J. D. Salinger the catcher in the rye (Chapters 1-9)

The aim of the lesson is to teach you to analyse the beginning chapters of the novel in order to discern some of its characteristic features. You will also …………………………

1. Reproduce the information below as a beginning of a sketch about the spirit of the book and the character's personality. The set of questions below will help you to do that.

Salinger worked on The Catcher in the Rye for about ten years. When it appeared in 1951, it evoked both critical and popular acclaim. Here was a fresh voice. One could actually hear it speaking, and what it had to say was true, perceptive and compassionate. The critics said that the catcher in The Catcher in the Rye was the novelist Salinger himself, who could understand the adolescent mind without displaying one.

a) Who is the narrator of these chapters? Where is he now? What is he going to speak about?

b) What is his attitude to his elder brother D.B.?

c) What makes him dislike Pencey Prep and the other schools he has been to and left?

d) What is it that makes you want to go on reading the novel?

e) What is it that would make you give it up if it were not your duty to read it?

2. Give a summary of the chapters showing the atmosphere of phoniness, indifference and vulgarity that surround Holden. Begin with: "Holden has just beeen expelled from Pencey Prep as a climax of a long adolescent protest. Even the history teacher who tries to get at the causes of Holden's discontent emerges as a moralistic pedagogue who picks his nose. ……………"

3. “It is evident by studying the reviews of The Catcher in the Rye that most critics enjoy picking apart the character of Holden Caulfield, studying his every action and the basis for that action. Reviewers of the novel have gone to great lengths to express their opinions on Salinger's protagonist. Some consider Holden to be sympathetic, others consider him arrogant, but the large majority of them find him utterly entertaining.” (The Praises and Criticisms of J.D.Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye by Eric Lomazoff)

1. How do Holden’s actions characterize him? (Consider, for example, writing that descriptive essay for Stradlater, or his decision not to throw a snowball at the “nice and white” things.)

2. How does Holden’s description of other people reveal his own personality?

4. Salinger was faced with the artistic task of creating an individual character, not with the linguistic task of reproducing the exact speech of teenagers in general. Yet Holden had to speak a recognizable teenage language and at the same time had to be identifiable as an individual. Thus, Holden is in the habit of ending his sentences with: "and all", "or something", "or anything". These phrases sometimes have no discernible meaning: they may just give a sense of looseness of expression and looseness of thought (thus indicating the oral colloquial nature of discourse). But often they signify that Holden knows more, but is not going to bother going into it. These phrases can also show Holden's tendency to generalize, to find the all in the one.

What other peculiarities of speech make Holden's speech immediately recognizable? Do they betray his personality?

5. From the moment Holden leaves Pencey behind, leaves its Stradlaters and Ackleys, its hypocrites, and puts on his red hunting cap - why not? It's a mad world, isn't it? - we know we are on to an adventure of pure self-expression, if not self-discovery. We know that it has already begun.

1. Find a phrase in the chapters that might serve as an epigraph to them. Explain.

2. Find a phrase in the chapters that might serve as a motto we may take with us on our way from innocence to knowledge.

6. One of the most popular means by which The Catcher in the Rye is critiqued is through the comparison of Holden Caulfield to other literary characters. The novel is often compared to traditional period literature, particularly Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

What is there in common between the two novels?