A Study Of J.D Salinger's Initiation Stories

As a remarkable writer in American literary history,J.D.Salinger published many works,of which the best known is the novel The Catcher in the Rye.The rest are mainly short story collections such as Nine stories,Franny and Zooey,and Raise High the Roof Beam,Carpenters and Seymour – An Introduction.Critics regard his novel The Catcher in the Rye as a model of modern initiation stories.This gives rise to the question: What are the differences between classical initiation stories and modern initiation stories represented by Salinger? And this question is likely to be followed by a further question: Are there differences between different categories of Salinger' s works? With these two questions in mind,I started a research project to pin down the contrasts between Salinger' s initiation stories and classic initiation stories,and then contrasts between different categories of Salinger' s initiation stories.The current thesis is a presentation of the research results.The thesis is divided into five sections.The first section is an introduction,which briefly explains the background,purpose(See above paragraph)and significance of the study.The second section gives a brief definition of initiation story and then an explication of the development and major features of modern American initiation stories.These are followed by a survey of literature at home and abroad on Salinger.The third section setsside by side the contrastive features of classic initiation stories and of modern American initiation stories mainly represented by Salinger.The contrasts listed are spiritual growth vs.modern man's alienation in theme,grand hero vs.anti-hero in characterization,linear vs.cyclic in plot design,and standard English vs.teenager's vulgarity in language style.The fourth section juxtaposes the contrastive features of Salinger' s The Catcher in the Rye and his later short stories.The contrastive features displayed are escapism vs.religious faith in theme,false mentor vs.real mentor in characterization,openendedness vs.climax plus denouement in plot design and internal monologue vs.peer dialogues in terms of narrative language.The final part of the thesis is the conclusion,which recapitulates the major discoveries of the research project.This study proves that Salinger has made great contribution to the genre of initiation stories.Apart from giving readers a better understanding of Salinger' s initiation stories,this study also defines,with abundant illustration,the genre of initiation stories.What's more,it gives readers some insight into the growing pains of adolescents while elaborating on classic and Salinger' s initiation stories.