海 南 师 范 大 学

外国语学院2011级《美国文学》论文

An?Analysis?of?Holden’s

Character?in?the?Catcher?in?the?Rye

姓 名： 李紫燕 学 号：

专 业： 英语 年 级： 2011级 系 别： 英语系 完成日期： 2014年6月 指导教师： 彭狄

An?Analysis?of?Holden’s

Character?in?the?Catcher?in?the?Rye

Author: Li Ziyan Supervisor: Peng Di

(Foreign Language college, Hainan Normal University, Haikou 571158)

Abstract: ?Holden?Caulfield?is?the?protagonist?of?the?novel?The?Catcher?in?the?Rye,?which?is?the?American?famous?writer?Jerome?David?Salinger’s?novel, who hated the adult hypocrisy world. He wants to escape from the reality but the side of his weakness decides that he is doomed to failure. Different from other novels, the author presents an anti-hero role who is dissatisfied with reality, hating material pursuit and seeking the spiritual realm. As a rebel, he is struggling with the world. Meanwhile he is in deep love with purity of his childhood and innocence of children. More importantly, he defends children’s soul and keeps watch the bright ideal. It?analyzes?further?the?process?of?catching?and?disillusion?of?his?dream,?including?the?immaturity?of?mind,?the?longing?for?understanding?and?the?seeking?without?result.?This paper centers on two major aspects to analyze characters of Holden. One is his rebellious spirit; the other is his consistent pursuit of defending purify and seeking lofty ideal. Through the person Holden, the novel expresses the contradiction between the American material life

and the lack of spiritual life after the Second World War.

Key words: Dream;?Weak; Catching;?Phony?world;?Disillusion; Kindness

对麦田里的守望者的主人公霍尔顿的性格的分析

作者：李紫燕 指导教师：彭狄

（海南师范大学外国语学院，海口，571158)

摘 要：霍尔顿是着名杰出的小说家杰罗姆大卫塞林格写的小说《麦田里德守望者》的主人公。不同于其他的小说，作者刻画了一个对现实不满，鄙视物质的追求而去寻找精神的领域的叛逆的反英雄人物。他厌恶成年人虚伪的世界，他想要逃离这个现实，但由于性格的原因又注定了他是失败的。作者通过霍尔顿这一形象向我们展示了二战后美国青少年一部分生活及物质的丰富于精神匮乏之间的矛盾。而这一矛盾在霍尔顿身上体现的尤为明显。本文从霍尔顿的矛盾性格去分析个性特征中的两大层面。一方面是透析他个性中的反叛性；另一方面是解读他扞卫纯真，守望美好的崇高理想。

关键词：梦想；软弱；捕捉；虚假的世界；幻灭；善良

1. Introduction (一级标题是小三号，加黑，Times New Roman字体)

J.D. Salinger is recognized by many critics and readers as one of the most popular influential American writers after Second World War. He is best known for his only novel the Catcher in the Rye. The protagonist in the novel, Holden become synonymous with the sensitivity of many young Americans.

This is a book about escape. Holden tried to escape from reality when he was expelled from school, but his strength is trivial, so in the end he could not escape the limited world, but to be regard as mental illness people and to be sent to the place of nursing homes to accept the treatment of psychological experts. The end of the novel is the controversial focus of many critics on whether Holden accept the adult world.

（正文是小四号，Times New Roman, 首行缩进4字母 (2个字符)，全文行间距均为1.5倍）

2. Holden’s negative character（二级及以下标题均是4号 Times

New Roman字体，加黑） 2.1 A Rebel against the Family

Although Holden was born in a wealthy family, he never felt proud of his family or had a close relationship with his parents. His family could only provide him money support. So the lack of family love of Holden formed his strange character. He thought that if they knew he had been expelled from school they would kill him. So what Holden could only do was to run away from school in New York street aimlessly.

2.2 A Rebel against the School

Holden is depressed at school, Pencey’s hypocritical teachers and artificial classmates around him casts a heavy below on him, thus he feels being hurt deeply, the pain Holden suffers in school is a cause of his spiritual confusion. Although Pencey is a famous with excellent academic achievement, in Holden’s eyes, it is a school of “phonies and slobs”, and the students are “quite a few guys came from these wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has”. The teachers only pay attention to the good academic records, but never

think of the psychological needs of the youth. Holden can not get love and care that he desires from the education offered by school. The advertisement at Pencey says that since 1888 the school had been molding boys into splendid and clear-thinking young men, but in fact, they didn’t do any molding than other school did. What Holden frequently hears among his classmates is about sex and woman. Lacking understanding from his classmates makes Holden feels painful at school.

2.3 A symbol for the Rebel- Red Hunting Cap

In the novel, the red hunter hat is a typical symbol passing through the entire work. The hunting cap represents Holden’s passive resistance to many unpleasant aspects of life. He buys it when his schoolmates ostracize him and he wears it whenever he wants to retreat from unpleasant happenings. He puts on the hunter hat once again at the time of leaving Pencey. He turns the duck tongue to the back of head. His action on his doesn’t just show his pleasure but his deliberate intention. He always says he likes it that way. As a youth in the transition of grown-up gradually, his achievement unavoidably stresses the self-value so as to manifest the social endorse.

2.4 Holden’s Sensitivity to Phony.

As a typical rebel, Holden is sensitive to all hypocritical people and phony matters. He hates movies more than other. He regard his brother D.B.’s screen play as degeneration, because the movie has congested the baseless and irrational concoctions plot. The characters are all full of prunes and prism. In New York’s barroom, an ole black man named Ernie is always playing the piano. Holden thinks the old man is in low standard when playing the piano. “People always clap for the wrong things. Anyway, when he was finished, and everybody was clapping their heads off, old Ernie turned around on his stool and gave this very phony, humble bow. Like as if he was a hellu va humble guy, besides being a terrific piano player.” (The Catcher in the Rye)

Especially the plot that disgusts protagonist deeply is the scene when he has a date with his girlfriend. When he watches a play with Sally, he smokes cigarettes outside and he sees some audience taking rest outside the field after the first curtain. They just talk something senseless but it sounds that they are interested in it. Holden feels very

sick about this situation. He thinks, “What a deal that was. You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their ears off and taking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they were.” (The Catcher in the Rye)

3. Holden’s positive character.

3.1 Loving Pure Childhood Time

In the novel, the pure world is manifested by some representative personages. The first is his younger brother, Alley, who died many years ago. Holden likes him, not only because of the blood relationship, but also for Alley’s chastity and intelligence. Holden recalls that he sleeps in the garage that very evening when Alley dies. So he insists that he is responsible for his brother’s death. As a result of the extremely sorrowful, he uses the fists to smash the windowpane heavily. When Phoebe asks Holden to say something or somebody he likes, he always thinks of Alley, his lovely younger brother. Obviously, in Holden’s mind, Alley is the pure symbol forever though he has already died.

When it comes to Phoebe, Holden spares no efforts expressing his care for her. He always wants to guard and protect her innocent and artless mind. When he is overwhelmed by the hypocritical people and the society, and even when he is almost despaired with all the things, he slips into Phoebe’s room, he says, just being afraid of having no chance to see her before he dies. Phoebe proposes to go together with him so as to live in the West, he flatly refuses. He hopes Phoebe to maintain a kind of na?ve attitude towards the life.

3.2 A Catcher

Holden wants to be the “catcher”- guardian of innocence and the protector of children. He wants top save innocent children from falling into the abyss of adult corruption. He yearns for philosophical significance in his life- to have a great moral purpose above and beyond practice truths. He wishes to save humanity from the evil of its ways. He wishes children keep their naivety and innocence forever, never growing up and never entering the adult world.

4. Conclusion.