Catcher in the Rye's narrative style is meant to embody a stream-of-consciousness. This means that Salinger is depicting Holden's subjective experience, rather than what is literally happening in the plot. Holden's emotional state effects the telling of the story, and so when he is distressed, the plot becomes disjointed as a result.
The overall picture created by The Catcher in the Rye is like a big mural, or montage, or collage, with many unrelated scenes juxtaposed. Salinger deliberately created a confused adolescent hero who is lost—or who has lost something and is trying to find it without knowing what it is. Such a confused hero is bound to create a disjointed story. One of the main scenes in this impressionistic mural or montage is a boy standing in a field of rye wheat and watching children at play in the distant background.
Salinger creates his patchwork effect by using a viewpoint protagonist who has motivation but lacks a goal. Holden's little sister, Phoebe, admonishes him for not having any sense of direction—but Holden is like a forerunner of many adolescent boys today, sailing the seas without a compass; going out with girls he despises; going here, there, and everywhere without any plan or purpose; and wasting his one life as if he had a dozen lives to squander.
No comments:
Post a Comment