The Duality In The Catcher In The Rye From Bakhtin's Carnival Theory

The Catcher in the Rye,the only novel which was published in 1951 by famous American writer Jerome David Salinger,is considered to be one of the most famous American classics of twentieth century.Since the publication,this novel which is originally for the adults has been surprisigly popular among American middle school students.The protagonist,Holden,was expelled again for the flunk in the four out of five courses.This seventeen-year-old teenager was foul-mouthed and had a strong detestation of the surrounding phoniness.He was was embraced as a new charming hero by millions of readers but at the same time he was interpreted to be a man with cowardice.Correspondingly,the critics also had a mixed review on this complicated figure.Some criticized him severely due to his immoral behaviors,sexual depictions and abusive vulgar language.Indeed there are great ambivalences in this novel when analyzing from characters and behavior aspects.Beneath the great ambivalece,there are the revelation of the survival predicament of the makinds in post World War II.Therefore to have a comprehensive understanding about the work,this paper tries to analyze the duality in The Catcher in the Rye from Bakhtin's carnival theory.To be exact,this paper aims to make an in-depth analysis from three aspects: the duality of the carnival collectives who play a vital role in the carnival;the duality of the carnival rituals whose core is the process of crowning and decrowning,especially sexuality and death in this work;the duality of the carnival spirits.Through the whole analysis,it could reveal the characters' survival predicament,their desires for the free and intimate contacts without any distance or any bondage of the hierarchies as well as Salinger's solicitudes for the human beings' existence and the author's respect on the human beings' value.Based on the above concepts,this paper is divided into six parts.The introduction part gives an outline of The Catcher in the Rye as well as the current researches at home and abroad.Chapter one starts with some basic concepts of the carnival theory such as carnival,carnival literature and carnivalesque sense of the world and then elaborates upon the core of Bakhtin's carnival theory,duality which is also the main line in this paper.Chapter two is the analysis of carnival collectives which could be divided into two categories.One is the contrastive coexistence in the same characters and the other one is the positive-negative coexistence in the paired characters who share an amazing similarity or a striking difference.For instance,the protagonist Holden finds it unbearable to live in a surrounding phoniness but he himself is a person who is always lying.Many times he wants to hit back when he is bullied but flinches on account of his cowardice.He believes that sexuality is the experiences that are both physical and spiritual.However,he called a prostitute in the Edmont Hotel in New York to get rid of the terrible loneliness.James Castle and him all stick to their own principles and refuse to compromise with the evil forces but they are very different in some ways in that Holden would choose to guard his life in the conflicts while James Castle would rather choose to jump out the window to show his intransigence.As to the positive-negative coexistence in the paired characters,old history teacher Mr.Spencer and young English teacher Mr.Antolini,Stradlater and Ackley are taken as the best example.From their startling contrasts,people could find the deterioration of the living and spiritual conditions of the characters after the World War II.Chapter three is the analysis of the carnival rituals.Among these rituals,the particular structure of crowning and decrowning is the core of this part.It means putting on crown and taking off crown banteringly.Crowning is not a simple signification that people are crowned with the imperial power or authority.In other words,crowning means upgrade while decrowning means degrade,lowering one's standard or status.But in this chapter,it is not an illustration of particular person's crowning and decrowning but the upgrade and degrades of two important themes: sexuality and death.Holden promotes sexuality to be supreme pure love but lately reduces it to be the sensual desire and possession.And death is another significant ritual in the carnival.Moreover,there is also the ceremony of crowning and decrowning of death in this novel.It crowns the death as the eternity as well as the continuation of another life but then decrowns it as the termination of the life and a mere decomposed corpse.Chapter four is a deeper analysis of the duality of the carnival spirits based on the duality of carnival collectives and carnival rituals in previous chapters.Although the carnival is filled with a primary behavior,subversion,it is not the ultimate goal.Instead,there is reconstruction through subversion and it contains mankind's spiritual demands.With the overthrow of the existing bondage,Bakhtin is always looking forward to spiritual survival and settlement and endowing carnival with a profound connotation,which is the pursuit of spiritual liberation and ultimate destination.This part could be divided into two aspects.The first one is subversion and spiritual liberation from several dual concepts: replacement and renewal,affirmation and negation,the second type of life and the first type of life.While the other is subversion and human's reconstruction of their ultimate destination from some dual concepts: the rational and irrational,beauty and ugliness,the eternal and non-eternal.The conclusion part is a whole and comprehensive summary of the duality of carnival collectives,carnival rituals as well as carnival spirits.The spiritual demands of the characters in The Catcher in the Rye are illustrated through the seemingly binary oppositions.Such as replacement and renewal,affirmation and negation,the second type of life and the first kind of life,the rational and irrational,beauty and ugliness,the eternal and non-eternal.Through these dual concepts,this paper reveals the complicated inner world of the protagonist as well as the author Salinger's longing for second type of life which is free and different from the reality.At the same time,it also points out the limitation of the essay that needs to be improved and analyzed in a deeper way.