Epiphany And Growth: J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye

With the publication of The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, J. D. Salinger established his position as one of the most significant post-World War â…¡ American novelists. The Catcher in the Rye, which is sometimes called "Modern Classic" of American literature in the 20^th century, renders a panoramic picture of an adolescent's world, in which J. D. Salinger delicately traces Holden's odyssey from a physically and spiritually embittered adolescent through the psychologically full-fledged adulthood to his eventual initiation into the society. Since its publication, The Catcher in the Rye has caught a lot of critical attention, varying from traditional criticism to various post-modernist views, and received diverse interpretations. Widespread successful criticism, together with some elements of protest, established the thirty-two-year-old novelist's reputation. It is around the leading character Holden Caulfield that the most heated debates revolve, pitting the Holden lovers in one corner against the Holden haters in the other, due to Holden as one of the earliest anti-heroes in American literature. However, no critic can fulfill the spirit of Ezra Pound's maxim of "Make It New!" what new things could possibly be said about Catcher, about Holden? No reading can, or should, be considered "definitive".The present thesis is an attempt to analyze the novel in the light of epiphany, through which this paper endeavors to reason out Holden's sudden spiritual revelation and eventual transcendence.Epiphany, originally a religious term, is a sudden revelation or manifestation that a person experiences usually at a moment of crisis. "Epiphany" is a typical feature of the initiation story. It often occurs in a key moment of psychological change, betokening the coming of a climax of the story, and deepening the thematic meaning. Salinger's epiphany is based on the Zen satori through which his protagonist, whose spiritual...