Abstract

The Catcher in the Rye, written by Jerome David Salinger, enjoyed an immediate popularity in America soon after its publication. The protagonist Holden Caulfield has been the representative of the Beat Generation in America during 1950s and 1960s. Through the depiction of his three days’ wandering in New York City, the novel fully demonstrates to the readers the situation of American youth and the American society after World War II. This thesis begins with the brief introduction to the author and the novel, and then mainly analyzes such symbols as the red hunting hat, the ducks, the rye, the cliff and so on, applied in the novel. These symbols help readers understand better Holdern’s spiritual journey from rebellion to compromise in the process of growing up.

Key words: The Catcher in the Rye, symbolism, rebellion, compromise

摘要

杰拉姆•大卫•塞林格的代表作《麦田里的守望者》一经出版就风靡全美。主人公霍尔顿•考费尔德成为美国二十世纪五六十年代“垮掉的一代”的代表人物。小说通过对其在纽约市三天的流浪经历的描述，向读者们充分展示了二战后美国年轻一代以及美国社会的境况。本文从简要介绍作者以及小说入手，继而主要了分析小说中诸如红色猎人帽、中央公园里的鸭子、麦田、悬崖等意象的象征意义。这些象征意象帮助读者更好地理解霍尔顿在成长过程中从反叛到妥协的心路历程。

关键词：《麦田里的守望者》； 象征主义； 反叛；妥协

1. Introduction
Jerome David Salinger (1919-2010) is one of the greatest American writers in the modern period. His writing has influenced many prominent writers, just as the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Updike attested in an interview: “The short stories of J. D. Salinger really opened my eyes as to how you can weave fiction out of a set of events that seem almost unconnected, or very lightly connected…Salinger stick[s] in my mind as really having moved me a step up, as it were, toward knowing how to handle my own material.” (qtd. in Osen) National Book Award finalist Richard Yates told The New York Times in 1977 that Salinger is “a man who used language as if it were pure energy beautifully controlled, and who knew exactly what he was doing in every silence as well as in every word.”