英文专业__麦田里的守望者.doc

学号14080702557

毕业论文

题目：麦田里的守望者中霍尔顿的迷失与憧憬

作 者
江英
届 别
2012届
学 院
外国语言文学
专 业
英 语
指导教师
任灏玮
职 称
讲师
完成时间
二O一一年十二月

The Loss and Yearning of Holden
in The Catcher in the Rye
Jiang Ying

A Thesis Submitted
to
College of Foreign Languages & Literature
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Bachelor of Arts
in English Language and Literature

Supervised by
Ms. Ren Haowei

Hunan Institute of Science and Technology
Yueyang, Hunan
December, 2011

Abstract
The Catcher in the Rye enacts the conflicts and confusions of the hero------Holden as he spares no effort to explore a peace and beautiful rye. Though The Catcher in the Rye has been much written about, this final article in the novel series give fresh insight to the character and the experience of Holden and the loss and yearning of Holden Caulfield. Many critics have approached this book with different perspectives，such as society, history, culture and religion. Their critical reviews, however, focus more on the psychological analysis of the hero and the contradiction between people and authority. However，few critics have studied the initiation process of the protagonist and touched on the theme of initiation in the novel. Based on these previous studies，the present thesis is intended to conduct a systematical study of The Catcher in the Rye in how to accommodate oneself to the compete society. The thesis divides into four chapters. Chapter One introduces the perspective adopted in this thesis--the source of Holden's loss and yearning．Chapter Two offers a brief introduction of Holden's way to struggle against the loss and yearning. Chapters Three present a detailed analysis of Holden’s development of loss and yearning. Chapter Four is a summary of the conclusions that we have come to．To sum up, this article told us that one should accommodate himself to live in the society.

Key words: The Catcher in the Rye; Holden; loss; yearning

摘 要

《麦田里的守望者》成功塑造了霍尔顿这一反英雄形象，该书已成为公认的当代美国文学，乃至世界文学的经典。该书的研究者大多借助语言学，心理学等相关理论分析文章。然而，这些分析过多侧重于人物的心理阐述，以及在20世纪50年代社会大背景下反应出来的社会矛盾与现实问题，而淡化了小说主人公霍尔顿从迷失到憧憬这一巨大心理过程中所反应出的成长主题。很少有人从如何调整自己以适应社会潮流的角度来研究霍尔顿的成长过程。在总结前人的研究基础上，本文从如何适应社会这一主题进行分析主人公霍尔顿从迷失到憧憬这一心理过程，全文可分为五个部分：第一部分，是全文的引言部分，简要介绍国内外学者对该书的研究，指出本论文将要探讨的主题，为后文的分析做出铺垫；第二部分主要介绍作者霍尔顿的生活经历和性格特征，从而使后文对霍尔顿从迷失到憧憬，从憧憬到迷失这一巨大心理过程的分析更加透彻易懂；第三部分论述霍尔顿在迷失和憧憬相结合的矛盾心理状态下所作的挣扎；第四部分主要分析霍尔顿由迷失到憧憬，再由憧憬到迷失的心理历程中引出论文主题，即人应该调整自己以适应社会而不是选择逃避；论文的最后一部分即全文的结论，人作为社会活动的主体，应该学会如何适应社会，而不是选择逃避现实。

关键字：《麦田里的守望者》、霍尔顿、迷失、憧憬

Contents

Introduction 1
1 The source of Holden's loss and yearning 2
1. 1 The life experiences of Holden 2
1. 2 The characteristics of Holden 3
2 Holden's way to struggle between loss and yearning 3
2. 1 The struggle against school 3
2. 2 The struggle against New York City 5
3 The development of Holden's loss and yearning 6
3. 1 The transition from yearning to loss 6
3. 2 The transition from loss to yearning 8
Conclusion 12
Works cited 13
Acknowledgments 14

Introduction
The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most spectacular masterpiece in the literature field. It is widely acknowledged that the success of the novel lies not only in the authentic revelation of the inner world of the young generation, but also in the rendering of schoolboy vernacular used by the adolescents in the late 1940s and early 1950s. There appear a throng of people take an interest in it. It is mainly about the protagonist Holden's three days adventure in the street. He is a boy taller than his age peers, always wears rain coat and an old red hunting hat, likes wandering and hates schooling.And he was dismissed from school four times. After experiencing the great change from loss to yearning, he realized that as a human being, it is impossible that one can't isolate from others no matter how serious you are fed up with the world. You have no choice but to adjust to it. So Holden decided to be a catcher in the real world .From loss to yearning, Holden experience the immense development. Finally, he learned to how to accommodate himself to the society to become the catcher in the real world.
This thesis comprises of there parts. Part one mainly portrays the source of Holden's loss and yearning including his life experience and characteristics. Part two expounds the struggle against the school and the society. Then part three presents the transition from loss to yearning. The transition from loss to yearning for Holden is being a catcher in the rye, but have to be a cathcer in the society, not in the rye.

1 The source of Holden's loss and yearning
The famous British poet William Blake stressed there were three stages in man's development: trueness，maturity，insight. It was imperative that parents and teachers must spare no effort to be a helpful guide to lead children to get themselves back, in case they got lost. Holden's bitter experiences and his frustrations were the tests and trials that he had to encounter and go through. He paid every effort to set a sound and harmonious relationship between the internal-Holden himself and the external-the outside society.(3) To sum up, the life experiences and the characteristics of Holden lead to his loss and yearning.
1.1 The life experiences of Holden
Child psychologist holds that adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 are on the stage of personality development. They're eager for their parents' understanding and approval. For Holden, not only the satisfy of material needed, but also the understanding, approval and love from his parents. Nevertheless, many adults can't relate to children. What's more, most of them adopted an air of indifference. Having exhausted the possibility of getting help from Phoebe and Mr.Antolini. Holden was certainly too tired to understand it and almost too tired to listen to.
An unhappy home environment can also affect a child's behaviour, even a child's moral. Facing with the demanding anticipation of his parents, Holden got the axe to express his serious feelings. In this novel, Holden's father hadn't turned up, when he started to packing to leave school, he thought of his mother.
In the cover of the paper, it said：“To my mother.”Holden wanted desperately the love and care from his mother. Fortunately, he was well acquainted with her brother and sister. But it was impossible for them to absorb the yearning of Holden. Obviously, the love from his brother and sister dominated him dramatically. Though he was beginning to withdraw into himself, he didn't want to be apart from his relations. It was the decisive factor that he went back to the society at last.
Holden was kicked out for his serious subjects.“The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has-I'm not kidding.”(4) He looked upon his school. The school Pency always offered the same meal--steak on Saturday in order to show the perfect education facility.
Holden even maintained school had a very good academic rating was because lots of boys got more out of school than that.
The school showed its desperate hypocrisy.“In fact, The Catcher in the Rye is jam packed with indictments against preschool education-its small minded teachers and even small minded students, it's boring classes and conformist atmosphere.”（Sanford 78）
1.2 The characteristic of Holden
In an article on adolescent in American fiction, Carpenter observes,“The quality which makes Holden Caulfield under the skin is that there's a common hatred of hypocricy.”Holden verbalizes his distaste for phoniness and cites concrete examples of cant and hypocrisy of promposity and platitudes.( qtd.in Marcus 1) Holden at Pency Prep where contemporary adult values are mirrored by the school patterns. Holden rejects the school, he is rejected by it.(Maraus 4) Holden was kind-hearted to everyone, both the one he liked and he hated. During his conversation with Mr.Spencer, he sort of admitted that he was a real moron. When Mr.Spencer found excuse for his flunking, Holden wrote the note deliberately the lectures which Mr.Spencer gave were very interesting. And it is all right if he was flunked so that Mr.Spencer wouldn't feel too serious about flunking him. For the significance of their meeting, John C.Unrue summarized it in this way: Their meeting played a important function. It showed the first of several failed attempts by potential adults guided to understand Holden, to gain his confidence and respect, so to gain his trust. Spencer failed for the same reason other adults failed: his anvice was inauthentic, stale, lacking in spontaneity and too far removed from its inspiring essence to resonate with Holden.(Unrue 106)
Holden possessed a flabby personality. When he knew Jean dated with Stradlater, he was afraid Jean would be lured. So he felt like jumping off the washbowl and getting old Stradlater in a half nelson. Stradlater was a very strong guy, Holden was a very weak guy. So Holden was defeated and couldn't restrain Stradlater dated with Jean. But he also thought he was prior than Ackley, so he fought against him, and made his nose was bleeding all over the place. He admitted he was just partly yellow and partly the type that doesn't give much of a damn if some one lose their gloves.
As a result of his flabby individuality, when Holden came to his truth to be a catcher, he sort of started to miss everyone and reach a compromise to the real world. What's more, in any relationship,you have to make compromises if you need to integrate into the world.
Holden was also insightful and had maturity beyond his years. He rejected the pat formula with discerning cogency when he was told that life was a game that one played according to the rules.In his mind,“If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game. But if you get in the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing, no game.”(5) Though he tried to integrated into the world, he couldn't obey the social rules. He said people always think something was true. He didn't give a damn, except that he got bore. Sometimes he acted a lot older than he was,but people never noticed it. And when people thought he still acted like he was only about twelve, he said：“It's partly true,too, but it isn't all true.”(10) As a matter of fact, Holden had a good grasp of moral purity of children. Adults lose their innocence as they grew older, they attained their goals in order to be grandstanding gradually. It also leaded to Holden's rebellion against the phony world. Holden's yearning was created owing to his insightand maturity
2. Holden's way to struggle between loss and yearning
Holden possessed various kinds of characters. Though he was flabby and insightful, he also was a person who would be engaged in a bitter struggle with people to get control of his life. When he was coped with serious difficulties, he showed his rebellion against the world.
2.1 The struggle against school
Holden’s escape from school was the starting point of Holden’s escape. Having been flunked out of school four times, Holden totally found out the essence of school.In Holden’s eyes, modern education was not an education for the sake of enlightenment, but for an assured future. The school didn’t teach what students needed, nor told students to have their belief. Instead of creating sense individuality, such education only created a crowd of students in the same mould. He could envision what his life would be if he applied himself and went to college. In such kind of life, Holden found that he was just an institutionalized person, the same people as other people: having the same kind of life, doing the same kind of thing, and having the same reaction to the same incidents. It was obviously that Holden didn't like this kind of life. So he had the choice to leave the school to struggle against.

2.2 The struggle against New York City
When Holden left school to New York City, the trip was not so exciting to him and just the opposite, it made him witness more ugly faces of the society. And he found that he could not mingle with the people around. He was completely disappointed to this city and this kind of society. So he told Sally that he hated it, he hated everything. He hated living in New York and all. So he wanted to escape from this city and this kind of society to the west to be a deaf-mute person.
Finally, what he decided he would do, he decided he would go away. He decided he would never go home again and he'd never go away to another school again. He decided he'd just see old Phoebe and sort of say good-by to her and all, and give her back her Christmas dough. He wanted to go to the west to be a deaf-mute guy that meant he rejected to keep trying to communicate with others. So he wanted to leave. But he gave up this escape trip in the end because he was reluctant to leave the real world. Though he struggled against the school and the society, he possessed relationships with people around him. What he needed was the adjustment to the society.
3 The development of Holden's loss and yearning
Holden's three day's wandering in New York street reflected his loss in the life in a way. And the initial expression was the rebellion against the real world and to become a catcher in the rye. He possessed a completely different attitude to something around him. Holden had a paradoxical feelings when he got lost, he also began to possess another yearning. Similarly, when he lived in his own yearning, he was always being attacked by the real life, so he had to be lost.To sum up, Holden was always indulge in loss and yearning.
3.1 The transition from yearning to loss
Holden created a beautiful and peace image about the world. To his eyes, people should live together in perfect harmony. However, Holden just found himself confronted by massive opposition. He was depressed and in a confused state of mind. And the transition from yearning to loss only add to Holden's rebellion and confusion.
3.1.1 About war
Holden hated the death and war. “I don't think I could stand it if I had to go to war, you have to stay in the Army so goddam long. That's the whole trouble.”(142)Even what surprise him was that his brother D.B., though, he hated the war so much, and yet he got Holden to read this book A Farewell to Arms last summer. He said it was so terrific. That's what Holden couldn't understand. Though D.B. disliked war with intense hatred, he didn't possess enough ability to struggle.“If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.”(142) However. The“another war”wouldn't come any longer. And Holden didn't get the chance to fight against it. So he had to give up to the re