A Rebel on His Way to Adulthood : 'Me, myself and I' vs 'The Catcher in the Rye '

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Petia Ivanova Tzvetkova, Eph, 4th year, 41263

A Rebel on His Way to Adulthood

‘Me, myself and I’ vs ‘The Catcher in the Rye’

        Ever since I read ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ – I was 17 then – I have tried to explain myself why this book is so significant. Why is it so hated and adored at the same time? I must confess I hadn’t heard anything about Salinger till I watched ‘Conspiracy Theory’. If you don’t remember I’ll tell you that the movie was about this taxi driver Jerry Fletcher who traced conspiracy in everything and all of sudden one of his theories came to be true. Mel Gibson was incredible playing a man who was funny and serious, brilliant and a bid mad. And this queer person couldn’t feel ‘normal’ if he didn’t buy a copy of  ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ every day. And that impressed me so much that after that I bought the book myself. I don’t know why I did it. Generally, I hate to be told what to do, less what to read. But at that time perhaps I needed to feel ‘normal’ too. Now, four years later, I read it again. And I was a bit nervous about it. After all there is this disaster called ‘time’ and we are all infected by it but there is no cure. The symptom is that we change but not only physically. Our points of view, ideals and beliefs also change. That is why I was so anxious about reading the book again but at the same time I was curious to find out how much I have changed. Actually, I didn’t remember most of it. I could recall only my feelings. And that is not a recommended approach towards a book. But I don’t consider myself much of a critic but an observer and an interpreter. After all readers, incl. critics who are also readers, respond to a book the way it has affected their inner self. That’s why I would like to trace the difficult path towards adulthood that passes by various social and individual stops. For me, that is what makes the book so significant. Because we all struggled and will continue to struggle such psychological battles on our way towards ‘know thyself’.

I would like to begin with the way some critics approached Salinger’s work. Although each of them expressed different points of view which are too extreme  I would like to consider them and try to find the truth somewhere in the middle.

Ann Goodman commented that ‘Holden was so completely self-centered that any other characters who wandered through the book, with the exception of his sister, Phoebe, had no authenticity at all’.1 Of course, it’s not so surprising for a person that passes such a difficult period of his life to be overwhelmed with his own feelings and anxieties. Eric Lomazoff also pointed that ‘Salinger failed to address other characters with as much detail as Holden’2.  But he continued that this is due to the fact that Holden tells his own story, and also to the idea that a story told by Holden Caufield would never describe others, as he speaks only of himself.3 There is something deeply personal when you read a story written in first person singular. The reader not only feels very close to the character and his experience but at some point the character’s feelings, thoughts and emotions become not so someone else’s. The reader, incl. myself, identify his/her own  inner world with similar power. As much as it concerns his sister Phoebe she is his connection with the world that he wants so desperately to protect. Her innocence and honesty are contrasted with the ‘phoniness’ of the other world that he rejects and despises. The way he describes his sister and other children is his ‘Song of Innocence’, if I may turn to William Blake. For some critics, Holden’s observations of the adult world come from ‘his unstable state of mind’.4 I must agree that his remarks are very extreme sometimes and represent his inner struggle to deal with the reality that doesn’t offer anything else but hypocrisy and coldness. But they are not so superficial and childish as they seem. They represent a complex and unique ‘observations and sharp insights, and a wonderful sort of grasp of how a boy can create his own world of fantasy and live forms’5. Of course, some of his observations are partial and as I said before extreme. But they are part of a person’s nature. After all we are brought up with so many stereotypes and clichés that at some point they become real and so believable that a person uses them to categorize, classify, define and divide the world and people around him according to them. Of course, we need some concrete surface in order to keep us from falling into the abyss of the unknown that frightens us with its changeability. Likewise, Holden needs The Museum of Natural History because it is ‘unchanging and frozen’6.

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The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was.7

‘Traumatized and made acutely aware of the fragility of life by his brother Allie’s death, Holden is terrified by the idea of change and disappearance.’8  But at the same time he is curious and fascinated ‘to encounter the mysteries of the world’9. His interest in where the ducks go during the winter is symbolic for his subconscious understanding that every change, the source of his fears, is temporary. And the pond itself becomes a metaphor of Holden’s temporary state. ‘The pond is in transition ...

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