An Imperfect Adult World: The Unreliable Narration In The Catcher In The Rye

Jerome David Salinger is recognized by many critics and readers as one of the most popular and influential authors of American fiction to emerge after World War II. His only full-length novel The Catcher in the Rye, has gained the most popularity both in readers and critics since its publication. Among the various researches on the novel, there are different even opposite interpretations upon the hero Holden, which led to the controversy in the theme of the novel. The reason for this controversy lies in the neglecting of the first-person unreliable narration, the implied author’s irony on Holden.This thesis chooses the angle of narratology, especially the unreliable narrative theory of James Phelan, Rimmon Kenan and Wayne Booth, analyzing the unreliability of Holden’s narration. By analyzing Holden’s first-person narrative point of view, we find Holden’s first-person limited perspective restricts the observing scope and the narration is unreliable. Through the analysis about Holden’s self-contradiction, his disdain on phoniness versus his lying behavior, his inconsistency in actions and principles, we conclude the credibility of his narration is questionable.Phelan’s theory of the three axes of unreliable narration demonstrates the unreliability of Holden’s narration. From Holden’s lying and self-contradictory behaviors we can infer Holden’s narrative is unreliable in the axis of facts/events. And through the analysis of Holden’s misevaluating and misinterpreting of the world, either from his understanding of ideal life or dualistic world, we find he make mistakes in the axes of values/judgments and knowledge/perception. Holden is an unreliable narrator, but Holden has partial correct and true understanding of life. Holden only recognizes one singular facet of a person or an event, not a complete unity. The immature perception limits him just judge things in the world from one side, either the left or the right.Holden’s unreliable narration contradicts with implied author’s implication. In the process of decoding the text we find implied author’s criticism on Holden and the implied author wants to encourage more young people to step off this particular phase in the course of growth by representing Holden’s process of bewilderment and growth.On the basis of a complete and systematic discussion on Holden’s unreliable narration, we conclude the creation intention of The Catcher in the Rye is to help adolescents grow in the path of life. At the end of the novel, Holden’s cognitive standard and worldview is no longer dualistic and exclusive as before, he is trying to recognize the complexity of the characters and the world. He begins to accept the imperfect adult world to some degree, which is in accordance with the theme of the transition to the imperfect adult world in The Catcher in the Rye.