The Catcher In The Rye As Bildungsroman

Bildungsroman, a literary genre that focuses on the personal development and maturation of a main character, was considered the most significant German contribution to the novel genre. The term of Bildungsroman was designed by the critic Karl Morgenstern in his lecture when he specified a unique literary genre had two folded purposes that:first, to present the protagonist's bildung (formation) as it takes the step into a stage of self-perfection, and the second, to leave some inspirations to the readers for achieving their own epiphany.The Catcher in the Rye, the only novel of American writer Jerome David Salinger, although has stirred enormous debate and gained mixed receptions from the critics, wins a growing number of readers'heart until today. The novel tells an extremely simple story of three days wandering life in New York of Holden Caulfield, a confused young man with discomfort feelings to the adult world, leaving the readers ultimate spiritual insights.This paper intends to unveil the prototype structure of Bildungsroman with an integrated structuralist analysis method in structuralist narratology of Saussure's linguistics Study, Levi-Strauss' Structuralist Mythology as well as Propp's Theory of Russian Fairy Stories. The prototype's structure is mainly made of 8 parts including "Innocence-Temptation-Running Away-Ordeal-Confusion-Epiphany-Loss of Innocence Life and Self-Awareness." In addition, it is revealed that structuralist narratology has made a great deal of theoretical contributions to the studying of "Bildungsroman" as a literary genre. And on those bases, by the ways of close reading and comparative study on The Catcher in the Rye and the prototype of Bildungsroman narrative structure, this paper tries to prove the existence of a normative Bildungsroman narrative structure in the novel. This article also demonstrates the unique artistic pattern and the literary value of The Catcher in the Rye as an outstanding representative of Bildungsromans. And the author would provide a new perspective for analyzing the novel.