/lit/ - Literature

Holden is the archetype of a teenager - he rebels against the world, he says it's shallow and "phony" (while being a bit phony himself).

Therefore, he became the archetype of a grown-up: he died inside and laid down his arms. Instead, he embraced the phoniness and accepted all that it had to offer, but deep down, the schizophrenia of what he used to be and what he became never left.

He became an investor on Wall Street and changed his name to Patrick Bateman.

>>6069453
>He became an investor on Wall Street and changed his name to Patrick Bateman
I like the idea that Bateman is his son. I think it would even fit time-wise.

>>6069453
He rapes his sister, Phoebe.

>>6069459
How could he have become so successful when he couldn't even pass a high school history class?

>>6069482
cocaine

>>6069480
Noodle

>>6069480
where did this meme came from? i encounter it every now and then

>>6069453

I'd bet that he did what all semi-intelligent and angst-ridden people eventually do: suppressed (or repressed) his critical-mindedness; got a terrible job and an unattractive, petty girlfriend/wife; developed an attitude of passivity and resignation; and went on to lead a very unfulfilled, numbed existence which isn't particularly difficult but offers no stimulation or excitement.

>>6069532
Reread chapters 21 & 22 with full knowledge of his unreliable narrator status and his habit of eliding and misrepresenting.

>>6069546
>according to my headcannon

>>6069453
He has someone kill him in the insane asylum, like Jack Nicholson in OFOTCN

>>6069546
OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO OH GOD NO

>>6069459
I kek'd.

Before Salinger wrote this he thought war would be easy. He thought America was 'good,' and he would waltz in, defeat the bad guys, and liberate the world with American democracy. Nothing prepared him for the limbs that would rip from his friends torsos, the coagulating red blood of his fallen platoon that would stick to his eyeballs, temporarily blinding him; the nights spent shaking and crying after plugging someone's bullet holes with his fingers to prevent the bleeding, only to have the guy die while his fingers were inside his chest.

Salinger didn't just get PTSD when he returned; he had depression and a strong misanthropic outlook. He was traumatised by how such seemingly innocent children could turn into adult monsters that were capable of bayoneting and raping women and children - the proverbial monster inherent in all man. He said, "the sound of a burning child's screams will never leave my ears". He had to integrate back into society when he returned, but couldn't do it. He couldn't sit back and worry about celebrity culture, the charade of politics, or other menial distractions that seemed comparatively trivial to him. So he started writing.

His first piece was about a suicide. This, he said, was expressing his own desire to kill himself, but writing it down was a way of coping, of offloading the horror of memory. He never managed to tackle his disenfranchisement and growing resentment towards society, so he created the ultimate character to express himself; Holden Caulfield.

Holden was the child of innocence, free from the burden of seeing war atrocities, yet possessed the adult view that Salinger had. To the average, popular media-consuming, modern child, Holden's going to appear 'edgy' at a surface glance. But he really shouldn't to someone who understands that he's not supposed to be a normal child, it's not a piece of realism; he's one who carries the emotional baggage of someone who has seen far too much horror and pain, yet has the child-like innocence to not understand where his outlook comes from. He's supposed to encapsulate two extremes, and does so perfectly.

Just here to remind you Holden was sexually abused.

>see when he stays over at his teacher's house
>this kind of stuff happens to me all the time

>>6069459
I find this almost ubiquitous, incredibly shallow interpretation of Holden's character obnoxious as heck. He went through his younger brother dying of leukemia and watched another boy jump out of a window. He has a very obvious fixation with death. How do you lack comprehension skills so completely as to interpret Holden as a generic, angsty teenager and not a damaged child struggling to cope? It's as if you read without feeling.

>The dedication reads "To my mother". At first glance, you might think this is in Salinger's voice but it is intended to be in Holden's. Note that it isn't "To my parents" .
>on the first page, Holden notes that his childhood was "lousy" and that his parents would have 2 hemorrhages if he were to explain in detail. Child abuse victims often feel the pressure to keep up appearances for their abusers' sake.
>he continues "They're quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father."
>Holden begins his story at military private school, but one has to ask why he's there. His father deliberately sent him away to live at a boarding school so that he would not be reminded of his shame when he sees him at home.
>Holden is perpetually in a state of observation. He does this to create distance between himself and those who could get close to him. From watching football game from on the hill to the last scene where he watches Phoebe on the carousel, he is a watcher- not a participant. At one point he thinks to pretend to be a deaf mute to avoid interaction.
>Another salient feature of his is his sexual impotence. This is due to being molested as he is unable to reconcile his experience as a victim with what sexual maturation means for a teenage boy- becoming the aggressor or penetrator.
>There is ample symbolism to display his impotence: he loses the fencing equipment (swords) on the subway, he turns his hunting cap backwards (forwards = being a Hunter, backwards= being prey), and most obviously he declines sex with a prostitute in favor of talking.
>Holden has lost faith in the major patriarchical figure in his life that is meant to provide security and as a result has lost faith in both the natural order and humanity as a whole. In the cab, he ponders what happens to fish and ducks in the Winter. This is because he doesn't trust nature to take care of them (which it does, fish survive under frozen water, ducks migrate to warmer climates). He later notes that he's happy for the atomic bomb and that he'd gladly volunteer to sit on top of the next one they drop.
>Perhaps what's most supportive to this theory is Holden's misinterpretation of the song lyrics "If a body catch a body coming through the rye". He wants the lyrics to mean stopping children from running off a cliff (this can be interpreted as stopping other children from the fate he suffered.)
>Holden likes the museum because nothing changes there. This is because he has a negative connotation with change.
>The last scene is meant to display that Holden accepts he cannot stop Phoebe's sexual maturation. Phoebe riding on a horse on the carousel is meant to be analogous to a woman engaging in sexual intercourse with a man- eventually she will get off the horse and get on a different horse.

>>6069573
No you faggot, he only thought the teacher was coming onto him because he himself is in the closet and started projecting.

See, why he didn't just fuck the hooker.

>>6069453
notthepoint.png

>>6069573
No he wasn't. He was distrustful of sex in general because he was afraid of maturing and entering adulthood.

Let me ask you, who raped Holden? His father?

>>6069553
>In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They’re quitee touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They’re nice and all - I’m not saying that - but they’re also touchy as hell. Besides, I’m not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything.

Touchy much? Get your fucking hands off me.

>>6069584
no.

This "theory" completely undermines the beauty of Catcher in the Rye. All that you mentioned are evidence for the main themes of the novel, not that Holden was raped by his father.

If you really think this, then you might as well as throw the book out the fucking window, because you didn't understand the purpose of it nor did you understand its major messages.

>>6069480
HOLY SHIT


THERE WAS A PART WHERE HE PINCHES HER NAKED ASS BECAUSE IT WAS "STICKING OUT AND IN THE BREEZE" AND beCAUSE HE JUST WANTED TO

>>6069480
>>6069546
>>6069560
>>6069609
Fuck off with this shit.

>>6069584

His name is literally 'hold in'
The entire book is a sad and beautiful love letter to victims of sexual abuse

Nothing smart is ever written about this book in this forum.

>>6069602
You can't read. I suggest you retreat into a STEM degree or become a high school English teacher.

>>6069584
I thought the carousel was symbolic of childhood innocence, not sexual maturation.

>>6069653
it was.

Ignore him.

>>6069615
Don't cry out loud. Just keep it in side. And learn how to hide your feelings.

>>6069653
Symbols are liminal, just like labia.

>>6069662

haha kids getting raped is funny

>>6069669
What's worse than Mr Caulfield raping DB, Holden, Allie and Phoebe?, DB leaving Holden, Allie and Phoebe unprotected from their rapist, Allie having a hemmorhage from rape, and Holden raping Phoebe?

Salinger's war experience you unsympathetic cretin.

It always bothered me that he never fucking talked to Jane Gallagher

>>6069679

>thinks salinger's PTSD wasn't funneled into a deep and ugly look at his childhood and sexuality that led to the creation of buddy glass and Holden as careful manifestations of unspeakable and unnameable horrors about family and sex and mental illness

>>6069688
His funnelling failed. He never wrote the rapists' book.

>>6069680
>all of a sudden this booze hound her mother was married to came out on the porch and asked Jane if there were any cigarettes in the house. I didn't know him too well or anything, but he looked like the kind of guy that wouldn't talk to you much unless he wanted something off you. He had a lousy personality. Anyway, old Jane wouldn't answer him when he asked her if she knew where there was any cigarettes. So the guy asked her again, but she still wouldn't answer him. She didn't even look up from the game. Finally the guy went inside the house. When he did, I asked Jane what the hell was going on. She wouldn't even answer me, then. She made out like she was concentrating on her next move in the game and all. Then all of a sudden, this tear plopped down on the checkerboard. On one of the red squares—boy, I can still see it. She just rubbed it into the board with her finger.

Jane's moved on from her abuse. Holden hasn't.

>>6069453
He probably ended up killing himself later on in life.

>>6069711
Women get used to it.

>>6069482
He didn't pass because he wasn't smart. He didn't pass because he was depressed, uninterested, and didn't see the point due to his mental instability.

>>6069727
That's because all sex with women is rape.

Damn I love being a man.

Feminist theory actualised my rape fetish.

>>6069731

fuck off

>>6069731
Classic 4chan /pol/tard virgin speak

>>6069731
Yes, there is a reason rape is the number one fantasy amongst women.

>>6069736
>Speaks openly against feminism or women
>virgin
Never gets old.

>>6069736
>feminists again shaming women for their sexual habits
>literally do the same thing to men by calling them virgins whenever they are challenged
I'm not condoning what that guy said,
but calling people virgins is so fucking passe.
Grow up

>>6069760

Kill yourself
Look around and remember what website you're on

You have to be cold as steel and pure as ice to make it on the chans, kid. This isn't reddit, we are not your blog. Remember.

>>6069791
This is so embarrassing

>>6069791
This isn't /b/ you idiot. If you want to mirror their ethics go there. Usually there is intelligent discourse that takes place here.

>>6069743
Friend, I was speaking for feminism. It recapitulates patriarchy by authorising me to be the bad man, because #notallmen. Realising the dialectical role feminism plays in late capitalism's ideology of gender made me comfortable performing gender dominance.

>>6069859
>intelligent discourse
>on /lit/
Nah.

>>6069791
>You have to be cold as steel and pure as ice
*tips Fedora*
*my MRA badge falls off, oh no*

>>6069728
yeah right, just like u im sure

We got married.

Didn't it imply he was going to kill himself in the asylum?

>>6070378
No? Where was that implied?

>>6069653
I agree. He sees phoebe, his child sister, riding on the carousel and for the first time after years of being trapped in his adult consciousness he experiences the pure feelings of being a child again. While he watches phoebe ride he is relieved of all of his pressures from his past. It has nothing to do with sex.

I agree with pretty much everything else that guy posted though. Sure, Holden is an angsty teen. But there has to be a reason why his angsty-ness sticks with him for so long, and so harshly in his life. There usually is for us who can relate to holden (although it doesnt always have to be sexual). And the book is filled with suggestions that he was sexually abused.

he goes to war and becomes j d salinger

I'd like to think that he learns to enjoy life for how he makes it for himself, and not focusing on people even more depressed and angry than him.

>>6070155
its people like that you that ruin this board

>>6071393
Hard to do when he's permanently sectioned.

Here's a clue: DB is Holden.

>>6071725
Here's a clue: no he fucking isn't

>>6069592
buddy glass

>>6071725
>permanently sectioned

He is the child of a wealthy New York family for whom attending elite northeastern boarding schools is such a casual matter of fact that he senses nothing lost in abandoning his integrative path laid there into the financial and social power structure of the region on a growing cynical whim, because nothing is in fact lost for him; his integration has been assured since birth and in so having been allows him the cultivation of a deep hypocrisy in judging the system which supports him, and the systems which support that system in turn, a sort which could only be cultivated from the permissive liberties of judgment granted one who needn't seek approval from such a system for survival but who operates the system and is looked after by it regardless. In short he is a brat, perceptive and ungrateful simultaneously, and one for whom accommodations are made, for whom delicate hospitalizations are cultivated to contextualize and palliate his behavior to others.

He is not anything as victimized or endearing as "sectioned" nor is he anything as convicted as "chastised;" he is excused and unrepentant, and he is being excused for that as well.

What becomes of Holden? He becomes the body caught by the catcher in the rye, and ends up thinking he did the catching. And no one really cares to correct him or even perceives a correction being needed. At some point he probably wrote "fuck you" in a public space, all the while perceiving himself to be simultaneously the aggrieved victim of the fuck youers and the champion of the aggrieved fuck youing.

Holden joins the army according to Ocean Full of Bowlingballs.

>>6069487

underrated post

>>6069453
His BPD exacerbates
becomes a compulsive mastorbator
His mum's liver turns to stone from years of prescription drug abuse
then he gets heaps fat and shoots john lennon

>>6069453
i guess he would either die in the vietnam war or live an ordinary silent single life, dying at 72 or something.

>>6069565
No shit?
That's pretty illuminating.
>His first piece was about a suicide.
You talking bout bananafish?
That was his first piece?

>>6073029
First piece after the war. That's a copypasta by the way. There's a lot of interesting copypastas about Salinger on /lit/, the book seems to hit close to home for a few of us.

>>6073070
>That's a copypasta by the way
Oh. Well, is it less true than any other guess about Salinger and his life and his oeuvre?
Looks like it just connects the dots tbf.

I never really understood his pedo teacher's big speech, I don't understand how it fits into the book and why was he coming on to Holden, what did that mean? Was he really coming onto Holden or is that just Holden being fucked

That was to demonstrate Holden's inability to trust adults. The point is that Holden sees adult life and human interaction as shallow and fake and he doesn't get to be happy until he lets someone in, ie his sister

became a junkie. they found his body in the hudson. was only 27.

>>6073422
If I recall correctly, I think he was trying to tell Holden that he was not alone, and that if he looked closely many people have the feelings that Holden did. He was trying to warn Holden that if he continued looking at the world the way he did, he was going to fall, but that it was not too late to get off that path. But Holden was super tired and didn't really register what the teacher was saying.

I think when he was watching and petting Holden (lol), it was more for nostalgia's sake than sexual desire. He was drunk and probably didn't realize how creepy it would be, but I really do believe he wasn't thinking of Holden that way and he was just appreciating Holden's innocence... Even that sounds weird, but I don't know how to word it correctly.

>>6069731
>>6069737

literal virgins

rape fetishes aren't uncommon (for men and women), but if you think they're the number one fantasy you defnitely havent left the basement in years.

>>6075367
The number one fantasy is mutually orgasmic consensual heterosexual sex in the missionary position for the purposes of pro-creation as an immediate result of marriage.

The impossibility of this fantasy destroys most people.

The one fantasy most common that people actualise through roleplay (even unconscious roleplay) is rape.

>>6075375

>The number one fantasy is mutually orgasmic consensual heterosexual sex in the missionary position for the purposes of pro-creation as an immediate result of marriage.

source(s)? we're not living in the 20th century anymore, friend

>The impossibility of this fantasy destroys most people.

destroys? atomic bombs 'destroy' people (even tough annihilate would fit better).. semi-automatic weapons 'destroy' people. a 12 gauge shotgun 'destroys' people. the impossibility of a fantasy does not 'destroy' people, it makes them depressed if even..

>The one fantasy most common that people actualise through roleplay (even unconscious roleplay) is rape.

source(s)? I actually agree with you that most people doing rape-y roleplay are unaware of it, but can you prove rape is more common than say sex in public, sex while being watched, bondage, etc.

the number one fantasy (that is almost never consciously actualised) is probably cheating on your partner, by imagining him/her as a stranger, number two would probably be 'dirty sex' which really boils down to being punishment from an authorative figure (a teacher, a policeman, a prison warden...). no empirical evidence for this, just speculating.

>>6075403
>source(s)? we're not living in the 20th century anymore, friend
Women's magazines, 30 Rock, the negative image of Shades of Grey.

>the impossibility of a fantasy does not 'destroy' people, it makes them depressed

People aren't bodies, friend.

>source(s)?
Butler + Dworkins. Enjoy!

>can you prove rape is more common than sex in public

Overwhelmingly most sex is heterosexual. All heterosexual sex is rape. Not all non-heterosexual sex is in public. All public heterosexual sex is heterosexual sex.

Therefore, in relation to all fetishes listed, people engaging in those fetishes are also engaging in rape play.

>cheating on your partner
If its heterosexual, it is definitionally rape, and there are forms of heterosexual sex which are not cheating fantasies, qed.

Why was this a counter culture/hippie book?

>>6075413

>Women's magazines, 30 Rock, the negative image of Shades of Grey.

chuckled

>All heterosexual sex is rape.

did this meem originate on the pols? really funny haha!

>>6075462
Misinterpretation. I mean, Holden fantasized about leaving structured society a lot and he asked that girl to go live with him innawoods. I think it is fine and dandy if people want to live off the grid and away from the system, but I don't think they understand that Holden's fantasies in particular are really unhealthy and not inspiring at all.

>>6075463
>did this meem originate on the pols? really funny haha!
It originated in radical feminism, and it is technically correct, the best kind of correct.

>>6069453
I think he became Travis Bickle

>>6075485
Yeah, I thought the main idea of the book was that Holden was a misguided kid, no? I always fantasize of running off to alaska or something cliche like that but I wouldn't use Holden as my model.

>>6075413
>all hetrosexual sex is rape
Seems reasonable.

>>6075493
>radical feminism
>correct

>>6075505
Exactly. Me too. I think there are people who probably do manage to be self-sufficient and can live happily with a solitary, remote lifestyle, but they probably had a very good and rational vision beforehand. Holden, however, only thought about those things because he was really sad and desperately wanted a way to get out of facing the bad in the world.

>>6070164
Let him have his fantasies if they comfort him, anon