JDS

Type of Work: novelGenres: coming-of-ageFirst Published: by Little, Brown
and Company on July 16, 1951Setting: 1950s; Agerstown, PennsylvaniaMain
Characters: Holden Caulfield; Phoebe; Allie; D.B.; Mr. AntoliniMajor
Thematic Topics:innocence;death; authenticversus artificial;sexual
confusionMotifs:language; ducks in the pondMajor Symbols:preparatory
schoollife;baseballglove; red huntingcap; Radio City Music Hall; the
carrousel'sgoldring; the coming-of-agegenreThe threemost important
aspects of The Catcher in the Rye:Holden Caulfield is one of the best-loved
fictionalcharacters in Americanliterature. Like anotherpopular
character, Huck Finn, Holden tellshis own story inhis ownwords as if
speaking aloud, and it is Holden's "voice" on the page, rather than the
plot of The Catcher in the Rye, forwhich the novel ismost
remembered.Although The Catcher in the Rye seems like the unedited thoughts
and feelings of anactual teenager, it isnothing of the kind. Actually,
J.D. Salinger was inhis twenties and thirtieswhen he wrote the novel,
which began as a short story andgrew, over many years, into abook length
work of fiction.The novel's main thematicconflict pits theinnocence and
authenticity of childhood, as represented by Holden'ssister Phoebe,
against the phoniness, as Holden sees it, ofmost adults (Mr. Antolini, for
example). Neither a child nor agrownup, Holden resists maturation, a
process he sees ascharacterized by loss rather thangrowth.