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.
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