Quest for identity: Bitter reality of American society in

Abstract

^{The surge in popularity of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is often attributed to the brutal honesty and introspective nature of Holden Caulfield. An anti-hero who not only exposes people for their “phoniness” but is able to understand his own inability to connect with others is an attractive quality to an American culture which prides itself on independence and anti-elitism; Holden’s total rebellion against bitter realities of American conventions posited him as a type of literary posterchild for the American countercultural movement of the 1960s. The counterculture championed Holden’s anti-establishment views as a bold indictment against a corrupt, oppressive society, and they developed a type of community around his story. This paper will examine Holden’s personal struggles with identity as well as his social struggles with American institutions. The impact of The Catcher in the Rye on youth counterculture exemplifies the postmodern qualities of the novel, and it is these postmodern qualities—an ironic self-identity, a questioning of social structure, and a resistance to definition—which posit the novel as a literary beginning of the post/modern era.}