A Boy in Search of the Meaning of Life—— Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye 一个寻找人生意义的男孩——《麦田守望者》中的霍尔顿.doc

一个寻找人生意义的男孩麦田守望者中的霍尔顿A Boy in Search of the Meaning of Life Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the RyeContentsAbstract.1Key words.1I. Introduction.2II. The Synopsis of The Catcher in the Rye.2III. The Backgrounds of The Catcher in the Rye.3IV. The Thematic Analysis.41 Enjoying and adoring abundant goods .42 Returning to nature and defending the children's pure spiritual world .53 Holden's psychological journey: escape, struggle, fantasy and compromise.64 Generation gap between children and adults.7V. Themes of The Catcher in the Rye.81 Innocence.82 Death.83 Loneliness.84 Alienation.95 Sexual confusion.9VI. My Views on Holden Caulfield.9References.10A Boy in Search of the Meanings of LifeHolden Caulfield in The Catcher in the RyeAbstract：As countercultural revolt began to grow during the 1950s and 1960s, The Catcher in the Rye was frequently read as a tale of an individual's alienation within a heartless world. Holden seemed to stand for young people everywhere, who felt themselves beset on all sides by pressure to grow up and live their lives according to the rules, to disengage from meaningful human connection, and to restrict their own personalities and conform to a bland cultural norm. Many readers saw Holden Caufield as a symbol of pure, unfettered individuality in the face of cultural oppression. Because Salinger used slang and profanity in his text and because he discussed adolescent sexuality in a complex and open way, many readers were offended, and The Catcher in the Rye provoked great controversy upon its release. Though controversial, the novel immediately appealed to a great number of people. It was a hugely popular best-seller and general critical success. Salinger's writing seemed to tap into the emotions of readers in a completely unprecedented way.Key words：alienation; loneliness; hypocrisy; innocence; growth摘 要: 随着20世纪五六十年代反社会运动的高涨，麦田守望者不断作为冷酷世界中孤立的人的故事被品读。霍尔顿似乎代表了所有的年轻人，他们觉得自己被来自四面八方的各种压力所包围，他们要成长，并要按照准则去生活，要断绝有意义的人际接触，要抑制自己的个性，并顺应一格索然无味的文化标准。很多读者把霍尔顿作为一个象征，他是一个纯真的面对文化压迫而不受羁绊的人物。由于塞林格在书中使用了俚语和亵渎的言辞，又由于他以一种复杂而坦诚的方式探讨了青少年的性问题，触怒了许多读者，使得麦田守望者一经问世即引发了强烈的争议。该小说虽具争议性，但仍然受到大批读者的喜爱，它是极为受欢迎的畅销书，在评论界亦是个成功，塞林格的作品似乎以一种前所未有的形式触动了读者的情感。关键词：疏远；孤独；虚伪；纯真；成长I. IntroductionJerome David Salinger (1916- ) was born in New York City, on January 1, 1916. He grew up in New Hampshire and later attended three colleges, but got no degree. As early as the age of fifteen he began writing, and publishing his first short story when he was twenty-one. After service as an infantry sergeant in Europe during World War he wrote more stories, most of which were published in Collier's, Saturday Evening Post, Story and other journals. Slinger's first major work, The Catcher in the Rye (1951), proves a whole generation in search of new values. Its adolescent hero, Holden Caulfield, is a literary descendant of Huck Hinn: more educated and sophisticated, the son of affluent New Yorkers, but like Huck a youthful runaway from a world of adult which hypocrisy, greed and phoniness. The novel also creates a pleasantly exciting and unique language of stammering youth. In Nine Stories (1953), Salinger revealed that he was a master of the short story form. He introduced it in his chronicle of an eccentric, warm-hearted family named Glass, continued in his next book of stories. Salinger was one of the most controversial authors of the post-war era, and he was certainly one of the most influential people among college youth from the mid-1950's to the mid-1960s. Ironically, his own personal implication, his insistence on privacy in an age of exposure, continued to the worship that grew around his work. The cult praises the virtues of childlike innocence and spiritual love at the expense of the more vigorous demands of life.II. The Synopsis of The Catcher in the Rye The novel tells a 16-year-old middle school boyHolden Caufield's living style in New York City. Because Holden is very poor at study, he is expelled from school. In order not to go home earlier than his parents get notice from school, he lets himself roam in New York, he goes to a hotel crawling with prostitutes and ''queers''. Very soon, he realizes a fact that the world of adults is phony, and that he is surrounded by all ''jerks'' of all kinds. His first night in New York ends in a bitter quarrel with a pimp who cheats him out of his pocket and beats him up. The next morning proves dull and spiritless. The day moves on slowly, sad and weary. A meeting with a friend ends with another quarrel; drinking with an old acquaintance does little to improve his mood. He gets drunk and feels depressed and lonesome. Night falls. Holden sneaks back home to see his kid sister Phoebe. She is a lively girl, but her words about their father ''killing'' him sickens Holden, then he thinks of an ex-classmate and he jumped out of the window and lay dead on the stone steps. After creeping out of home, Holden goes to his former teacher, Mr. Antolini, only finds that the man is a homosexual. Holden's second night in New York thus ends with a hasty escape form Mr. Antolini's house. Christmas is coming, but Holden feels himself sinking. Now he is thinking of going to the west and spending the rest of his life there. He goes to say good-bye to Phoebe, to his dismay, Phoebe insists on going with him. This unexpected act of love jostles him out of his dream and his nightmarish three-day adventure in New York. He goes home, falls ill, and recovers in a psychiatric ward in California. It is there that he recounts his sad story of growing up.The novel mainly depicts Holden's three-day adventure life and his psychological feelings. Holden was tied of modern civilization's hypocrisy and corruption, but he couldn't find life's meanings. He thus became anxious, crazy and despairing. Although he tried to return to nature, at last he had to stay in the real society, learned to adjust him and adapted the society gradually. As an early-maturing youngster, Holden was bitterly aware that modern society provided a poor even barren soil for the youth. It made the ''edger'', who was growing up like him, stopped to step into the future because of fear. In the world made of ''children angels'' and ''adults evils'', to be ''a catcher in the rye'' was his unique meaningful job and his only moral choice. Parents and critics comment on this novel from different views. Some people extolled this book while other people criticized it severely. However with time going by, its place in the American literature was gradually stable and it was paid more attention by the critic circle. III. The Backgrounds of The Catcher in the RyeThe atomic explosion over Hiroshima and Nagasaki claimed the victory of the United Stated over Japan and the end of the Second World War as well. Never had a new historical era so abruptly be fallen American as the cataclysm of atomic bombs on Japanese. The Atomic Age has unmistakably asserted itself and Americans were suddenly brought to face a completely new world in which old rules and guidelines turned out to be helpless. After the war, the United States got even more involved in the international affairs. America's rival with the Soviet Union resulted in the initial of the Cold War. Its mark was the implement of the Truman Doctrine in 1947, the principle of ridiculously supporting anti-Communist regimes with massive aid and the Marshall Plan, the investment of vast sums of money by the United States to help reconstruction of Europe. By 1949, the further hostility and tension procured two military opposing groups: NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Warsaw Pact, an alliance of the nations of Eastern Europe. In 1950, McCarthy, a notorious senator, suggested investigating so-called un-American activities in governmental establishments. Under the pretence of these investigations, the reactionary forces in the U.S. intensified their persecution of communists and progressives. As Truman's containment to East Asia faltered, Korean War broke out. In the 1950s, the ''Beat'' writers, in expression of dissatisfaction with ''official'' American life, were brutally and directly dominant. The so-called ''Beat Generation'', though not expatriate like the Lost Generation, were alienated feeling like the foreigners in their own country. The Second World War brought the United States out from the Great Depression. Business especially in the corporate world seemed to offer the good life (usually in the suburbs) with its real and symbolic marks of successes, horses, cars, televisions and home appliances. After the end of the Second World War, U.S. imperialism utilized its dominant industrial and economic expansion abroad.Jerome David Salinger was born in New York City, on January 1, 1916. He grew up in New Hampshire and later attended three colleges, but got no degree. As early as the age of fifteen he began writing, and published his first short story when he was twenty-one. After service as an infantry sergeant in Europe during World War he wrote more stories, most of which were published in Collier's, Saturday Evening Post, Story and other Journals. In 1951, Salinger published his only full-length novel, The Catcher in the Rye, which propelled him onto the national stage. This book was published at a time when the burgeoning American industrial economy made the nation prosperous and entrenched social rules served as a code of conformity for the younger generation. Many events from Salinger's early life appear in The Catcher in the Rye. For instance, Holden Caufield moves from prep school to prep school, is threatened with military school, and knows an old Colombia student. In the novel such autobiographical details are transplanted into a post-World War II setting. IV. The Thematic Analysis1. Enjoying and adoring abundant goods The Second World War brought the U.S.A out of the Depression and the 1950s provided most Americans with the time to enjoy long, awaited material prosperity. Yet loneliness at the top occupied a dominant theme. Due to the Truman Doctrine and the Cold War and McCarthyism, many innocent persons were charged with ''disloyalty'' and were persecuted at home. People's minds were confused. Holden was fed up with the educational system, because the school taught him to read and study in order to afford ''a goddamn Cadillac some day'' at last. People's cordial feelings were replaced by goods and money and became goods' slave. Holden wanted to die many times although he admitted he was a timid boy. His gifted writer brother D.B. trying to earn money sold his writing ability to cater to Hollywood's vulgar interest. Money and status were People's sole chase. Holden couldn't find any joy and happiness from the society and the adult world. He felt depressed and lonesome and failed to find his path to his ideal life after his three days' loiter. Holden's family was very rich and he studied in a high fee primarily university, so his future should be promising, but he was not happy, because he didn't get things he wanted most, that was the value which he emphasized and treasured such as honesty, sympathy, kindness and the love for people, totally a person was regarded as a ''spiritual animal''. Unfortunately, when he began to enter the adult world, he astonishingly found his ideal was only a beautiful soap bubble. He saw through false display of affection of the headmaster clearly, meanwhile he suffered from the suicide of his unique decent classmate. The only pitiful love in this world is poured into things not ''man''. People treat cars as their treasures. If there were any damages on the car, they will be misery. Car became the core of life for them even study was also to get a Cadillac. Holden had a deep-seated hatred for this naked materialism, because it depressed people's motivation and made people become the goods' appendage. People were lacking in warmth in the modern city which was full of exhausted emotion, ruined morals and money worship.2. Returning to nature and defending children's pure spiritual world Holden was full of strong hatred for the social environment, so he was eager to return to nature. The dirty adult world was extravagant, phony, selfish, corrupted, greedy and unequal, so returning to nature was to seek for beauty of nature, escape from the ugly social world. Holden even wanted to be a deaf and dumb and live somewhere with a brook in cabin, but modern civilization has already covered the most secluded place. As a result, unlike Huck Finn who fled to the simple and romantic country, Holden a twenty century tramp, had to stay in a mental hospital in California to end his roam. William Wordsworth once said ''The child is father of the man'' in his poem ''My heart Leaps up''. Adult's spiritual world was so corrupt that only money and status could maintain their relationship. Holden saw lots of phonies around him and chaos in the society, so he wished to be a ''catcher in the rye''. The experience of his stay in New York made him become the pervasive gloomy, and this relate mostly to children and the thought of innocence. It was really the innocence of children and reminiscences of childhood experiences that had ultimately saved Holden from despair and doom. All kids like him were in danger of losing their innocence, so he would stand on the edge of the cliff and save the naive children from losing their childhood integrity and goodness. As he knew that it was impossible to do, he called himself crazy. The matter Holden concerned was that how people treated their fellow countrymen and the possibilities of comprehension and care among people. As a result, he just found the pure relationship among children, selfless love, sincere happiness and frank dialogue. As an early-maturing youngster, Holden was bitterly aware that modern society provided a poor even barren soil for the youth. It made the ''edger'', who was growing up like him, stop to step into the future because of fear. In the world made of ''children angels'' and ''adults evils'', to be ''a catcher in the rye'' was his unique meaningful job and his only moral choice.3. Holden's psychological journey: escape, struggle, fantasy, and compromise Young Holden Caulfield was expelled from school because of academic records. Afraid to meet his parents earlier than they should expect him, he roamed to stay in New York a few days, so he became slowly aware of the fact that adult's world is a phony one. He called the girl in a hotel, got drunk and felt wear