The Main Motives of the Novel Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The novel “Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger is a true masterpiece of the 19th century, which is still relevant nowadays. Motifs play a very important role in the reader’s un- understanding of any film, poem and even book. Moreover, every text uses this literary device, A motif can be hidden behind anything: an idea, a concept, a color, or even a character. Motips usually have a symbolic meaning and carry certain mood. Their main function is to help to develop and inform the text’s main themes.

In the novel “Catcher in the Rye” the prominent motifs are: loneliness, especially the main character’s, lying, relating to the major theme of the novel, which is phoniness, and connections on different levels with people, which in- cludes intimacy, sexuality and relationships. Firstly, one of the leading motifs is loneliness It is directly connected with the main character of the novel- Holden Caulfied.

Throughout the book it can be observed that Holden is lonely, he actually has chosen by himself to be this way.

It is a way for him to feel secure and to isolate himself from the outer world full of phoniest We can see that sometimes he tries to get out of that state and to find people to communicate with, but when it comes to the communication itself, he actually sabotages the conversation by pushing those people away. A great example of this behaviour is when he went with Sally Hayes on a date and intentionally spoke in a mod manner to her: “ “C’rnon, let’s get outa here,” I said.

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“You give me a royal pain in the ass, if you want to know the truth.” Boy, did she hit the ceiling when I said that. I know I shouldn’t said it, and I probably wouldn‘t’ve ordinarily, but she was depressing the hell out of me”. Another example of Holden trying, but failing a conversation with Carl Luce. Holden was an— annoying Carl with getting too personal: I’Not so loud, for God’s sake, Caulfield. If you can’t manage to keep your voice down, let’s drop the whole-“(page 79). The reason why Holden prefers to be isolated from society is because of this brother’s death.

But Holden needs to face the reality that in the real world, people do talk back and they are unpredictable They challenge Holden and force him to question his senses of self-confidence and self-worth. Holden does make some effort to end his loneliness , but he doesn’t succeed because of feel- ing secure when he is alone and in this way maintaining a certain level of self protection, Secondly, another important motif is lying. Holden is surrounded by phonies. He consid- ers something or someone phony if they are insincere, artificial, shallow, or just faker He thinks that especially adults are full of phoniness, moreover, they are so phony that they can— not see their own phoniness. Even when Holden is explaining the ways of Pencey Prep to his sister Phoebe, his judgments indicate his thoughts about such schools – they are phony places and their main goal is to prepare students to become adequately phony to survive in the adult world: “It was one of the worst schools I ever went to.

It was full of phonies.<rrr> Even the couple of nice teachers on the faculty, they were phonies, too,”. He sees phonies not only at school but also in movies and theatre, especially in the actors that perform there. Holden actually hates them because their performance does not bring him any satisfaction and he thinks that act badly and pretend that they are someone who they really are not in real life Though Holden is constantly pointing out the phoniness in others, he is himself often phony, At various times in the novel, he tells pointless lies, claims to like or agree with state— ments or ideas he hates, goes out with girls he does not like, all to try to feel less lonely or to avoid direct confrontations He even himself confesses that he is a liar: “I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life It’s awful”(page 9)l Ironically, through his lying and deception, Holden proves that he is just as guilty of phoniness as the people he criticizes.

Thirdly, one more prominent motif of The Catcher in the Rye is different encounters with people, such as: types of relationships and intimacy, sexual relationships and fear of them. One type of Holden’s relationships is with his peers. He is friend with people that he does not like, for instance with Ackley: “.,.he had a terrible personality He was also son of a nasty guy, I was not too crazy about him, to tell you the truth” (page 26). The other peer friend that he has is Carl Luce, Holden has the same attitude towards him, as he has towards Ackley. I didn‘t like him too much I think he was pretty surprised to hear from me I once called him a fat-assed phony”. But despite his not being fond of him, he still gives Carl a call for dinner and later has a drink with him. His behaviour indicates that his relationships with such people are only to escape from being lonely. On the contrary, his relationships with some adults are different. He is more sincere and kind with them. For example, he does not let himself to smoke around nuns, so this means that he feels doing so around them and re- spects them.

The reason for this is that they are the first adults that prove him that one can be mature without lying and being a phony, Another aspect of this motif is his longing for inti- macy. The moment Holden runs away from school, he asks everyone he encounters to have a drink with him: Ernest Morrow’s Mother, the taxi cab driver, the girls in Lavander Room. When he goes on a date with Sally, at first everything goes normal, but afterwards he asks her to run away with him and marry him And is not joking, he actually is willing to leave everything and go somewhere with Sally. So, his longing for intimacy is also a way for him to es- cape from being alone. Concerning Holden’s sexuality, he thinks about sex a lot He argues that it is normal for a 16-year-old to do so. His View of sexuality is ironic in a way: “n my mind, I’m probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw”.

Furthermore, Holden is afraid to have sex, even though he wants to: “ I’ve had quite a few opportunities to lose my virginity and all, but I’ve never got around to it yet, Something always happens”. This is also seen when the prostitute arrives, but he just wants to talk with her. Holden makes different excuses in order not to have sexual intercourse: “The thing is, I had an operation very recently.” “Yeah? Where?” “On my wuddayacallitemy clavichord. All of his decisions state that he has a fear of sexuality Concluded that his relationships with his peers is “phony” and with some adults is more sincere, he also craves intimacy with others, but only because he wants to escape from feeling lonely and his attitude towards sex is con- troversial, on the one hand he is interested in having sex, but on the other hand he is afraid or it Generally, the motifs that where stated above appear frequently throughout the novel The Catcher in the Rye.

One of the motifs is loneliness Holden is always trying to reconnect with people, yet he pushes himself further into isolation with his behavior, moreover, he consistently hides from the perception of his mind and does not really know why he is behaving the way he does. The other motif is lying. Holden’s biggest issue is that the people surrounding him are phoniest He criticises them a lot, but does not see that he himself belongs to that type of people, because he does the same things that those people do, And the third motif is rela— tionships, intimacy and sexuality. Those relationships give Holden the opportunity to get out of the state of being lonelyt Even though he seeks for the opportunities to have relationships with people he still and no matter how hard he tries, he always ruins them