Holden Caulfield: A Marginal Player Made by Historical Context

Dorri, Zari

doi:10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.80.1

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International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences

ILSHS Volume 80

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Holden Caulfield: A Marginal Player Made by Historical Context

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Abstract:

Holden Caulfield, the major character in Jerome David Salinger’s most rewarded novel The Catcher in the Rye, long stood as the innovative and leading figure for such distinctive and revolutionary traits in a character he presented in 1959s’ America literary domain. Salinger media-shy and no interview policies led the public to spread out the idea of the author’s being the whole genius behind the sheer novelty of Holden Caulfield character by making a myth out of the author who turns down any kind of publicity and is finally lionized. This student-friendly hero who denigrate respectability and” phoniness” with his cynical attitude and obscene language, in one way or another, is kept being compared to such huge characters like Huckle Berry Finn whose universal popularity is barely deniable; but the question is that, could at any rate, J.D.Salinger be the sole innovator behind this genuineness On the other hand, are there any other social and environmental factors, which came to pave the way for any kinds of Holden to be born and well liked The main purpose of the paper is to answer these questions by a kind of critical theory as New Historicism and survey through the history as a discourse in this method. The results and findings indicate that, apparently, there was a specific social context for the emergence of this novel, with which the author had to interact. By opening up the environmental condition of those days and considering the facts, which affected Holden’s birth and popularity in that era. This essay will point out the fact that criticizing America’s 50s in such aforementioned ambience was inevitably and to some extent predictable.

Info:

Periodical:

International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences (Volume 80)

Pages:

1-6

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.80.1

Citation:

Z. Dorri, "Holden Caulfield: A Marginal Player Made by Historical Context", International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, Vol. 80, pp. 1-6, 2018

Online since:

January 2018

Authors:

Zari Dorri

Keywords:

Ambience, Holden Caulfield, Phoniness, Social Factors, The Catcher in the Rye

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Open Access

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

References:

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