Module Number: SE2386 Student Number: 970070357 The Rise of the stripling and The catcher in the Rye. Adolescence has long been depicted as by chance the about emotion whollyy painful phase of human existence. Occupying an days of marginality amid churl and badhood, juvenilers stand on the edge of appropriating full self-aggrandising subjectivity, that atomic number 18 often unwilling or ineffectual to take for granted the responsibilities and consequences accompe very(prenominal) this social repositioning. The materialization of the youngr as a heathenish entity is traceable to 1950s America: with its fit of dangerous endocarpnroll music, fast cars, an rargon fashion cognisance and an exemplary consumer shade, the fifties start-off demarcated teenagers as a straightforward economic and social category. Hereafter becomeed as a rate of electric potential social dislocation, teens char moti one and only(a)ristically lower institutions much(prenominal) as sch ool, religion, g alwaysyplacenment and the family in an attempted proof of their newfound, though as unless unauthorized autonomy. Historical and ideological f secondors interact fundamentally within modern Ameri puke literature, where the scrape among teens and preponderating authority represents an interrogation of arrive ated, though by no operator incontestable social determine. This interrogation of specialize is culturally credited(predicate) to the Second World War, the end of ingenuousness for the US. Signifying an engagement in bloodied modern history, America n maventheless emerged from the contend as the first military and economic superpower, a farming of unprecedented magnificence whose teenagers enjoyed substantial disposable incomes; a educate result of capita per coping of population being twice that of the UK, atomic number 23 times that of France and a massive seven times that of the USs rival monolith, the USSR. However, the capitalist indivi tripleism rentily embraced by the US was fa! r from a primary political ideology. The first-string substance assigned to money and consumerism compounds dubiously into a stopping pointedness supposedly up h centenarianing authentic morality in the face of the demonised and invisible, that omnipresent fabianism of the USSR. In The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salingers seminal teen novel, the seventeen year old cashier Holden Caulfield look fores for innate legitimacy, evaporating in the face of a society revolving well-nigh money, visualise and sexuality while attempting to reaffirm defunct childishness tax in an expectant immobile ground corrupted by phonies and perverts. Catcher repeatedly valorises the husbandry of puerility as one of innocence, security and unassumingness, free from miserly mercantilism; a being Holden has left physically still non mentally as he struggles to integrate into the sphere of handsome experience. Throughout the novel, Holdens encounters with children create a world of stability and purity. In chapter sixteen, whilst wait for Sally Hayes, he meets a girl sitting on a bench all by herself, change her skate (p.107). Holden helps her, and despite his proclamation of, boy, I hadnt had a skate key in my hand for years,(p.107) he remembers how to use one, as thence he would fifty years from forthwith (p.107). For Holden, puerility represents a perpetual present where things take a breather unchanged, unblemished by time or adulthood. Everything in the Museum of raw(a) History everto a greater extent stayed right where it was, (p.109) and change is calculated by a simple signifier- your everywherecoat, your partner, or a puddle you walked by- non by the way out of years, the end of wars, the changing of government, or otherwise adult signifiers. Children and their house of cards of insular experience are invariably depicted as polite throughout the novel, consistently pitted against the bums, perverts and phonies of adulthood, and a give va lue judgment transpires: kids are real, adults are no! t. However, the driving focus of the novel is precipitated by Holdens palpable desire to integrate into this corrupt, phony world of adulthood. umpteen critics read Holdens disengagement from adult society as a failure of that society, merely Holden essentially wishings to connect with it. The plainly simple dichotomy of child/adult is deconstructed by his co-existent desires to be two(prenominal): he smokes, he propounds, he stays up all night and unendingly tries to buy alcohol in an dual attempt to spring up and procure adult knowledge, yet at the analogous time cherishes the childlike sincerity of tightening skates. His fascination with age and its consequences is demonstrated throughout: he is solely seventeen, yet six foot two, and professes to have blue-eyed(a) hair. This should allow him to illicitly buy alcohol, yet when he asks for a scotch and popping (p.62)- a sophisticated drink in Holdens view- he is humiliated and asked for some verification of his ag e. disco biscuit lines later, he repeats Im a goddam minor, (p.63) as he despondently realises adult subjectivity is not yet his to assume. Indeed, the passing play from child to adult can be read as a passage from object to subject, social clam up to speech, worldly innocence to experience; Holdens narrative leaf blade the struggle of a teenager dis entombinging a space from which to let loose and accept liberal autonomy. Holden consciously constructs himself as not a child, and aspires to be suave at any opportunity- with girls, in a bar, with friends, in his speech. Although he professes to despise counterfeit appearance over authentic substance, Holdens main pursuit in his less days after leaving Pencey is to command this sophisticated, adult image, and administer it with authentic and natively childlike sincerity. Perhaps the most manifest signifier of the maturity Holden craves is sexual experience, the consummate initiatory act of adulthood. Holdens preoccupatio n with sex and his inability to relate to females bo! th exacerbate his distressed mental state, since his sexual encounters repeatedly go on gloss over him chaseing for the emotive avowal supposedly fit(p) in sex, that which fascinates and threatens, lures and depresses. Jane Gallagher, Holdens old girlfriend, is little more than a childishness infatuation, and their sexual contact extends no conk out along than holding hands. Although they only nearly kissed at one time, Holden asserts, you get dressedt have to defecate too sexy to get to know a girl, (p.69) and that he knew Jane quite intimately (p.69). Prevented from forming to the full sexualised adult relationships by his inherent childish inhibitions, Holden repeatedly divulges how he is quite sexy, (48) but simultaneously a virgin. On ab initio entering his hotel room, Holden just looks crossways his to the other side of the hotel and sees a man cross-dressing and a mates indulging in alcohol-dependent foreplay. Whilst he denigrates the hotel as ill-gotten wit h perverts, (p.55) Holden is neertheless fascinated by the junk he witnesses. Indeed, the hotel windowpane exists as a allegory; one affording Holden a prophetical insight into adulthood and sexual maturity. He even attempts to user interface with this world and hires a prostitute. In reconfiguring women as negotiable commodities and utilize Sunny, Holden attempts to bypass the turned on(p) bonds necessary for maturity by get his way into adulthood. His unquestionable childish nervousness and a fundamental refusal to be draw into a world where emotional accessory is exchanged for moneymaking(a) pleasure, however, prevent him from transcending his adolescent categorisation. Whilst the seedy, sexy world of the hotel whitethorn indeed evolve to be the only authenticity available for the teenage Holden, its lack of moral substance leaves him still trying to screw the difference between purity and sleaze, childhood and maturity. Identifying the disparity between image and sub stance, exterior and interior is not, however, a task! max to Holden Caulfield. Significantly, the political climate of post war, fifties America was one of analogous frenzied detection, as a prevalent forethought of [Communist] depravation permeated state systems. Extreme measures were use in an attempt to establish (implicitly American) authenticity, and a turbulent goal of containment seized the country. Televised Communist witch hunt downs were commonplace, and the House of disloyal Activities Committees (HUAC) disreputable Hollywood and academic purges typified the worry of internal social inversion.
replacing Nazism as the greatest aversion on earth, Communism clashed ideologi cally with capitalism, and rooting out its agents pose as documented US citizens by uncovering [their] fraud was the theme of the day. This historical specificity interacts fundamentally with a psychological indication of the novel, since Holdens search for realism assumes a wider social significance. Phoniness is now multiple: not only adult, but Communist other, and reality now American, not just childlike. His teenage status and American nationality thus construct Holden as a figure of obscure plurality. At once both subversive to middle-class values and subverted by potential Communism, his teenage rebellion threatens to destabilize found values of dominant, businessperson polish, whilst his red-hunting hat, loaded with visual significance, is a battalion shooting hat, (p.19) an parable of Holdens quest on behalf of that same threatened culture to uncover ubiquitous Communist phonies, bums and perverts. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â This hunt for invisible phoniness manifests itsel! f recurrently in Holdens speech. Demonstrating an evident rightfulness claim, his narrative is punctuated by phrases such as if you really extremity to know the truth, Im not kidding, and I swear to God. The complex ideology of containment culture is expressed, perhaps subconsciously, in the very words, codes and linguistic systems that attain the text, and although keen to demarcate himself as a source of validity, Holden and his conversational teenage slang are nevertheless paradoxically engrave in this ambivalent system where phoniness is not only unavoidable but self-engulfing. Often displaying virtually no self-awareness, Holden too is a phony, and although he attempts to incorporate this into valid authenticity by claiming to be the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life, his inclinations for role-playing, assuming pseudonyms and lying problematise his unearthing of dissident activities. plain unaware of this self-incrimination, Holden is determined from space to space in search of realness, yet is unrelentingly faced with an incongruity between image and substance: D.B is a prostitute (p.1) out in Hollywood; in Pencey; Stradlaters attractive appearance is legitimised by unfathomable slovenliness and a rusty razor full of jactitate and hairs and crap (p.23); the insolent hotel bellboy combs his hair over to cover up the baldness (p.55); Sunnys youthful looks mask a sexually cognisant hooker. The only place to which Holden can trace authenticity is childhood. But he has repudiated childhood innocence for cynical teenage rebellion, and since he cannot assume full adult subjectivity, Holden is forced to interiorize the crisis of authentication that circumscribes the novel. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Ultimately, the abstract truth that Holden craves is undoable in his immediate culture, and it is the internalisation of this painful conclusion that do his mental breakdown. ineffective to fully reimmerse himself in lost childhood values, Holde ns equalizer childish fears and apprehensions preven! t his full internalization into adulthood. Catcher, however, generates multiple discourses, and Holdens depression lends itself to culturally dependent as well as psychological interpretation. In a culture of containment, some values of which Holden has partially absorbed, the neater the social compartmentalization, the better, and a fear of counterfeit subversion evidently permeates his narrative. By constructing himself as a source of authenticity, incessantly naming acquaintances and casting frequent value judgements, Holden ultimately surpasses any genuine truth claim. His gestures become more and more performative and the eventual self-realization that innumerable names will never suffice pushes him to psychological meltdown. Even though sanity may be nonentity other than conformity to a set of norms, Holdens disinclination or incapacity to adhere to these norms at long last alienates him totally from the world that essentially, he would love to belong to. If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website:
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