In the natural world, weather is unpredictable and can strike at any moment. However, in literature the author has the power to decide when a storm will hit. As explained in Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, the author always has a purpose behind a weather occurrence. Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger has instances of snow and rain that undoubtedly serve a deeper meaning than just drenching the protagonist. The instances of snow and rain in Catcher in the Rye bear symbolic representation of struggle, which ultimately leads to a cleanse. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, has been kicked out of Pencey Preparatory High School, and on the night that he decides to leave it has snowed. Snow is often described as “blanketing” the ground, which in Holden’s situation is representative of symbolically restricting his actions. He has yet again been kicked out of a school and feels as if there is no right move to make in succession. “The snow was very good for packing. I didn’t throw it at anything, though. I started to throw it. At a car that was parked across the street. But I changed my mind. The car looked so nice and white. Then I started to throw it at a hydrant, but that looked too nice and white, too” (Salinger 47). Not only does the snow represent Holden’s paralyzation, it is also symbolic of his purity. The snow is clean and white, which can constitute as pure, and consequently Holden does not want to destroy the untainted snow. He is at a point
One major metaphor that he used was the location of part of the novel. When Holden travelled to New York City he found a city constantly gaining experiences and was forever changing. This city was in big comparison to Holden himself. Every event Holden traveled to became an addition to his view of adulthood and what he did or did not appreciate about those occurrences. His struggles with his sexuality really lies in this metaphor as Holden experiences great troubles with it just as New York struggles with its differences. Another metaphor also plays through his red hunting hat. Holden knows that the hat is sort of quirky and is different than most hats (page 17), but he chooses to wear it and not change based on others opinions. Salinger therefore shows Holden’s inability to fit into the crowd as he is different and quirky similar to his
Foster points out that the weather plays a critical role in a work of literature. Whether it be for plot development or for a democratic reason, rain, snow, or fog plays a significant role in literature. In general, rain can bring about enlightenment and restoration, and snow can bring abstract thought. What an author does with rain, snow, or fog in the novel can signify a change in character or parallel the atmosphere or what is happening in the novel. For much of A Thousand Splendid Suns, the characters must withstand a drought.
Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like A Professor is a thorough guide that analyzes both the deeper meanings and the underlying elements in literature. In one of the chapters, titled “It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow,” Foster elucidates that if an author incorporates a weather condition into his writing, it is not just a meaningless, superficial detail. Weather can act as a template for the plot or be symbolic to the mood of the story. Foster uses weather as a way to symbolize literary details in general, indicating that they can contribute a copious amount of quality to the descriptiveness and significance of the content. He uses rain to illustrate this, reasoning that if a character needed to be cleansed and the author inserts a rainstorm for cleansing, the rain has much more substance than just another April shower (Foster, 71). Rain is clean, so this type of water pouring down on the character is essentially cleaning them. This detail of rain can be used to create another type of environment for the story, such as a way to unite people (Noah’s Ark) or serve as a form of
Holden Caulfield faces a dilemma throughout “The Catcher in the Rye”. Holden wants to protect his innocence as a child. As he leaves Pencey Prep; venturing off into the vast city of new york, he tries to get somebody to listen to him and meaningfully respond to his fears about becoming an adult. Holden has grown six inches in the past year and one side of his head is full of grey hair, both symbols of the inevitability of the progression of time towards adulthood and its disappearance of innocence. He is so obsessed with protecting his innocence he can't even through a snowball at a car because, “it looks so nice and white.
Have you ever had this feeling of being so stressed out that you would escape to hopeless dreams, causing you to withdraw yourself from others? Among many themes that J.D. Salinger expresses in his novel, The Catcher in the Rye, there is one that fits that type of feeling perfectly. That theme is: isolation is a product of the individual's reaction to the environment and often leads to downfalls and other negative consequences. This is clearly demonstrated through the influence of the allusions and symbols that Salinger uses to subtly apply the theme mentioned above.
People need to read Catcher in the Rye at least once before they die. Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, is a book that takes the reader inside the head of Holden Caulfield, a depressed sixteen-year-old, who enters a strange series of adventures in New York City. Holden writes his story from a mental hospital in California, about how he was expelled from a fancy prep school, his experiences after spending a few days in NYC. The book has had critical success since its publication in 1951, selling sixty-five million total copies, after a splendid review from the New York Times. Catcher in the Rye is a great novel because of its subtle symbolism, amazing portrayal of Holden Caulfield and ends on a higher note than most people realize.
J.D. Salinger began the process of writing his first novel The Catcher in the Rye, just after being released from a mental hospital. According to mentalfloss.com. Salinger being a WWII veteran caused many to believe that he checked himself into the hospital due to the grim memories of the war. However, Salinger’s quiet profile prevents people from truly knowing him and his reasonings. As a reader it is your job to decipher the author's writing, that being said, because of Salinger’s reserved personality symbolism plays a big role in understanding his novel. In the Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Salinger uses symbolism to represent the larger ideas of the book. The ducks in the Central Park Lagoon, Holden’s red hunting hat, and the carrousel are symbols that are important to the overall understanding of the Catcher in the Rye.
In the novel, Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger uses a variety of symbols to support the thematic idea that maturation and the loss of innocence are an inescapable rite of passage for all of humanity. Three significant symbols that signify the importance of alteration and losing one’s purity to become more suited to live in the real world are the ducks in the lagoon of Central Park, the “Catcher in the Rye”, and the carousel and the gold ring. Furthermore, these three symbols hold a significant meaning for the main protagonist, Holden Caulfield as well.
The author J.D Salinger conveys the theme of the loss of innocence in title?? using symbolism.
Salinger shows that the cold can pick up emotions to make people feel despondent and lonely. Holden describes a time in the city when he felt like he had vanished from life. He talks about crossing the road, but then everytime he would cross he would feel gone. He projects “It was kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, you would feel like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road” (8). When Holden says he feels like he is disappearing, he is saying that his emotion is lonely and
In the first chapter of this novel, we get introduced to the protagonist and narrator of the novel, Holden Caufield, from a rest home in which he has been sent for therapy. He refuses to talk about his early life, although he does explain that his older brother “D.B” sold out to writing for Hollywood. His story and breakdown begins in the school of Pencey Prep, a boarding school set in Pennsylvania. The setting for the early chapters in the narration is his "terrible" school, to which he describes the atmosphere to be “as cold as the December air on Thomsen Hill”. Holden’s student career at Pencey Prep has been destroyed by his refusal to apply himself. We know this after Holden explains he failed four of his five subjects, passing only English. Due to his lack of effort and determination, he was forbidden to return to the school after the term. The Saturday before Christmas vacation began, Holden overlooked the football field, where Pencey usually
“I spent my whole childhood wishing I were older and now I'm spending my adulthood wishing I were younger.” Ricky Schroder. Some may want to grow old and some may want to stay young forever. Holden Caulfield describes his massive fears of change through symbolizes in his quick break of from school. J.D. Salinger displays throughout the revolutionary novel, Catcher in the Rye, that the wild that live in the pond in Central Park, New York, symbolizes multiple fears to Holden Caulfield.
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help develop and inform the text's major themes. One of the recurring themes in the novel The Catcher in the Rye is the omnipresent theme of death. It could be argued that the novel is not only full of references to death in the literal sense, physical disappearance, but also in the metaphorical, taking the form of spiritual disappearance, something which Holden often focuses on, along with the actual theme of mortality. It is possible that this occurs because of his reluctance to interact with the living world. As his means of escaping from the reality he despises, his mundane thoughts and the “phoniness” that he is surrounded by. Holden becomes increasingly attracted
Chapter ten of How to Read Literature Like a Professor explains the important role weather plays on literature. For instance, snow is not just snow in a novel. It symbolizes so much more in both positive and negative ways; it is stark, filthy, playful, and clean, and you can do just about anything with it. In “The Dead,” Joyce breaks his main character down until he can look out at the snow, which is “general all over Ireland,” and then the reader realizes snow is like death. It paints the image that “upon all the living are the dead.”
The weather does more than fit the scene’s energy; often, the weather mirrors the protagonist’s attitudes and feelings, helping readers sympathize and connect with the characters. The first several chapters, set at Gateshead, are rainy, cold, and dreary, paralleling Eyre’s hopeless outlook. According to Thomas Foster, one of rain’s several potential purposes in a novel is to add an air of mystery, isolation, and misery. For example, when Jane is locked in the red-room, “the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight...the rain