My Reading Report
08 31, 2008 | Posted in Sth.
2 CommentsReading report of “The Catcher in the Rye”
06 旅游管理5班
赵伊萌
061501075
“the Catcher in the Rye”
By Jerome David Salingar
Little, Brown and Company; 1st LB Books edition
Total 224 P
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The book is very interesting but difficult to understand.My English teacher advised us to read it,because one had better to read it if the person really wants to know more about American Culture Or it also be one of so many books that I like best.This book was judged as the Top 100 long novels from 1923 by “Time” magazine.It meant the book showing so many American intellectuals’ common ideas and views and had important value.
The author of this book is Jerome David Salinger birthed in 1919 at a bussinessman’s home of New York.His life was rich when he was a boy.He began to write and contribute to newspaper office to earn money form his school days.Altough he often writed some passages for money,he had writed many good novel,such as”the Banana Fish’s Day”.”the Catcher in the Rye”is the only one long novel in Salinger’s work.His wirting life once stoped by the Second World War,and he began to be afaird of war and lose hope about life.Maybe writing was the only way for him to vent his angry and disappointment about darkness about society.So people in his book are all have something worng,but they make people to identify with them.It seem to be a magic of Salinger,he often know how to express the endless empty or deep depressed following the middle bourgeoisie in their whole life.
“the Cather in the Rye” has been steeped in controversy since it was banned in America after it's first publication. Many teenager are so crazy about this book that they copy Holden’s behavior ,speaking and wearing after the book be printed.Taking an example,many boys wore raincoat and a red peaked cap as Holden.This novel just more than 100,000 doesn’t only become a trend ,but also one culture sticker of American literature.
The majority of the novel takes place in New York City during war of America. The journey begins just a week before Holden's Christmas break. The whole novel is a flashback of the events that had led up to his time. The flashback begins with Holden leaving the boarding school he had been attending because of lackluster grades. Holden had been sent to boarding school by his parents. The narrator of the novel, Holden Caulfield, finds himself upset with the society in which he lives.Throughout the novel he goes on a journey to find himself. Holden is not mature although he makes attempts to act as if he is mature. Holden can not accept those who value materialistic items and labels them "phonies." In all, Holden is hypocritical and it is perhaps this trait that causes him to self-destruct. In all, Holden is hypocritical and it is perhaps this trait that causes him to self-destruct.
The first major conflict encountered in The Catcher in the Rye is Holden vs.himself. Holden has a hard time dealing with everyday life, and feels that everyone around him is a "phony". This is one of the reasons for his mental breakdown. His own mind working against himself caused him to have internal problems and turn against himself. His internal conflict also led to his seclusion from the outside world. He became introverted and could no longer cope with life.
Another conflict we come across is Holden vs. society. Everyone is a "phony" to him and he never realizes the good in anyone. This is due to Holden's strong opposition to material wealth, which is a dominating characteristic of the society which he could not accept. He can't communicate with anyone and feels that the only person he can even relate to is his sister Phoebe. Holden cannot function as a normal part of society because of his hatred towards all "phonies", which he believes everyone to be.
Holden's instability has derived from various events and personality traits. Early in his life his brother Allie died. This had many negative effects on Holden. He also disliked his parents.He believes they are phonies and that they neglected him. This is because they send him to many different private schools and do not supply him with the love and affection he needs. Holden has either been expelled from or has run away from these schools. This is seen in Pencey where he cannot stand his roommate, Stradlater. His incapability of living in society has led to his admission into a mental institution. It is from this point that Holden narrates the story.
Holden did not want children to grow up because he felt that adults are corrupt. This is seen when Holden tries to print naughty words from the walls of that school, that his sister Phoebe attended. Holden believed that children were innocent because they viewed the world and society without any one-sided views. This leads to Holden's dream to being the catcher in the rye, which relates to a poem where the catcher prevents small children from falling off a cliff.
A 16 year-old boy named Holden is the leading character,and he is a son of a wealthy parents.He is taller than other schoolmates,and different from others in mind and personality.He felt lonely and pain. Holden maybe the most important character in Salinger’s whole life.He is not only a early-mature and rebellion teenager ,but also another young Salinger in his spirt world.Although Holden hate everything around him except his little sister Phoebe.
As the author’s describrtion in book, “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around--nobody big, I mean--except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff--I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.”
That sentence above maybe the most famous part in this novel,and I can not compelety understand it even whole novel at begin.Because I were too little to understand what the novel wants to tell me when I first read it.
In fact,Holden can become a good guy of classical standard,too.He has a handsome face and the brain that better than his face,but he wants to give up these.He don’t care about his studing,talk about young girls at school, revelry until midnight and be fired out from school many times at last.But he also have precious quality in corner of heart.He rebel against the ugly reality, be tired of hypocritical life,hates to see the society,but he can not do anything.He must live in sucn society.So he begin to let him have his own way.
Holden has a very hard time dealing with people that are not known to him. He feels that most people are phonies and finds it hard to open himself up to others. He is very insecure as well as being very immature.He throughout the whole novel, differs from society which results in his rebellious nature.Holden does not have any friends and cannot keep relationships. This is because he finds and exaggerates any negative aspect of all the people he knows or meets. This can be seen when Holden cannot keep his relationship with his girlfriend Sally. Holden also rebels because he feels that all adults are phonies. Holden believes that these phonies are people who try to be something that they are not. Usually the mark of a phony is the desire for material goods. This is because people usually want these possessions in order to impress others and become something they are not. This is why Holden can only connect with his younger sister Phoebe. On the other hand his older brother D.B. is a prime example of a phony. This is because D.B. was a writer, who became a playwright in order to gain more public recognition.
That is a tragedy for Salinger and characters of Salinger’s working.They always do something that they really hate to do originally,when they feel pain but no way to let it off.Holden and teenagers as him have to condemn theirselve while they make mistakes as one please.They choose to avoid the fact ,but they count strong as an honor and deep repel weak.Holden has a kind, protective, child-like nature, but this world makes him to lose his innocence.
“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one。”
Holden,or Salingar,said it,but he wants to go the West to be a “a deaf and mute man” as before.His heart is really pure and compeletly weak,so he feel difficult for him to be fit with the society.I really want to cry for this boy,even for myself, when he begin to fall into depressed and alone.Noone can understand his hopelessness in lies and anger in the four-letter words.He , his experience and his thinking let I remember that I do in the past,no matter something happy or sad.
However, during his psychological battle, life continues on around Holden as it always had been,with the majority of people ignoring the “madman stuff” that is happening to him until it begins to encroach on their well defined social codes.
I just finished the book, sort of feel sorry for Holden. He's escaping from the realities, being "phony" is acturally not a bad thing, that's a skill to survive from thisworld.You may have to be phony if you don't want anyone to be hurted sometimes. It's the reality. Sometimes we have no way except receiveing it.Even he tries to save the children from falling or being phony, but in a long-term, it's kind of destroying their future.How could they survive without being phoniness if no one can really stop someone from growing up?
I believe everyone would have one’s answer.
The so many events of this book are not organized in a mess, and in many situstions Salinger displays his brilliance in the abrest of two events in order to display contradictions and foils. Take an example, at one point he places Holden's account of children right next to his account of actors in order to display the honesty of one versus the falseness of the other. At another, he arrange the inconsideration of Ackley with Holden's own inconsideration, that displaying the hypocrisy of Holden's criticisms.
In the side of grammar,this novel use the first person to reapear everything he went through.It makes the fiction have more friendly.Holden’s statement about past are leading reader more and more catching on Holden’s psychological activity.Let readers to follow Holden to see,to listen,to think and to feel people or everything around him.Author show us a young guy’s complux mind through this kind of visible but unreliable way.
Holden is an “anti-hero” againist usual “hero” in fact.I don’t mean “anti-hero” is bad,it just maybe an unimportant person without clearly goal or working to take everything lightly.But
through “anti-hero”,author’s view can be perfect give his voice to readers.That is important for a writer to make more people to know his sarcasm and dissatisfied of the society.As a guy that be fied out from different schools again and again,Altough Holden is incompatible with society at all,he can be conscious of changing in human nature with high material civilization sharply.He can see the more and more something wrong in people’s relationship,but his inactive attitude makes no effect on what he saw.
Holden is not a perfect man,but he be a symbol of this kind of people who seeking ideal world.
“the Catcher in the Rye”is a book that need be read many times to understand carefully,so I know my report cann’t be good enough .I am so happy to talk about this book and give me some suggestions,please.
人么，不在逆境中爆發，就在逆境中自殺，這就是一個正常人類慢慢變得不正常的開始……
耀彩爺我向上天真誠的祈禱，您好好的去讀博士吧，千萬不要教飯店管理1班啊……兩千字的英文讀書筆記，活生生撞碎了小女子一顆鮮嫩的豆腐心。
