Essays on Salinger

Synopsis

Franny and Zoey were written as two different stories, the first being a short story about Franny, a college student dissatisfied with the pretentious American society as epitomized by her boyfriend, Lane. He even pretends he does not remember the letter he was just reading before the train arrived. The events of the story take place at a French restaurant where Lane takes Franny during their date, and the conversation that ensues is indicative of just how the two are different. Lane talks incessantly about his school work and assumes that Franny does not understand some of the words ...

Oftentimes in life as a result of complex family situations or events, we experience anxiety and breakdowns. Events in the book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger are powerful examples of this. The experiences in Holden Caulfield’s life lead to academic, social, and mental breakdowns from which he struggles to recover. The events and experiences that Holden goes through cover three days. After being expelled from school he chooses not to go back home to his parents but instead heads to New York to live independently. The challenges that 17 year old Holden faces reflect those ...

One of psychological disorders,s explicitly expressed in Caulfield’s behavioral patterns, is post-traumatic stress disorder or PSTD. It “is a serious, potentially debilitating condition that can occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a life-threatening event” (ADAA 2). In Holden’s case such event was the death of his brother Allie, which appears to be the main trigger of Holden’s psychological performance. Supporting causes may have been James Castle’s death and Mr. Spencer’s illness. The most common symptom for PSTD is constant re-experiencing the trauma by means of “intrusive distressing recollections [and] flashbacks” (ADAA ...

The art of Jerome Salinger and Charles Bukowski, the two famous authors who are best known for their works The Catcher in the Rye and Ham in Rye, seems to draw many parallels between the two authors. Indeed, even the titles of their books are similar to each other, along with the overall theme of their narration. Therefore, it is important to dwell on the works of these two great authors to investigate the influence they might have on each other. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye that was released in 1951 represents the story of a seventeen ...

The short story provides numerous themes through its scripts. There is a theme of loss, disillusion, youth, theme of insecurity, the theme of love, and theme of escape. The story comes from the Nine Stories collection that is subject to narrate basing on the third person. The narrator is unnamed and upon reading the story for the first time, the reader can realize that Salinger may entirely be exploring the theme of escape. The situation of which Eloise is spending most of the time drinking through the entire story while preferring not to avoid dealing with realities of life ...

Many people have experienced a lot of different events that have changed their lives. Everyone has his own unique story that will touch their grandmothers and aunts, which will show the originality of the life of the subject and tell us that that the man lives his life singularly and his life is not similar to the others. I cannot claim that my story stands out from the other in its originality or eccentricity but I am willing to tell about it and say that I am not an especial guy but have something that really influenced my life. “ ...

This paper proposes to delineate the characteristics of Holden Caulfield, the adolescent protagonist hero of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and illuminate the reasons as to why this prototype of brooding adolescence, displaying a rather uber-cool style of disaffection, disenchantment and disillusionment became an indispensable figure of interest, in literary circles as well as popular culture. The paper seeks to take issue with the wider dimensions attached to the ‘incapacitation and debilitation’ Holden is often accused of and address Salinger’s vision behind etching Caulfield precisely the way he is. The paper also wishes to foreground the ...

Introduction

This lesson on the dangers of materiality, madness, isolation and innocence among the people in the society is important because it discourages the children from engaging in such aspects of life. The lesson is important in shaping the moral behavior of the children by discouraging them from involvement in various activities like war and sexual activities. The lesson educates about mental torture relating to war and sexual innuendos are well brought in this story in order to warn the children and members of the society against the negative consequences of war and sexual abuse in life. The impact ...

J. D. Salinger uses the Museum, the Profanity on the Walls, and the Carrousel to express that the loss of innocence is inevitable as the harsh realities of the world are encountered. "I loved that damn museum. I remember you had to go through the Indian Room to get to the auditorium" (Salinger 65; ch. 16). " When I got to the museum, all of a sudden I wouldn't have gone inside for a million bucks. It just didn't appeal to me" (Salinger 66; ch. 16). "The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it ...

Insecurity and Safeguarding Ideal: The Catcher in the Rye

“The Catcher in the Rye”, this inspirational literary work, Jerome David Salinger’s masterpiece, marked the adolescence of many and it continues to fascinate teenagers and adults alike. The adventures of Holden Caulfield, which describe several days in his life, seem to reveal an autobiographic experience, as it vividly describes thoughts, feelings and sensations that could only be felt, not imagined. Salinger’s novel seems a story told to a friend in the dorm, in a sleepless night while secretly sharing cigars, although the smoking is denied within the boys’ dormitory. “Catcher in the Rye” is an expression of the original teenagers, ...

J D Salinger uses The Museum, Profanity on the walls, and the Carousel to express that the loss of innocence is inevitable as the harsh realities of the world are encountered in his novel, ‘The Catcher in the Rye’. The novel, ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ was written by American author Jerome David Salinger in the year 1951. The novel gathered a huge controversy once it was published because of its realistic and explicit portrayal of youth and related issues. Born in a wealthy family, Salinger witnessed all luxuries in his life and he portrays a number of events from his own ...

The minds of assassins generally teem with oddities. For example, Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President William McKinley, was so devoted to his anarchist principles that he refused to talk to anyone whom he perceived to be an authority figure in the aftermath of the assassination. This included his court-appointed attorneys and the judge at his trial, which led to his attorneys attempting to secure a finding of insanity but ended up exasperating the jury, which only required an hour of deliberations to find him guilty of first-degree murder and sentence him to the electric chair. When he finally said ...

Online identity theft

Online identity theft occurs when an unauthorized party acquires personal identifying data about someone such as credit card or bank account information through the internet and uses such information to commit fraud or other criminal activities. Factors that promotes online identity theft can be political, economic, social or technological in nature (Hedayati, 2012). Political factors include instability and civil wars that cause massive illegal immigration to other countries where immigrants steal identities in order to secure employment. Economic factors include unemployment and poverty that force people to engage in criminal acts. Social factors include the uninhibited communication within social ...

J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most well-known, well-regarded and most controversial books in American literature, and for good reason. Salinger’s tale of disaffected teenager Holden Caulfield, and his quest to belong and find his place in a world he thinks is phony, has been a subject of discussion and debate ever since its publication. In many instances, schools and educational organizations have censored or banned the book due to its lascivious content, its unsympathetic main character, and the general amorality of the book’s surface details. To that end, The Catcher in the ...

Identity theft is something that occurs when a person uses another’s personal identity information, as his or her own. This personal information may include one’s name, credit card details, personal bank accounts etc. Using this information, the person who accesses this information can commit fraud and other illegal activity. Today identity theft is a very big problem throughout the world. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), about 9 million Americans experience identity thefts each year. The criminals have plenty of opportunities to use the stolen identity and benefit. For instance the stolen identity may be used to obtain a ...

Symbols appear throughout the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. The main character, Holden Caulfield, is passing through a painful period of growing up. To give a reader a deeper understanding of his emotions and feelings, the author uses symbols. The most significant symbols used in the book were Allie’s baseball glove and Holden’s red hunting cap (Salinger 36).

Allie is a deceased Holden’s brother whose baseball glove reminded Holden about happy days spent with Allie. Holden associated Allie’s glove with untroubled childhood. He kept the glove with written by the Allie’s hand poems, but ...

The ‘catcher in the rye’ is a novel by J D Salinger. The novel carries the novel, themes on teenage rebellion, confusion, alienation and anger. The novel’s main character, Holden Caulfield presents the key themes through his representation in the novel. In the novel, Caulfield narrates his story from a hospital bed. He gets to address the reader on the events that culminated to his breakdown the last December (Salinger 14). Holden gets faced with depression, impulsive spending, nervous breakdown, vulgarity, sexual exploration and other erratic behaviors. Holden candidly narrates his story, which can get associated to the present day ...

An Exploration of the American Dream as it is presented in Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, Updike’s “A &P” and Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” The American Dream is often thought of as a defining national characteristic of the USA. The Dream is most frequently thought and spoken of as the opportunity for financial success and material prosperity, achieved through determination and hard work. The three succeeding short stories show the authors’ critical standpoint towards the American dream. To begin with, Seymour Glass in “A Perfect day for Bananafish”, Sonny in “Sonny’s Blues” and ...

Arthur Benaive (2008) like many concerned modern scientists in the American society consistently criticizes attempts by law markers in covering up the real deal of the drug trade claiming to have begun a “war on drugs.’ The author defines this situation “holy war’ comparing it to ones fought in Islamic nations for the purposes of religious freedom or acknowledgement of God. On the other hand, institutions set up to fight ‘war on drugs’ are actually means to building the business since there are benefits to be gained from sustaining it in the name of God classifying it ‘holy.’ From further ...

Holden Caulfield persistently analyzes his world of personas who are simultaneously tragic and humorous, despicable and admirable, phony and genuine, while his messages, wrapped up in the simplistic, though effective language of a rebellious youth, resound powerfully with the reader. It is through his constant negative criticism of the world around him and the people in it that the reader actually discovers how weird and asocial Holden really is. The passage this essay analyzes is the perfect portrayal of the distorted vision of the world in Holden’s mind. In this teenage Odyssey of his, he finds himself in a ...

Ray Kinsella narrates the story Shoeless Joe (Kinsella, 1999). It’s set in a quiet farm in Iowa, where Kinsella’s support team were his wife as well as his daughter, Karin. Somehow, part of this support group is his father (even though he they were estranged most the novel), Johnny Kinsella, who introduced to him the love he has and was so compelled to write about – baseball. His love for this sport carried him out into such a play on fantasy, and led him to do the things which he did. His feelings and emotions towards the sport were in a ...