These are from the Herald Sun. I'll post the actual articles, this way after they remove the articles you guys can still view it.
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger-Herald Sun
IN NEW York City, on his way to buy a record for his sister Phoebe, Holden notices a child walking on the kerb.
The boy isn't fully on the footpath nor are his feet touching the road. He is walking a straight line on the threshold of two paths.
Holden is struck at how carefree this boy is as he walks a straight line singing, "If a body catch a body coming through the rye''.
The parents of the boy, "were just walking alone, talking, not paying any attention to their kid'', Holden observes.
This seemingly innocuous image is a reflection of Holden's state. He is on the periphery himself, caught between childhood and adulthood.
For Holden, adulthood is something to be feared because socialisation entails perilous responsibilities, expectations and the loss of innocence.
Further to this, like the little boy obliviously singing away, Holden is momentarily isolated, lonely and vulnerable to the possible dangers of the city.
The Catcher in the Rye operates as an anti-Bildungsroman (a coming-of-age novel), which explains the wry and dismissive opening reference to Charles Dickens' David Copperfield by Holden.
In David Copperfield, the hero has various encounters and experiences that build self-understanding and ultimately evolve into a passage towards adulthood.
These rites of passage entail a kind of "game'' playing that Holden's history teacher (Mr Spencer) tries to explain: "Life's a game that one plays according to the rules.''
Holden views these games dismissively, but his contempt (``game, my ass'') is founded
on a disdain for having to pretend to adhere to various regulations and expectations to
achieve success.
Holden's journey comes with the usual stops - school, parental expectations, adulthood and career. In the novel, though, we see these markers resisted.
The whole idea of the Bildungsroman is that individual identity is shaped with interaction with others through various experiences.
In Dickens' Great Expectations, for example, the young hero is guided through his journey by a wise and decent adult figure. It's no surprise that Holden is on the lookout for this type of adult mentor throughout the novel.
Mr Spencer takes a paternal interest in him but seems to shame and humiliate him. D.B., the older brother, is emotionally remote and Holden feels he is "selling out'' to Hollywood.
His parents are remote and shadowy. Finally, Mr Antolini symbolises the ultimate betrayal of adult nurturing and trust.
What the novel explores is a disoriented and emotionally alienated young man seeking comfort and solace from adult figures around him, but being disappointed at each turn.
For Holden, his contemptuous condescension towards society and its "phoneys'' is twofold.
First, society fails to measure up to his expectations. Mr Spencer's exhortation to play the "game'' and Mr Antolini's belief that education is purely functional in that it will provide Holden with ideas that he can use to "dress'' up his "mind accordingly'', disturb the narrator.
The concept of ideas as garments that someone slips off and on further reinforces Holden's view that society is indeed obsessed with images and appearances.
Second, Holden's disorientation comes from an inexpressible sense of grief and loss. There are references to Holden feeling like "sort of disappearing'', or commenting on how "lonesome'' he feels or how he "almost wished (he) was dead'' and that he "felt like jumping out the window''.
The last comment haunts the whole novel in images of falling and references to suicide, culminating in the Manhattan episode when Holden feels he is in danger of losing himself.
Holden detests change as he clings to the static idealised innocence of childhood. He loves the museum because "everything always stayed right where it was''.
The security and reassurance of such "sameness'' provide a comforting stability against change.
But the museum is unnatural. Life cannot be "frozen'' like the museum exhibits and corruption cannot be erased from human existence like four-letter expletives from walls.
Holden is not only grieving for a lost childhood and railing against a superficial and untrustworthy world. Throughout the novel, he has also been grieving over the death of his brother, Allie. In fact, at times Holden cannot make sense of himself without referring to Allie.
His movie fantasy of being shot in the stomach - "I was concealing the fact that I was a wounded sonuvabitch'' - is more than escapism. It reveals a genuine emotional wound that is the core of Holden's dislocation.
Perpetual innocence is unrealistic and people must be open to the variety of experiences that shape their identity.
Corruption, decay and the inevitability of death are sadly part of the human condition.
Fearful of change and adult responsibility, faced with emotionally mute parents who have not faced the loss of their other son and a world that seems indifferent, artificial and corrupt, we leave Holden on a threshold like the little boy on the kerb who he heard singing as he journeyed on.
Perhaps Holden, too, through his narrative, has sung a melancholy song and this will help him to move on and heal as he recounts "this madman stuff that happened''.
Nick Konstantatos is a writer who also teaches English and literature at Scotch College
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