J. D. Salinger is one of the most renowned writers of his time. J. D. Salinger is most known for his controversial in the Catcher in the Rye. Salinger is also known for many of his writings such as Franney and Zooey, Nine Stories, and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters. The summer of 1930 he was voted “The Most Popular Writer”. “Salinger is a beautifully deft, professional who gives us a chance to catch quick, half-amused, half-frightened glimpses of ourselves and our contemporaries, as he confronts us with his brilliant mirror images” (Lomazoff 1).
In the novel, Catcher in the Rye, there is a relationship between the main character, Holden Caulfield, and Salinger. J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye explicitly demonstrates his life and philosophy in relation to his work. Salinger was born January 1, 1919 in New York City. He was the second of two children. He had an older sister named Doris. His parents were Sol and Marie Salinger. His father was Jewish, and his mother was Scotch-Irish. He was raised up in Manhattan during 1920’s and early 1930’s. His parents enrolled him in McBurney Prep School in 1932.
He flunked and his parents sent him to Valley Forge Military Academy, Pennsylvania. Later, after graduating he was drafted into the military and was known for carrying a typewriter around so he could write and publish stories. His perspective on life was molded by his experience in World War II. The main character, Caulfield’s crisis’ in the novel was said to be shaped through frustrations and terrors of the world being at war with itself. In the mid-1940’s Zen Buddhism began to influence Salinger’s life and writings.
Also, in the early 50’s Salinger met frequently met with teenagers while writing Catcher. These influences, and also the fact that he was an “unknown” writer made him free from cliches and slogans that the rest of the world fell prey to. Salinger only seeked independence, growth, and stability in his life. Because Salinger was not a renowned writer, he did not have to worry about meeting expectations or censorship. Salinger would never try to censor himself, and felt that he should not have to.
He frequently speaks of a phony society in which we all live in and in order to be accepted into the adult world, we must become a “phony”. Being a “phony” meaning, adjusting yourself to become what is socially acceptable even though it may not be what you desire to achieve. “His work is a unique phenomenon, important as the voice of a “silent generation” in revolt against a “phony world” and in search of mystical escapes from a deteriorating society rather than “causes” promising political revolution or reform”(French 4).
Many of Salingers views for The Catcher in the Rye come from his intense hatred for hypocrisy. In the novel, Holden Caulfield feels that he must not submit to the phoniness of life, but attain an attitude of tolerance, understanding, and live which will make his life endurable. “From a social economic perspective, The Catcher in the Rye portrays the manners and follies of the rising American Bourgeois class during the past-World War II era of rapid capitalist expansion, and Holden represents a sensitive social critic who reveals the evils of this phony Bourgeois society” (Bennett 4).
After the publishing of Catcher, there was an extensive amount of criticism and harsh analization of his novel. When Salinger became the focus of intense scrutiny and controversy, he wanted to find what Holden described as, “a little cabinright near the woods. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they’d have to write it on a piece of paper”(Salinger 124). Holden is repulsed by the phoniness around him and does not want to communicate with anyone. He feels that conversations with phonies are meaningless and empty.
This relates to the way Salinger is currently living in seclusion from the outside world. Salinger relates to Holden when he says: “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- accept me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy 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 I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all”(Salinger 173).
Salinger identifies with Holden, because the quote represents Holden stopping little kids from falling from innocence and molding into the evil corrupt views the society gives them. In conclusion, J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye has several relationships between his life and philosophy and his novel. In a rare interview Salinger quoted, “My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book, and it was a great relief telling people about it” (Drew 379). Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye will always represent the youth of today’s urge to be what you want to be and not what society tries to mold you into.