STYLISTIC FEATURES OF HOLDEN CAULFIELDS LANGUAGE IN THE J.D. SALINGER THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. CENTRAL METAPHOR
Keywords:
metaphor, idealism, to “meet”, “to catch”, dilemma of sexuality, death.Abstract
The novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, is generally perceived as an ordinary story of Holden Caulfield who is expelled from yet another school and spends two days aimlessly wandering through the wintertime New York City. Reading the novel's episodes, characters, setting and figures for symbolic meaning promises better insight, although still some critics simply deny the novel's symbolic value or analyze symbols out of the context of the novel as a whole. In this thesis, I propose that these symbols need to be read in relation to the novel's central symbol of the "catcher in the rye". Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to re-examine the use of symbols and symbolic elements in The Catcher in the Rye in relation to the overall meaning of the novel and especially to the novel's central metaphor. First, it is thus necessary to thoroughly focus on Holden scatcher fantasy and its attributes. Consequently, we need to explore how the symbolic elements are used in order to convey meaning through the conflicts set out by the central metaphor and examine their influence on the pattern of the symbolic structure of the entire novel.
References
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Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. 1951. Boston: Little, Brown, 1991. Print.
Trowbridge, Clinton W. The Symbolic Structure of The Catcher in the Rye. Sewanee Review 74.3 (1966): 681-693. Rpt. in J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Ed. Bloom, Harold. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000. 21-30. Print.
Vanderbilt, Kermit. "Symbolic Resolution in The Catcher in the Rye: The Cap, the Carrousel, and the American West". Western Humanities Review 17 (1963): 271-277. Rpt. in Critical Insights: The Catcher in the Rye. Ed. Joseph Dewey, Pasadena: Salem Press, 2011. 297-305. Print.
