afternoon.

SECTION 1: AT PENCEY (CHAPTERS 1-7)

by these experiences and ends by reflecting on his situation in the

The novel's first reference to suicide, a recurring theme,

disagrees: 'Game my ass' (Salinger 1994a: 7). Throughout the

Lardner's appearance here therefore seems especially pointed.

This chapter introduces Stradlater and Jane Gallagher, key

success but lacks imagination; Holden, by contrast, is creative

innocence; his reluctance also suggests a more general fear of

One of the most interesting moments in this chapter comes when

The impact of Allie's death on Holden is one of the central

they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I

a school window in Chapter 22. There is a further link between