Auguries of Lost Innocence: A Critical Probe into J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye

By Neeru Bala

Neeru Bala is an Assistant Professor of English from Haryana, India. She completed her MPhil in English Literature from Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra. Soon she joined the Department of English, Khalsa College for Women, Sidhwan Khurd, Punjab. Her research interests focus on fiction, psychoanalysis and literary studies. The present book is a reworking of her MPhil dissertation where she has focused on teenager’s problems. The purpose of writing this book is to give a voice to those teenagers who feel loneliness and loss of a sense of direction because their life undergoes a change from childhood to adulthood, from innocence to experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Neeru Bala
• Release date: Aug 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463317990

Neeru Bala

Neeru Bala is an Assistant Professor of English from Haryana, India. She completed her MPhil in English Literature from Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra. Soon she joined the Department of English, Khalsa College for Women, Sidhwan Khurd, Punjab. Her research interests focus on fiction, psychoanalysis and literary studies.

Book preview

Auguries of Lost Innocence

A Critical Probe into J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye

Neeru Bala

Smashwords, USA

Auguries of Lost Innocence

A Critical Probe into J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye

First Published: September 2020

Smashwords, Inc.

15951 Los Gatos Blvd., Ste 16

Los Gatos, CA 95032

United States of America

www.smashwords.com

Copyright 2020 Neeru Bala

Thank you for downloading this book. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes without prior permission from the author. If you enjoyed this book, encourage your friends to purchase their own copy from their favourite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Editing and Proofreading

Manu Mangattu

Cover Design

Bijeeshkumar Shaji

Table of Contents

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Facsimile

Introduction

Life of J.D. Salinger

Loss of Holden’s Innocence

Holden’s Alienation and Loss of Innocence

Impact of Adolescence on Holden’s Innocence

Conclusion

Works Cited

About the Author

Neeru Bala is an Assistant Professor of English from Haryana, India. She completed her MPhil in English Literature from Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra. Soon she joined the Department of English, Khalsa College for Women, Sidhwan Khurd, Punjab. Her research interests focus on fiction, psychoanalysis and literary studies. The present book is a reworking of her MPhil dissertation where she has focused on teenager’s problems. The purpose of writing this book is to give a voice to those teenagers who feel loneliness and loss of a sense of direction because their life undergoes a change from childhood to adulthood, from innocence to experience.

Address: Neeru Bala, W. No.-6, Indri PO, Karnal-132041

Email: [e-mail]

Acknowledgements

I consider myself extremely fortunate to express my deep sense of gratitude and indebtedness to Prof. Dinesh Kumar, Department of English, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra for his valuable guidance and constant encouragement that made this work possible.

I wish to express my regards and gratitude to my parents and my friends for their love, inspiration, blessings, and support.

My special heartwarming thanks to my soulmate and love Ajay Singh Kamboj who always support and encourage me through thick and thin.

Thanks are also due to Prof. Manu Mangattu who proofread this manuscript with care and patience.

Last but not least I shall always be grateful to Almighty God without whose blessings I could not have accomplished this work.

Neeru Bala

Facsimile

How shall the summer arise in joy,

Or the summer fruits appear?

Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,

Or bless the mellowing year,

When the blasts of winter appear?

William Blake

(The Schoolboy, Songs of Experience)

Introduction

After the atomic bomb was used in the World War II in 1945, a great many readers in America chose the humor of ironic understatement as a basis for their philosophic view (Paul, Vol. II). It was because American youth was in the age of anxiety. Though it is clear that after the war the United States emerged as the leading superpower in the world but something had become extremely distorted in American society. During the 1950s, the home returned soldiers mostly the young men faced critical and psychological harms. It is frequently represented as the period of alienation, disillusionment and spiritual aridity.

It is not an exaggeration to conclude from the American readers’ philosophic view that nowhere was social satisfaction and intellectual obscurity more apparent than in the post-war literature. In the fifties American authors are very uncomfortable, because American experience and social patterns were shifting themselves. It was not an era of new experiments in style; rather authors tried to seek out their self. They were trying to accumulate the innocence of adolescence and develop new themes. Various writers especially black American