Literature Analysis #2

Catcher In the Rye

Plot Summary:
Holden Caulfield is a seventeen year old boy, the narrator of the story, and also the protagonist. His journey begins after he gets expelled from Pency for failing his classes. He is told by the school that after winter break he is to not come back. After a fight with his roommate, Stradlater, Holden leaves school two days early to explore New York before returning home. Holden encounters a large number of people as he roams through the city  and goes into nightclubs. Feeling lonely and in need of someone to talk to he accepts the offer of the hotel elevator operator to find him a prostitute, but he fails to have sex with her and ends up fighting her pimp. The next day he takes his old girlfriend, Sally Hayes, ice-skating and tries to convince her to run away with him. Holden starts to feel like he doesn't belong anywhere and is in need of a friend. Every time he extends himself he is shot down.With his mental health quickly going down hill, Holden returns to his parents' home, where things are no better for him. Even his young sister, Phoebe, questions his negativity and asks him to name one thing he would like to be. Holden says that he would like to be "the catcher in the rye" and explains that his job would be to prevent the children, who are playing nearby in a field of rye, from going over the cliff. Holden goes to see Mr. Antolini, his former English teacher. When the teacher tries to make moves on him, Holden flees in horror. Returning home, Holden experiences a complete mental breakdown and is sent to a psychiatric center in California for treatment.


Theme: Loneliness

Holden is a very lonely seventeen year old kid. He admits to his loneliness openly, and it gives him evidence that perhaps he might still have some emotions left. At the same time, Holden takes few steps to minimize his loneliness. Whenever he feels the urge to meet someone, or to have a social experience, he ends up sabotaging it before he can get hurt. He tries so hard to protect himself from getting hurt that he never gets to really know anyone. He might want to call Jane, for example, but he hangs up before she gets on the phone. He might want to sleep with a prostitute to feel human comfort, but this will not do. He might want to interact with friends at a bar, but he ends up saying something hurtful so that they abandon him. Pushing them away provides a deeper and deeper loneliness, but he would rather take this route than take the chance of getting hurt by someone.


Tone: Bitterness

Holden always says things are "phony" and is constantly pointing out the negative in things. He does this because this is how he projects his feelings. I think he really sees himself as a phony and just calls everything else phony as a way to make himself feel and seem better.
 Excerpt 1: 
Holden describes himself as the “most terrific liar you ever saw in your life” (16).
Holden knows that being a liar isn't a good thing, but he tries to make himself feel better by only focusing on how good of a liar he is.

Excerpt 2:
Holden believes that Stradlater is a stuck-up guy, and that the “the reason he fixed himself up to look good was because he was madly in love with himself” (27).
I think Holden is jealous of Stradlater because he has friends and a goes out at night while he just sits in the dorm room by himself.

Excerpt 3:
“I am always saying "Glad to have met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.”
Holden likes meeting new people, but in his head he knows that he is going to shut them out, do to his insecurity. That's why he says he is always saying glad to have met you when he doesn't mean it.



Literary Elements:

Metaphor:
"I certainly began to feel like a prize horse's ass, though, sitting there all by myself." (86)

Hyperbole:
"It's really ironical, because I'm six foot two and a half and I have gray hair. I really do. The one side of my head–the right side–is full of millions of gray hairs. I've had them ever since I was a kid. And yet I still act sometimes like I was only about twelve." (9)

Simile:
“That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a goddamn toilet seat.” (55)

Symbol:
The Broken Record: Before going home to talk with Phoebe, Holden buys her a record with a song entitled "Little Shirley Beans." However, while walking toward Central Park, he drops it and it shatters. Perhaps the record represents Holden. After his latest failure he goes home "in pieces".

Theme:
Rebellion: Holden has perfected the art of rebellion–against his school, his peers, his parents, and society in general. He uses rebellion as a defense mechanism because he feels he could not fit in if he tried.

Irony:
"I'm the one that's flunking out of the goddamn place and you're asking me to write you a goddamn composition." (28)

Foreshadow:
Holden talks about how wonderful and nice his brother Allie was. Holden describes how he " broke all the windows in the garage". (39) When his brother died. He said his family wanted to psychoanalyze him, this foreshadows that Holden will carry his trauma with him throughout the story.

Imagery:
"she crossed her legs and started jiggling this one foot up and down, she was very nervous for a prostitute." (94) Holden is describing the prostitute that he had sent to his hotel room.

Conflict:
Holden his facing conflict within himself, Mr. Antolini pointed this out towards the end of the book by telling Holden that "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. The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started."


Characterization:
Indirect Characterization:
Ex)   "'Do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over?'" (60). He isn't really asking about the ducks. Holden's asking about himself, what will he do in the dead of winter. It's sad that he has to go to such lengths just to get an answer, and people won't even listen to him.
Ex2)  "You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy," (79) Holden is describing Jane as someone that can make you happy.

Direct Characterization:
Ex)   "All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot" This is when Holden is describing Lawyers.
Ex2)  "All the people around me are phonies" Holden is saying that he is the only good person.

Diction:
I did not really notice any difference in diction when the author would talk about a different character. He seemed to keep the same kind of writing style and word choice throughout the whole story, no matter who he was talking about.

Static or Dynamic:
Static, he learns nothing from his experiences. His view of the world and the people in it never changes throughout the whole story. To him everyone is a phony.

Flat or Round:
Round,  He's round because his personality and world view are thoroughly explored throughout the course of the novel. He is seen going through emotional struggles and these struggles reveal much about his character.

Do I Know The Character:
After reading this book I felt like I actually knew Holden as a person, not just a character. The author used Holden as the narrator, which allowed me as the reader insight into what Holden was thinking. The imagery the author used made it easy for me to picture Holden and all of the "phony" people around him.