Social Trend And Personal Strategy:Causes For Holden’s Cynicism

The Catcher in the Rye, the only novel written by the famous American writer J.D. Salinger, has been a best-seller since its publication in1951. Holden, the16-year-old protagonist in the novel has become one of the representative American youths in the1950s. His cynicism including absurd behavior, strange costume, profane language, making no attempt to study, mocking and satirizing the society is one of Holden’s remarkable characters. This thesis tries to carry out an exploration on the causes of Holden’s cynicism emphatically in terms of1950s American social trend and his personal strategy.This thesis consists of five chapters with the first chapter as the introduction, the middle three chapters as the body and the last chapter as the conclusion.The first chapter gives an introduction of the writing settings of the novel, relative reviews abroad and at home, the originality and structure of the thesis.Chapter two explores the origin and characteristics of cynicism and analyzes Holden’s cynicism. Nowadays,"cynicism", stemming from the thought of ancient "cynicism" of classical times, which was established and developed by the Greek philosophers, representative cynics:Antisthenes and Diogenes, etc., has become a pervasive attitude of distrust, suspicion, and irony of other’s sincerity, authority, conventions, etc. Cynics are negative and skeptical mostly resulting from their dissatisfaction with the surrounding realities and living conditions in the society. Holden "cynicism" was mainly displayed on his denial of various mainstream values. He shrugged off money and despises people who worship money; in terms of social etiquette, he hated what people do, thinking that what they show was phony and fake; he also believed that it was meaningless to gain fame or status, and scorned at the knowledge and strategy taught from the famous school, so he was not willing to one of the Ivy League universities that his father wanted him to. On the contrary, he hoped to live in the west, acting dumb and deaf, and led a peaceful life without being disturbed. Chapter three makes an analysis of social causes for Holden’s cynicism. The1950s America had just undergone the cruelty and destructiveness of WWII, when people had not recovered from the nightmare war, but were immediately enveloped in the atmosphere of horror made by the "Cold War" and authoritarian ideology of McCarthyism. Meanwhile, in America which has reaped huge profit from the wars, people were materialistically benefiting a lot from the economic prosperity and the value of high money supremacy was formed in the society. But the material excess, providing a high standard of living for people though, cannot fulfill the increasingly spiritual need of people. Soaked in individualism prevailing in the American culture, people were urged to break all kinds of barriers and pursue selves and created the vigorous "counterculture" movement, of which the Beat Generation was one branch. The youth, as a motive force of a times, who had obtained the economic independence and the ability not to follow their parents, detested the society and its ways, cynical, reckless and dissipated in behavior and conduct, revolting against the authority, resisting all the bureaucracy and dominant values. Hence it can be inferred that Holden’s cynicism was a product of that special time.Chapter four makes a probe into the psychological causes for Holden’s cynicism. By making an exploration on Holden’s family environment, his own character and the strategy he adopts to deal with his trauma, the author finds that his cynicism was his defense mechanism. The fact that his parents show a cold shoulder to his mental activities and health as well as needs, and that the death of Allie left a trauma in his heart, helps him doubt and deny value and meaning of his own existence. In addition, Holden, an adolescent of sixteen, was lingering on the threshold from the innocent childhood to sophisticated adulthood, and very sensitive and anxious, unwilling to step into the adulthood full of "phoniness". His cynicism, denial and doubt of all in the society, was a projection of his own psychological characteristics.Chapter five is the conclusion that Holden’s cynicism not only vividly portrayed the social trend and development, but also kept an inalienable connection with his family background, his own personality as an adolescent, childhood trauma and his psychological projection as a defense mechanism.