Changing Powers In The Air

Jerome David Salinger devoted his whole literary career to help young people disoriented in the tedious nonchalant modern society to find a spiritual way out. His humanistic care for the young as well as his superb writing skills defined him as one of the giants in modern literature. The Catcher in the Rye is without doubt his masterpiece, since it captures the essence of American middle-class adolescents in the1950s, especially their existential crisis.Its protagonist Holden Caulfield has become one of the immortal characters in the history literature.The survival predicaments that perplexed Holden continue to exist till today, with even more destructive power. Therefore it is of practical significance to study The Catcher in the Rye in order to get an insight into the source of existential crisis and search for a cure today.Ever since its publication, the novel has attracted extensive attention from the literary critics, and papers swarm in enormous amount.Lots of critiques deal with its language, theme, characterization, and narrative techniques, which are influenced by the linear historical timeline.However, the text of The Catcher in the Rye contains features of post-modern literature,which dissolve the authority and solemnity of linear timeline. Space becomes the carrier of narration, as is not just a backdrop against which the story takes place, but in itself the plot thruster and tension maker. By substituting the traditional linear plot with a spatial network, this thesis tries to apply the combination of spatial narratological theory and spatial cultural critical theories to study how the power in space changes the young and causes their existential crisis in The Catcher in the Rye. This is a new angle to study the text,which focuses on the spatial network Salinger carefully constructed in his text. Furthermore, it examines Salinger’s solution to this crisis,to provide a spiritual way out for the adolescents today.This thesis selects a total of82paragraphs for detail text study with special emphasis on location transitions and emotion shifts, thus they can provide information required to analyze the relation between Holden’s existential crisis and spaces.Then these texts are examined from the Spatial Narratological, Existential Spatial and Western Neo-Marxism perspectives to analyze the relation between power, space and their influence on Holden’s cognition of the world. It draws the conclusion that Holden’s existential crisis is deeply rooted in the repression and corruption of modern spaces, and a reconciliation with the world can be reached only by accepting the process of growing as inevitable and the reality as imperfect.