No matter how it tries to forget, or hide it, society resembles the so-called teenager: full of petty prejudice, perpetuated with cliques and an incessant need for acceptance and success [5]. Why, then, does society place teens in a separate section, a group both “studied and deplored” as if there were something special to learn from them (Teenage Mystique)? Why does the world beg to differentiate itself from the youthful state it once was--from the youthful generation that it will one day be [4]?
Imagine, for a minute, high school life. Jocks rule the cafeteria. Nerds study in the library. Administration lays down the law. Teachers are the enforcers of academics. Everything is in its place [7]. Society eerily resembles this artificial model: celebrities wield immense social power; former valedictorians still study up on ways to improve the world’s welfare and well-being. Politicians dictate the best ways of living rightfully. Langston Hughes in 1951, before the civil rights acts of the 1960s, realized that there really was not much of a difference between his old, white professor at Columbia, and himself--a young black man from Harlem. The difference between a person who probably does not appreciate all his given constitutional rights, and a young man with and exceeding stretch of mind but more greatly diminished legality -- between a man probably blind to see the future’s potential, and a man who already realizes it [6].
Teenagers live in two worlds: the world they fit in now, and the world they must eventually mold into. When these worlds collide, society screams Armageddon. This hell-fire reaction is wholly unnecessary, especially when considering the artful blending many teenagers use to maintain the youthfulness of their generation when circumstances force them into sticky predicaments normally reserved for “more mature” or “more capable” persons. This is a highly pessimistic view of teens, focusing on only what they are not rather than what they are [2]. What they are is their main strength and distinguishing factor, their forte, and difference [3]. It is their youthful strength. Darnellia Russell: basketball player, high school student, and teenage mother. Even in the face of adversity, she never let go her passion, she kept on playing when the world told her she could not. Her stubborn, youthful pride let her remain strong, let her stay on top.
The world seems to think that teenagers are ill equipped to last in the “real world”, an interesting perspective given the trials the throw at them for the sole purpose of getting them ready. Now, more than ever, teens are pressured with a plethora of problems: they have to get good grades, raise money for college, and immerse themselves in extra curricula, while maintaining some scrap of sanity and a healthy social life. All this to ensure they succeed the previous generation with intelligence and maturity, to enter into power with an understanding of what it means to be a citizen of the world. With all this insurance for a well-read society, the world still believes that teens have no place in the world… yet. They are not capable of anything… yet. They cannot be trusted… yet. Yet, teens think and feel the same as adults, they have the same apprehensions, and they deal with the same grief, as clearly shown in Sylvia Plath’s diary entry and JD Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye. The mythological teenage vagrancy exists only as these apprehensions and grievances (a common theme among the youth of society) intensify with the pressure of the world to fit, or exceed, a certain standard [9]. Teens--from the intense pressures society forces on them--feel the need to break from the structure and rebel: they deplore unnecessary work the same as adults--no more, no less [8].
The worldview on teenagers needs reconstruction. Unfortunately, the world is utterly uncreative. It would be easier for the world to take something society already knows and understands: itself, and reflect it onto the younger generation. After all, the artificial utopia created in the 40s and 50s eerily resembles the “real world”--prejudiced, sectionalized, loving, lusting, striven to excellence, perpetually ill-equipped, forever yearning for more [1]. Whether “established” society embraces its adolescent twin or it continues to cast off the youthful generation as something unfinished [10], the truth will always be certain. The society of teens mimics that of the world in general. Therefore, society must, at least should, have a reverence for these creatures no difference from general society except in that teenagers determine the future, the present generation’s legacy.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
A Bumpy Ride To Nowhere
Odyssey: an epic journey, a hero’s journey, the voyage home. The trials the Trojan hero, Odysseus faces he meets with a quick wit and god-like stature and strength. However, the epic hero, Holden Caulfield, in JD Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye lacks these classical ideals. AS he searches for his god-like strength and focus of mind, he falls struggles and in the end, finds himself no better off for it.
A hero’s journey begins and ends at a place of rest, of safety, of light: the home. Holden starts his journey at his school, Pencey Prep, the place where he has lived, not necessarily his home. Because he slacked off and did not live up to his full potential and because he flunked four out of five of his classes, the school kicked him out. Holden faces trials as he avoids returning to his home. Throughout Holden’s journey, he repeatedly faces the unrealizability of his lofty ideals: the longing for a world free of the corruption of youth. This, obviously, proves itself unfeasible in reality, and Holden must eventually descend into the underworld of his mind and face the truth of his ironically corrupt ideals. His journey’s end, fraught with gray areas and ambiguous lessons, returns him not to his home, but to a state of further confusion and untruth. Through parallels and incongruities to Greek literature and structures, Salinger illuminates the consequences of a search for truth and redemption.
As Salinger begins the narrative of Holden’s journey, he points out a stark difference between the beginnings of the classic “Hero’s Journey” and his own “hero’s” starting point. Though at first he claims that his story starts “the day [Holden] left Pencey Prep,” in reality, “[the administration]” kicked [Holden] out,” (Salinger 2, 4). Holden enters the Hero’s Journey unwillingly; different from his previous claim that he “left” Pencey Prep. Holden made, or circumstances forced him to make, Pencey his place of residence: his home, where every journey begins, where, traditionally, both female and male spirits coincide in harmony and perfect balance. Furthermore, in his so-called “home,” the very nature conflicts with the standard structure. Pencey has only “mold[ed] boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men,” (Salinger 2). The lack of girls to give balance to the testosterone and masculinity of the all-boys school shakes up the foundation for Holden’s journey. As Salinger changes the nature of Holden’s foundation, his start of the journey, he changes the entire course of his journey. Already Holden’s journey drifts from the classic structure that ultimately brings manhood, maturity, and safety.
Salinger, however, realizes that with all these contrasts to the Hero’s Journey those readers may begin to question its relation to that structure at all. To realign Holden’s story with the classical Hero’s journey, Salinger brings in the “call to the journey” through Mr. Spencer, Holden’s History teacher. Spencer challenges Holden to start applying himself more, to look into self-betterment, to start a journey of self-discovery. Salinger also describes the climate at Pencey to be “icy as hell” an interesting choice of words -- perhaps foreshadowing Holden’s imminent descent into the underworld, as the “Journey” mandates for rebirth and reconstruction (Salinger 5). This home lacks the “male power of fire” although it is an all-male school (Symbolism Sheet). With the utilization of conflicting symbols: all male, but no male spirit, the reader comes to realize that Holden has no support, no base off of which he can start his journey. No call from any well-meaning mentor would change the rocky basis from which Holden must jump.
Looking deeper into the place from which Holden begins his journey, the reader witnesses Holden’s interactions with his schoolmates and his trials strengthening him to face and accept the outside world--the underworld. Ackley, his dorm-mate and a slob, comments on Holden’s red hunting hat, a symbol for his quest for truth, and mockingly points out “That’s a deer huntin’ hat,” (Salinger 22). In Greek mythology, King Aleus ordered the baby Telephus, child of Heracles, exposed on the mountain Parthenion and left to die. Just when hope seemed run out, a doe nurtured him and nursed him. The doe protected the youth. The fact that Holden’s red hunting hat hunts deer, nurturing, protective creatures, give the reader first insight to the, desired, outcome of Holden’s journey: protection for the young and weak from exposition and corruption.
When Stradlater comes back to the dorm from his date with Holden’s old friend Jane Gallagher, his beau ideal of innocence and beauty, he seemingly randomly, tries to beat up Stradlater. However, “[Stradlater] really let one go at [him], and the next thing [he] knew [he] was on the goddam floor again” (Salinger 45). Holden had no physical strength; he did not find strength, or wisdom, or power, or Jane. He just got hurt. Stradlater tore his best friend, his image of perfection, away from him and, his mini-quest to get her back, ended in tears rather than triumph. Because he has not the strength of Odysseus, Holden does not bask in the same glory or triumph; his quest fails and his ideology seems unlikely to manifest itself.
Normally, a hero’s journey starts as the hero-to-be leaves home toward the great unknown to face trials that strengthen and transform, and then return home. Salinger indicates that Holden planned to “go home all rested up and feeling swell,” completely jumping over the trials necessary to strengthen the hero before he faces true darkness (Salinger 66). In all classical heroes’ journeys, such as in the Odyssey, the hero-to- be’s ultimate goal is a triumphant return home. He attempts to render himself incapable of fixing himself and finding his answers by tiptoeing around his problems instead of choosing to face them. This tactic proves impracticable and, unlike the true hero,
In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus, through a series of lies and trickery cons the Cyclops out of eating Odysseus and some of his crew after they stole some of his sheep and taunted the one-eyed beast. Although his cleverness would have let him safely by, as his ship sets sail, he shouts to the Cyclops that if anyone asks who blinded him, to say it was Odysseus. This angers the Cyclops who throws a boulder at the departing ship, sending a wave that pushes them closer to their destination. Holden similarly yells as he leaves Pencey, though bloodied, not triumphant, “‘Sleep tight ya morons!’” and promptly falls down the stairs (Salinger 68). Both Odysseus and Holden, by their brash outbursts move closer towards their final destination, but as Holden searches for understanding at somewhere other than Pencey Prep, he stumbles and falls. Holden refuses help and guidance, an integral part of the heroes’ journey. His self-reliance causes his fall. Odysseus’ stubborn pride detains his journey slightly yet he still pushes on. Holden just falls down into unrest and uncertainty. He is no Odysseus.
Finally, Holden leaves his “home” and boards a train towards New York “with the lights on and the windows so black,” so he cannot clearly see the future awaiting him. He meets Mrs. Morrow, the mother of one of Holden’s classmates, and uses his “Suave as hell” moves on her (Salinger 74). For a teenage boy to use such moves on a woman more than twice his age gives a sense of “ew…,” that is, until one realizes Salinger’s purpose for Holden’s inappropriate moves. Any follower of Freud could see Holden has an oedipal complex: he is in competition with his father for the attention of his mother. Not surprisingly, his similarities to the Ancient Greek King who killed his father and slept with his mother end not there.
In Sophocles’ play, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus seeks out the truth about the murder of the previous king. By doing so, he unknowingly seeks his own fate. When Holden “pulled the old peak of [his] hunting hat to the front… [he] couldn’t see a goddam thing,” and says “‘I’m going blind,… Mother hold my hand, why won’t you hold my hand?’” (Salinger 21). His forward facing hunting hat, signifying his forward moving quest, points toward blindness, in darkness, in confusion. His fate parallels greatly the fate of Oedipus. Oedipus descries that it was he himself who killed the late king and married the queen, his mother Jocasta. She kills herself, and Oedipus blinds himself. He searches for her in the dark; his quest blinds him. With the windows so black, Holden cannot see where his journey leads him. Salinger uses this parallel to foreshadow and explain Holden’s bitter end.
After Holden’s shaky start, his journey realigns with the standard outline and he faces trial after trial. However, these trials, far from building him up as the trials of the hero normally do to prepare him for the imminent danger of the final descent into the underworld. They make him sick, weaker. His quest, even if unbeknownst to him, creates greater pain and confusion than when he started.
Through his journey, Holden tries to overcome his problem of clear communication that blocks his realization of a happier, freer life. At the beginning of his “trials,” Holden calls a woman he knows not, and asks her out for drinks, in the middle of the night, but in the end does not make any plans and claims “‘Tonight’s the only time [ he could] make it’” (Salinger 85). Rather than coming out stronger, Salinger puts Holden in a deeper sense of nothingness. He comes out thinking “[he] really fouled that up”; his awkward suffering amassed no gains (Salinger 86).
Salinger’s parallels to Greek mythology elucidate the affects certain events have on his subconscious. At the hotel Holden stays at when first arriving in New York, he hangs around a bar where he meets three women. He dances with one of them. The three young women symbolize the three Eumenides, who, in Greek mythology, tormented the guilty (Encyclopedia Mythica). “The two grools” he did not dance with “nearly had hysterics,” (Salinger 92). Bernice, the girl he danced with, when Holden tried to kiss her on the head, lashed “‘Hey! What’s the idea?’” which Holden did not expect in the slightest (Salinger 93). Because of Salinger’s reference to the tree “witches” of “spirits,” he illuminates the true effect the girls have on him: a punishment for a crime he never committed: the death of his brother. Their affect on him lasts throughout the novel. He continually regresses into his guilt. Guilt sprung from his not saving his brother, the true epitome of perfection. Even as he lets go of the ideal, this imprint of guilt lasts even past the end of his journey.
The Heroes’ Journey mandates that after a certain point, there come a time where the hero cannot turn back, a time where he must face the darkness. Ironically, Holden’s abyss, where he faces his faults and failures, he discovers in his home. Although his apprehensions almost overwhelm him into not returning home, “[he] decided [he’d] try it anyhow,” and “got the hell out of the park, and went home,” (Salinger 203). “[He] felt swell, for a change,” when he arrived home and saw his little sister, Phoebe (Salinger 207). But in his home, a place usually of safety, security, and acceptance, his parents do not welcome him (they are not even there when he first arrives), and his little sister ignores him when she learns of his flunking out of yet another school. As his parents arrive home, perhaps to welcome him, Holden escapes. A stark difference from the classic structure: the home that the hero returns to after he faces trials and fixes his own faults becomes the place where his sister holds up a mirror to his faults “You don’t like anything,” (Salinger 220). However, before Holden can undergo the essential transformation/epiphany that should come with facing these truths, Holden leaves, prolonging his suffering state. And left behind with Phoebe, sits his “truth”-hunting hat.
Thrown backwards into the journey, Holden finds a mentor, a guide in his former English teacher and family friend, Mr. Antolini. Antolini reflects some of Holden as our hero criticizes that “he smokes like a fiend” and he “may get to be an alcoholic if he doesn’t watch his step,” (Salinger 241). Describing more himself than his mentor, Holden slowly, even subconsciously realizes some of his shortcomings. Through not quite to the level needed to re-enter successfully his underworld, Holden begins to strengthen himself for an acceptance and release of his faulty idealism: a desire to prevent the corruption of youth and innocence. This congruence with the hero’s journey just will not do. Salinger must rip him off the beaten path. With the absence of Holden’s hunting hat, Antolini’s wise words, “This fall I think you’re riding towards-… He just keeps falling and falling,” however true and relevant, fall on deaf ears. Holden ironically finds his truth, his weapon in defeating his dragon, his pressures, his fallible ideals, when he tries not to find it: in the absence of his hunting hat. Without following this mentor’s discerning counsel, Holden marches back into his underworld no better off than when he started.
Holden continues his vagrancy as he walks the streets of New York, his mind flying from nuns, to moving to California, to pretending to be mute, and finally landing on Phoebe. The name Phoebe comes from the name Phoebus Apollo, who “epitomized the transition between adolescence and manhood in Greek male society;” no surprise it is she who forces Holden to face his ideals of arresting childhood, preserving it, keeping it frozen in time (Hutchinson Encyclopedia). As his journey comes close to a close, Salinger uses Phoebe as both a realization and a return home. Phoebe runs toward Holden, wearing “[his] crazy hunting hat on -- you could see that hat about ten miles away,” (Salinger 266). The hat “found” the truth. Phoebe is the truth. Phoebe is his home. Holden realizes that although “[he] was sort of afraid [Phoebe would] fall off,” “If they fall off, they fall off,” (Salinger 273, 274). By watching Phoebe, he realizes the truth: he cannot protect youth; eventually the world will get the best of their naivety and corrupt them. That is life. Salinger never wanting the reader to miss, symbolizes this return to actual truth by having Phoebe give Holden back his hat and point out “‘It’s raining. It’s starting to rain,’” (Salinger 274). Holden’s epiphany that he cannot attain his ideals of the preservation of youth becomes apparent through the rain: a symbol of realization of truth and understanding (Symbolism Sheet). But by letting go of Phoebe, the namesake of the God of the Sun, Holden also gives up truth (Hutchinson Encyclopedia). He gives up light; he gives up his home and protection.
Salinger muddles the line between the concrete journey beginning and ending in the home, and Holden’s journey home and meeting his coup de grâce in the same fell blow. As Holden’s protector as the namesake of the sun god, his protector, his life, but also what he needs to discover, as the god of growing up, Phoebe acts as both the home and his underworld. By facing his devil, and accepting its truth, he renders himself incapable of completing his hero’s journey and reach closure (Hutchinson Encyclopedia). The obvious confusion makes Holden admit that “[he doesn’t] know what [he thinks] about it,” (Salinger 277). He cannot even fathom what Salinger set up for him. His journey ends in confusion, in a place of unrest, he cannot return home.
Salinger almost sadistic treatment of his protagonist becomes apparent with an understanding of the reference and parallels to the heroes’ journey. Holden’s action, or rather inaction, provides contrast to the expected classic structure, illumination what he is not, therefore revealing what he becomes. Salinger mixes symbols to keep his protagonist in the air, without closure, without any understanding, to inadequate atonement, putting our helpless hero into an abyss of perpetual confusion and despair.
A hero’s journey begins and ends at a place of rest, of safety, of light: the home. Holden starts his journey at his school, Pencey Prep, the place where he has lived, not necessarily his home. Because he slacked off and did not live up to his full potential and because he flunked four out of five of his classes, the school kicked him out. Holden faces trials as he avoids returning to his home. Throughout Holden’s journey, he repeatedly faces the unrealizability of his lofty ideals: the longing for a world free of the corruption of youth. This, obviously, proves itself unfeasible in reality, and Holden must eventually descend into the underworld of his mind and face the truth of his ironically corrupt ideals. His journey’s end, fraught with gray areas and ambiguous lessons, returns him not to his home, but to a state of further confusion and untruth. Through parallels and incongruities to Greek literature and structures, Salinger illuminates the consequences of a search for truth and redemption.
As Salinger begins the narrative of Holden’s journey, he points out a stark difference between the beginnings of the classic “Hero’s Journey” and his own “hero’s” starting point. Though at first he claims that his story starts “the day [Holden] left Pencey Prep,” in reality, “[the administration]” kicked [Holden] out,” (Salinger 2, 4). Holden enters the Hero’s Journey unwillingly; different from his previous claim that he “left” Pencey Prep. Holden made, or circumstances forced him to make, Pencey his place of residence: his home, where every journey begins, where, traditionally, both female and male spirits coincide in harmony and perfect balance. Furthermore, in his so-called “home,” the very nature conflicts with the standard structure. Pencey has only “mold[ed] boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men,” (Salinger 2). The lack of girls to give balance to the testosterone and masculinity of the all-boys school shakes up the foundation for Holden’s journey. As Salinger changes the nature of Holden’s foundation, his start of the journey, he changes the entire course of his journey. Already Holden’s journey drifts from the classic structure that ultimately brings manhood, maturity, and safety.
Salinger, however, realizes that with all these contrasts to the Hero’s Journey those readers may begin to question its relation to that structure at all. To realign Holden’s story with the classical Hero’s journey, Salinger brings in the “call to the journey” through Mr. Spencer, Holden’s History teacher. Spencer challenges Holden to start applying himself more, to look into self-betterment, to start a journey of self-discovery. Salinger also describes the climate at Pencey to be “icy as hell” an interesting choice of words -- perhaps foreshadowing Holden’s imminent descent into the underworld, as the “Journey” mandates for rebirth and reconstruction (Salinger 5). This home lacks the “male power of fire” although it is an all-male school (Symbolism Sheet). With the utilization of conflicting symbols: all male, but no male spirit, the reader comes to realize that Holden has no support, no base off of which he can start his journey. No call from any well-meaning mentor would change the rocky basis from which Holden must jump.
Looking deeper into the place from which Holden begins his journey, the reader witnesses Holden’s interactions with his schoolmates and his trials strengthening him to face and accept the outside world--the underworld. Ackley, his dorm-mate and a slob, comments on Holden’s red hunting hat, a symbol for his quest for truth, and mockingly points out “That’s a deer huntin’ hat,” (Salinger 22). In Greek mythology, King Aleus ordered the baby Telephus, child of Heracles, exposed on the mountain Parthenion and left to die. Just when hope seemed run out, a doe nurtured him and nursed him. The doe protected the youth. The fact that Holden’s red hunting hat hunts deer, nurturing, protective creatures, give the reader first insight to the, desired, outcome of Holden’s journey: protection for the young and weak from exposition and corruption.
When Stradlater comes back to the dorm from his date with Holden’s old friend Jane Gallagher, his beau ideal of innocence and beauty, he seemingly randomly, tries to beat up Stradlater. However, “[Stradlater] really let one go at [him], and the next thing [he] knew [he] was on the goddam floor again” (Salinger 45). Holden had no physical strength; he did not find strength, or wisdom, or power, or Jane. He just got hurt. Stradlater tore his best friend, his image of perfection, away from him and, his mini-quest to get her back, ended in tears rather than triumph. Because he has not the strength of Odysseus, Holden does not bask in the same glory or triumph; his quest fails and his ideology seems unlikely to manifest itself.
Normally, a hero’s journey starts as the hero-to-be leaves home toward the great unknown to face trials that strengthen and transform, and then return home. Salinger indicates that Holden planned to “go home all rested up and feeling swell,” completely jumping over the trials necessary to strengthen the hero before he faces true darkness (Salinger 66). In all classical heroes’ journeys, such as in the Odyssey, the hero-to- be’s ultimate goal is a triumphant return home. He attempts to render himself incapable of fixing himself and finding his answers by tiptoeing around his problems instead of choosing to face them. This tactic proves impracticable and, unlike the true hero,
In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus, through a series of lies and trickery cons the Cyclops out of eating Odysseus and some of his crew after they stole some of his sheep and taunted the one-eyed beast. Although his cleverness would have let him safely by, as his ship sets sail, he shouts to the Cyclops that if anyone asks who blinded him, to say it was Odysseus. This angers the Cyclops who throws a boulder at the departing ship, sending a wave that pushes them closer to their destination. Holden similarly yells as he leaves Pencey, though bloodied, not triumphant, “‘Sleep tight ya morons!’” and promptly falls down the stairs (Salinger 68). Both Odysseus and Holden, by their brash outbursts move closer towards their final destination, but as Holden searches for understanding at somewhere other than Pencey Prep, he stumbles and falls. Holden refuses help and guidance, an integral part of the heroes’ journey. His self-reliance causes his fall. Odysseus’ stubborn pride detains his journey slightly yet he still pushes on. Holden just falls down into unrest and uncertainty. He is no Odysseus.
Finally, Holden leaves his “home” and boards a train towards New York “with the lights on and the windows so black,” so he cannot clearly see the future awaiting him. He meets Mrs. Morrow, the mother of one of Holden’s classmates, and uses his “Suave as hell” moves on her (Salinger 74). For a teenage boy to use such moves on a woman more than twice his age gives a sense of “ew…,” that is, until one realizes Salinger’s purpose for Holden’s inappropriate moves. Any follower of Freud could see Holden has an oedipal complex: he is in competition with his father for the attention of his mother. Not surprisingly, his similarities to the Ancient Greek King who killed his father and slept with his mother end not there.
In Sophocles’ play, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus seeks out the truth about the murder of the previous king. By doing so, he unknowingly seeks his own fate. When Holden “pulled the old peak of [his] hunting hat to the front… [he] couldn’t see a goddam thing,” and says “‘I’m going blind,… Mother hold my hand, why won’t you hold my hand?’” (Salinger 21). His forward facing hunting hat, signifying his forward moving quest, points toward blindness, in darkness, in confusion. His fate parallels greatly the fate of Oedipus. Oedipus descries that it was he himself who killed the late king and married the queen, his mother Jocasta. She kills herself, and Oedipus blinds himself. He searches for her in the dark; his quest blinds him. With the windows so black, Holden cannot see where his journey leads him. Salinger uses this parallel to foreshadow and explain Holden’s bitter end.
After Holden’s shaky start, his journey realigns with the standard outline and he faces trial after trial. However, these trials, far from building him up as the trials of the hero normally do to prepare him for the imminent danger of the final descent into the underworld. They make him sick, weaker. His quest, even if unbeknownst to him, creates greater pain and confusion than when he started.
Through his journey, Holden tries to overcome his problem of clear communication that blocks his realization of a happier, freer life. At the beginning of his “trials,” Holden calls a woman he knows not, and asks her out for drinks, in the middle of the night, but in the end does not make any plans and claims “‘Tonight’s the only time [ he could] make it’” (Salinger 85). Rather than coming out stronger, Salinger puts Holden in a deeper sense of nothingness. He comes out thinking “[he] really fouled that up”; his awkward suffering amassed no gains (Salinger 86).
Salinger’s parallels to Greek mythology elucidate the affects certain events have on his subconscious. At the hotel Holden stays at when first arriving in New York, he hangs around a bar where he meets three women. He dances with one of them. The three young women symbolize the three Eumenides, who, in Greek mythology, tormented the guilty (Encyclopedia Mythica). “The two grools” he did not dance with “nearly had hysterics,” (Salinger 92). Bernice, the girl he danced with, when Holden tried to kiss her on the head, lashed “‘Hey! What’s the idea?’” which Holden did not expect in the slightest (Salinger 93). Because of Salinger’s reference to the tree “witches” of “spirits,” he illuminates the true effect the girls have on him: a punishment for a crime he never committed: the death of his brother. Their affect on him lasts throughout the novel. He continually regresses into his guilt. Guilt sprung from his not saving his brother, the true epitome of perfection. Even as he lets go of the ideal, this imprint of guilt lasts even past the end of his journey.
The Heroes’ Journey mandates that after a certain point, there come a time where the hero cannot turn back, a time where he must face the darkness. Ironically, Holden’s abyss, where he faces his faults and failures, he discovers in his home. Although his apprehensions almost overwhelm him into not returning home, “[he] decided [he’d] try it anyhow,” and “got the hell out of the park, and went home,” (Salinger 203). “[He] felt swell, for a change,” when he arrived home and saw his little sister, Phoebe (Salinger 207). But in his home, a place usually of safety, security, and acceptance, his parents do not welcome him (they are not even there when he first arrives), and his little sister ignores him when she learns of his flunking out of yet another school. As his parents arrive home, perhaps to welcome him, Holden escapes. A stark difference from the classic structure: the home that the hero returns to after he faces trials and fixes his own faults becomes the place where his sister holds up a mirror to his faults “You don’t like anything,” (Salinger 220). However, before Holden can undergo the essential transformation/epiphany that should come with facing these truths, Holden leaves, prolonging his suffering state. And left behind with Phoebe, sits his “truth”-hunting hat.
Thrown backwards into the journey, Holden finds a mentor, a guide in his former English teacher and family friend, Mr. Antolini. Antolini reflects some of Holden as our hero criticizes that “he smokes like a fiend” and he “may get to be an alcoholic if he doesn’t watch his step,” (Salinger 241). Describing more himself than his mentor, Holden slowly, even subconsciously realizes some of his shortcomings. Through not quite to the level needed to re-enter successfully his underworld, Holden begins to strengthen himself for an acceptance and release of his faulty idealism: a desire to prevent the corruption of youth and innocence. This congruence with the hero’s journey just will not do. Salinger must rip him off the beaten path. With the absence of Holden’s hunting hat, Antolini’s wise words, “This fall I think you’re riding towards-… He just keeps falling and falling,” however true and relevant, fall on deaf ears. Holden ironically finds his truth, his weapon in defeating his dragon, his pressures, his fallible ideals, when he tries not to find it: in the absence of his hunting hat. Without following this mentor’s discerning counsel, Holden marches back into his underworld no better off than when he started.
Holden continues his vagrancy as he walks the streets of New York, his mind flying from nuns, to moving to California, to pretending to be mute, and finally landing on Phoebe. The name Phoebe comes from the name Phoebus Apollo, who “epitomized the transition between adolescence and manhood in Greek male society;” no surprise it is she who forces Holden to face his ideals of arresting childhood, preserving it, keeping it frozen in time (Hutchinson Encyclopedia). As his journey comes close to a close, Salinger uses Phoebe as both a realization and a return home. Phoebe runs toward Holden, wearing “[his] crazy hunting hat on -- you could see that hat about ten miles away,” (Salinger 266). The hat “found” the truth. Phoebe is the truth. Phoebe is his home. Holden realizes that although “[he] was sort of afraid [Phoebe would] fall off,” “If they fall off, they fall off,” (Salinger 273, 274). By watching Phoebe, he realizes the truth: he cannot protect youth; eventually the world will get the best of their naivety and corrupt them. That is life. Salinger never wanting the reader to miss, symbolizes this return to actual truth by having Phoebe give Holden back his hat and point out “‘It’s raining. It’s starting to rain,’” (Salinger 274). Holden’s epiphany that he cannot attain his ideals of the preservation of youth becomes apparent through the rain: a symbol of realization of truth and understanding (Symbolism Sheet). But by letting go of Phoebe, the namesake of the God of the Sun, Holden also gives up truth (Hutchinson Encyclopedia). He gives up light; he gives up his home and protection.
Salinger muddles the line between the concrete journey beginning and ending in the home, and Holden’s journey home and meeting his coup de grâce in the same fell blow. As Holden’s protector as the namesake of the sun god, his protector, his life, but also what he needs to discover, as the god of growing up, Phoebe acts as both the home and his underworld. By facing his devil, and accepting its truth, he renders himself incapable of completing his hero’s journey and reach closure (Hutchinson Encyclopedia). The obvious confusion makes Holden admit that “[he doesn’t] know what [he thinks] about it,” (Salinger 277). He cannot even fathom what Salinger set up for him. His journey ends in confusion, in a place of unrest, he cannot return home.
Salinger almost sadistic treatment of his protagonist becomes apparent with an understanding of the reference and parallels to the heroes’ journey. Holden’s action, or rather inaction, provides contrast to the expected classic structure, illumination what he is not, therefore revealing what he becomes. Salinger mixes symbols to keep his protagonist in the air, without closure, without any understanding, to inadequate atonement, putting our helpless hero into an abyss of perpetual confusion and despair.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Sit. Stay. Play Dead. (My Theme For English 3AP)
Sit. Stay. Roll over. Dogs follow their masters’ commands (usually) and do not complain. But humans are not dogs. Society circa 1950 would have expected Sylvia Plath, a woman, and Langston Hughes, a black man to fill the expected stereotypes of housewife and lowlife, respectively. Their cultures would have expected them to follow their master’s commands. Contrary to society’s “commands,” both Hughes and Plath eloquently express their desires for nonconformity yet normality with stylistic genius in rhythm and sentence structure.
The comma, though seemingly small and unimportant, holds the balance between a girl, ready for her life, and a girl, maybe not as certain. Plath’s use of commas in her journal entry, allows the reader to hear her uncertainty; she does not simply state “I want…to be omniscient,” she pauses, waits, and hesitates: “I want, I think, to be omniscient,” (Plath). That breath gives the reader insight to her desire to be free and overlooking all, but her quiet uncertainty about that freedom. Hughes, in his poem, uses commas also to show his inner thoughts. He communicates his similarity to his instructor, a white, old, college professor, by professing “You are white-/yet part of me, as I am a part of you,” (Hughes). That pause serves as a discovery, an epiphany of his conformity to society, his normality. Though subtle, their breaths reveal the subtlety of their desires: their want to break free society yet, their almost subconscious want for commonality.
With breath, come words. With words comes a rhythm that gives a human voice to writing. Hughes and Plath both realize the power of the perfect word to tell more than its dictionary meaning. Plath and Hughes choose words beginning with the same sound, or alliteration, to illustrate the banality of everyday life. To illuminate the fact that his life differs very little from that of his classmates, he states that he would like for a present “records- Bessie, bop, or Bach,” (Hughes). The obvious rhythm derived from this choice of words gives the impression that his wants do not deviate from that of society, even though he refuses to conform to its wants. Similarly, Plath, applying alliteration, asks for freedom from “the relentless cage of routine and rote.” Her repeated use of the beginning sound “r” mimics her life if conformed to society: the same thing every day, with no hope for change. However, the soothing rhythm comforts the reader. The conflicting mundanity and comfort of the alliteration in both works gives the impression of a conflicted person, one who mocks conformity, yet longs for it.
Hughes and Plath, in addition to alliteration, employ short sentences and phrases to help the reader feel their strong desires to break from society as well as remaining in congruence with society’s mores. Readers tend to have short attention spans, so long, drawn out sentences lose their attention. Both writers therefore use shorter sentences to capture attention and point to important parts in their writing.
Plath, as she faces a new world, a world of adulthood and responsibility, becomes panicked, as she needs to decide “what college? What career? [She is] afraid. [She] feels uncertain. What is best for [her]? What do[es] [she] want? [She] do[es] not know. [She] love[s] freedom,” (Plath). The brevity creates a more pointed attitude toward the subject of her rather uncertain future making the reader uncertain when he reaches “I love freedom.” Out of context, she seems fine with jumping headfirst into life, but with the series of short sentences, Plath creates a feeling of dubiety simply from sentence structure so that “I love freedom” loses its innocence. The reader realizes that she wants freedom, with no choice: in other words, freedom, without freedom.
Hughes use of short sentences, rather than creating a feeling of panic and discontent, utilizes brevity to display his logic plainly to the reader. As he states, “You are white- /yet part of me, as I am a part of you. /That’s American,” simply gives a definition of what he thinks constitutes “American”: a melting pot of people who, although look different, share common societal values (Hughes). This simple ideal displays his want for conformity to society, yet by asserting that Hughes and his older, white professor are equal, he bursts open the box in which society has confined him as only an African-American, as inferior. Only two words and a definition illustrate both his want for conformity, and the fact that in doing so, he has alienated himself from society’s “box.”
From start to finish, both writers thread a motif, to create an overall togetherness in their writing, while breaking free from it in the middle. At seventeen, Plath adores life. In the first paragraph, like a normal, life-loving teenage girl she feels she must “keep and hold the rapture of being seventeen.” At the end, she still feels that her “life is still just beginning. [She is] strong,” (Plath). However, her happy-go-lucky start and finish meet twists and turns in the dark alleys of the middle paragraphs. She admits, “Even now [she] dread[s] the big choices which loom up in [her] life” yet she stays the same, and does not make the choices which would free her from the conformities of society. She instead returns to the safe, comfortable room of optimism. Likewise, Hughes starts out (predictably) with his prompt: “Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you- / Then, it will be true,” but then unexpectedly continues with a poem instead of an essay (Hughes). However, he returns to his prompt to conclude his page with “This is my page for English B,” (Hughes). The nice, neat, normal, expected packaging surrounds his unorthodox middle, symbolizing Hughes' similarities to white society, but his differences as well. The mirrored structure of both pieces symbolizes each writer’s conformity surrounding inner desires to break free from the mold society has given each of them.
Everything from symbolism in the structure of each piece, down to the very breaths dictated by the placement of the comma illustrates both Plath’s and Hughes’ want for freedom from society’s binds but, also their hesitance to break free, completely, from society’s comfortable stability. They want to be freed from the leashes society has them under, but not the dog house that protects them. But, unlike a pet dog, they have a choice to unlock the fence, and just walk out to freedom. They do not have to Sit. Stay. And wait to Play Dead.
The comma, though seemingly small and unimportant, holds the balance between a girl, ready for her life, and a girl, maybe not as certain. Plath’s use of commas in her journal entry, allows the reader to hear her uncertainty; she does not simply state “I want…to be omniscient,” she pauses, waits, and hesitates: “I want, I think, to be omniscient,” (Plath). That breath gives the reader insight to her desire to be free and overlooking all, but her quiet uncertainty about that freedom. Hughes, in his poem, uses commas also to show his inner thoughts. He communicates his similarity to his instructor, a white, old, college professor, by professing “You are white-/yet part of me, as I am a part of you,” (Hughes). That pause serves as a discovery, an epiphany of his conformity to society, his normality. Though subtle, their breaths reveal the subtlety of their desires: their want to break free society yet, their almost subconscious want for commonality.
With breath, come words. With words comes a rhythm that gives a human voice to writing. Hughes and Plath both realize the power of the perfect word to tell more than its dictionary meaning. Plath and Hughes choose words beginning with the same sound, or alliteration, to illustrate the banality of everyday life. To illuminate the fact that his life differs very little from that of his classmates, he states that he would like for a present “records- Bessie, bop, or Bach,” (Hughes). The obvious rhythm derived from this choice of words gives the impression that his wants do not deviate from that of society, even though he refuses to conform to its wants. Similarly, Plath, applying alliteration, asks for freedom from “the relentless cage of routine and rote.” Her repeated use of the beginning sound “r” mimics her life if conformed to society: the same thing every day, with no hope for change. However, the soothing rhythm comforts the reader. The conflicting mundanity and comfort of the alliteration in both works gives the impression of a conflicted person, one who mocks conformity, yet longs for it.
Hughes and Plath, in addition to alliteration, employ short sentences and phrases to help the reader feel their strong desires to break from society as well as remaining in congruence with society’s mores. Readers tend to have short attention spans, so long, drawn out sentences lose their attention. Both writers therefore use shorter sentences to capture attention and point to important parts in their writing.
Plath, as she faces a new world, a world of adulthood and responsibility, becomes panicked, as she needs to decide “what college? What career? [She is] afraid. [She] feels uncertain. What is best for [her]? What do[es] [she] want? [She] do[es] not know. [She] love[s] freedom,” (Plath). The brevity creates a more pointed attitude toward the subject of her rather uncertain future making the reader uncertain when he reaches “I love freedom.” Out of context, she seems fine with jumping headfirst into life, but with the series of short sentences, Plath creates a feeling of dubiety simply from sentence structure so that “I love freedom” loses its innocence. The reader realizes that she wants freedom, with no choice: in other words, freedom, without freedom.
Hughes use of short sentences, rather than creating a feeling of panic and discontent, utilizes brevity to display his logic plainly to the reader. As he states, “You are white- /yet part of me, as I am a part of you. /That’s American,” simply gives a definition of what he thinks constitutes “American”: a melting pot of people who, although look different, share common societal values (Hughes). This simple ideal displays his want for conformity to society, yet by asserting that Hughes and his older, white professor are equal, he bursts open the box in which society has confined him as only an African-American, as inferior. Only two words and a definition illustrate both his want for conformity, and the fact that in doing so, he has alienated himself from society’s “box.”
From start to finish, both writers thread a motif, to create an overall togetherness in their writing, while breaking free from it in the middle. At seventeen, Plath adores life. In the first paragraph, like a normal, life-loving teenage girl she feels she must “keep and hold the rapture of being seventeen.” At the end, she still feels that her “life is still just beginning. [She is] strong,” (Plath). However, her happy-go-lucky start and finish meet twists and turns in the dark alleys of the middle paragraphs. She admits, “Even now [she] dread[s] the big choices which loom up in [her] life” yet she stays the same, and does not make the choices which would free her from the conformities of society. She instead returns to the safe, comfortable room of optimism. Likewise, Hughes starts out (predictably) with his prompt: “Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you- / Then, it will be true,” but then unexpectedly continues with a poem instead of an essay (Hughes). However, he returns to his prompt to conclude his page with “This is my page for English B,” (Hughes). The nice, neat, normal, expected packaging surrounds his unorthodox middle, symbolizing Hughes' similarities to white society, but his differences as well. The mirrored structure of both pieces symbolizes each writer’s conformity surrounding inner desires to break free from the mold society has given each of them.
Everything from symbolism in the structure of each piece, down to the very breaths dictated by the placement of the comma illustrates both Plath’s and Hughes’ want for freedom from society’s binds but, also their hesitance to break free, completely, from society’s comfortable stability. They want to be freed from the leashes society has them under, but not the dog house that protects them. But, unlike a pet dog, they have a choice to unlock the fence, and just walk out to freedom. They do not have to Sit. Stay. And wait to Play Dead.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Past Tense
As Timon, a character in Disney’s The Lion King would say, “’You got to put your past behind you,’” (The Lion King). These wise words spoken by an animated meerkat also ring true in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky’s novel follows the psychological battles of an ex-student, Raskolnikov stricken by poverty, as he struggles with an internal battle of ethics after murdering two women. The characters in this novel display exaggerated aspects of humanity, including regret and longing for redemption or “atonement or compensation for [their] faults” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). All characters have regrets in Dostoevsky’s novel, and most seek redemption. When people hold on to past faults, they forfeit their chance of redemption.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna, by holding on to her lost ideals, loses her chance of redemption. In the first glimpse of Pulcheria’s character, the reader discovers that first impressions stick with her and she very rarely changes her mind about them. When Pulcheria writes about Luzhin, the first impressions of generosity in marrying her daughter, Dunia, far outweigh his “defects of character, for some habits and even certain differences of opinion,” (37). Her attachment to those first intentions reveals Pulcheria’s naivety, and by continuing to hold on to that first impression, she has no way of realizing her fault and therefore cannot compensate for her naivety. This inability to atone for her fault proves that she cannot receive redemption because of her attachment to initial impressions. Even after he proves himself to be a jerk, Luzhin holds some still holds some promise as a suitable candidate for Dunia’s hand in marriage according to Pulcheria. When he writes a letter to the women of the family, requesting a meeting where he may apologize for his rude actions, Pulcheria immediately declares that “‘We must be off, Dunia, we must be off… He will think we are still angry after yesterday,’” and immediately returns to her first impressions of Luzhin’s alleged good intentions and kindness (211). Although Luzhin’s actions do not require any acceptance or forgiveness, Pulcheria still cannot see past his initial good qualities and continually tries to convince others of his good wishes. Pulcheria, as a pushover, in by definition cannot resist attraction or appeal, which she finds in Luzhin’s first offers. Her naïve dependency on past impressions makes her not realize her faults; she therefore loses her chance of redemption. Later, when Pulcheria learns of Raskolnikov’s murders and imminent conviction, rather than worrying and stressing completely over the fact that her son killed someone, she instead reminisces about how he is “‘just as when you were little. You would run like this to me and hug me and kiss me,’” (489). Her comparison of Raskolnikov’s current turmoil to his childhood exemplifies her want for a younger time, a simpler time, and a more naïve time. She clings onto the memory of Raskolnikov’s childhood and does not accept fully that her son has become a murderer. Pulcheria gets so caught up in what he used to be instead of what has become and refuses to see his faults. If she cannot see the major and obvious faults in others, she will not see her own faults and atone for them. Because of this, she forfeits her chance of redemption. Even after he has confessed and been convicted, Pulcheria continues to try to hold on to Raskolnikov’s innocent times. She incessantly and deliriously rambles about how she believes Raskolnikov shall become the greatest man in Russia and once “her restlessness reached an extreme point… She died within a fortnight,” from an intense brain fever (512). Her cling to Raskolnikov’s naivety and innocence causes her delirium and eventually her death. Her worrying and delirium sparked by her semi-conscious realization that Raskolnikov lacked a child’s innocence after his conviction were the causes of her death and lack of redemption. When she died, she lost any possible chance of recovery and ability even to begin to compensate for her worrying and faults. Her long-standing attachment to her past caused Pulcheria’s loss of ability to compensate for her faults all chance of redemption. Pulcheria’s death was the ultimate end to her naïve attachment to innocence and her chance of redemption.
Katerina Ivanovna, by holding on to her real and imagined past, forfeits all chance of redemption. Marmeladov, Katerina’s drunken husband, describes her as always “‘scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, for she’s been used to cleanliness from childhood,’” (17). The way she treats her family evidences her obsession with her past life. She acts horribly to her present family, and completely disregards their comfort when trying to fix them to her past ideals. Until she let's go of her past and accepts her current family as different from what she’s used to, she will not be able to expiate her sins and receive redemption or compensation for her unjustified acts of neuroticism. To further exemplify her impatience with her changing family, when Marmeladov comes home drunk with Raskolnikov, she charges at him with disdain and demands, “‘What’s in your pocket, show me! And your clothes are all different! Where are your clothes? Where is the money! Speak!’” and freaks out at the minor changes in Marmeladov’s appearance. She cannot accept Marmeladov for his currently pathetic appearance and instead concentrates on the changes that have occurred since she last saw him. She concentrates on his previous state rather than trying to fix the new problems arisen from his current state. Her complete blindness to the present and lingering on past problems renders her incapable of atoning for her rash actions in the future. If she does let go of the past and allow herself to accept Marmeladov for himself, she will be able to atone for her own stupid and rash outbursts. However, until then she forfeits all chance of compensation from her own faults. After Marmeladov’s death, Katerina throws a party to “show that she had been brought up ‘in a genteel, she might almost say aristocratic colonel’s family’” however debatable the latter formality may have been (360). Instead of holding a funeral that reflects the life of her late husband, she tries to hold on to her past by attempting to prove her descent from aristocracy. She disregards Marmeladov’s life because she sees it as something that has changed since her ideal former life; consequently, she does not grieve as much as she should following his death. This disregard is simply rude and the delusion of her previously comfortable life blinds her so that she does not see it as such. By holding on to her past and trying to relive it, she does not realize her disrespect and so cannot compensate for her rudeness and redeem herself and her shrewish reputation.
Svidrigailov, in holding on to his failures with Dunia, forfeits his chance of redemption. His first attempt at seducing Dunia fails when she writes a letter that “reproached him with great heat and indignation for the baseness of his behavior in regard to Marfa Petrovna,” (35). Even after this blatant rejection from Dunia, Svidrigailov insists on vying for her love and continues to fail. He continues his adulterous ways as he continually attempts to cheat on his wife with Dunia. By continuing to vie for Dunia’s love, he does not end his evil ways and as a result, cannot compensate for them. Without compensation, by definition there is no redemption, so by continuing his adulterous acts, he forfeits all chance of redemption. Much later in the novel, Svidrigailov confesses that the thought of being with Dunia “‘has haunted [his] dreams,’” and to further prove his ceaseless longing, he speaks endlessly about his lust for Dunia to her brother, Raskolnikov. Only a desperate man would hold on to and continue to dream about a woman who cares nothing for him. His endless desperation for Dunia forces Svidrigailov to think of nothing else and makes him blind to his own desperation. Without realizing his pathetic longing, he can never expiate this fault and (omit) never gain redemption. Once again, Svidrigailov attempts to sway Dunia to love him by promising that “‘[He] will be [her] slave… all [his] life… [he] will wait [with her],’” (469). She rejects him yet again, and instead of moving on with his life and letting it go, he shoots himself. His desperation for a life with Dunia completely overtakes him; since he held on to the smidgen of a chance with her for so long, he decided that dying would be better than a life without her. His choice, based on his pathetic cling to his past faults, makes for the ultimate loss of redemption. Without his life, he cannot compensate for any of his faults and in his death, he cannot be redeemed.
Svidrigailov’s problems with holding on to the past do not end with Dunia; he forfeits his chance of redemption by clinging on to other faults in his past. Svidrigailov seemingly moves on from the past by announcing “‘[he] really [has] a fiancée and it’s been settled,’” but he is “‘fifty and she is not yet sixteen’” alluding to his obsession with Dunia, another comparatively young girl. His hasty engagement shortly after his wife’s death is Svidrigailov’s way of trying to attain what he lost with Dunia. He uses his new fiancée as a replacement of sorts in his mind while he still holds on to Dunia. However, this arrangement does not prove satisfactory and he ends up shooting himself. By trying to hold on to his past with Dunia by his relations with this other girl, Svidrigailov kills himself and winds up dead without atonement for his faults and failures. Shortly before his final attempt with Dunia and after his wife Marfa’s death, he hallucinates that “She has been three times… first on the very day of the funeral, an hour after she was buried,” (274). Even when he does not try to consciously hold on to his past, he holds on to the memory of his wife, as evident in her imagined reappearance after her funeral. His attachment to his late wife proves his guilt for being unfaithful to her and possibly killing her. He has such a strong attachment to his dead wife, that he imagines her presence. Marfa Petrovna’s ghost serves as an almost comforting distraction that keeps him from realizing and atoning for his guilt. He cannot accept his faults and take appropriate measures to compensate for them because his attachment to the past, as evident in his wife’s ghost, causes him to deny any problem in the first place. Because of his intense attachment to his past, he cannot be atoned for his faults or attain redemption.
When people hold on to past or previous failures and ideals they forfeit their chance of compensating for their wrong doings and character flaws. Usually this problem in losing their chance of redemption arises because when the character clings on to his or her past, he or she does not realize that their attachment is folly and is pointless to try to fix. The characters try to pick up what they tripped over in their past instead of jumping over the hurdles that the present throws at them. By looking back, they cannot see the dangers that lie ahead of them. As the dim-witted but warm-hearted warthog Pumbaa says, “You got to put your behind in your past,” and keep your front facing the obstacles ahead and just let the places where you tripped remain distant memories.
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