摘要

在上世纪五十年代初,美国作家杰罗姆•大卫•塞林格发表了他的代表作，也是他唯一的一部长篇小说《麦田里的守望者》。这部小说有着作者青年时期自传的影子，小说的主人公，一个16岁少年，霍尔顿•考尔菲德，在圣诞节假前因为5门功课有四门不及格被学校开除后，在极度压抑、颓废、矛盾中度过的几天经历。在《麦田里的守望者》中，塞林格塑造的天真纯洁的儿童形象和现实世界产生了很大的反差。本文将对小说中的儿童形象进行深入分析并且对上个世纪五十年代美国社会价值观进行阐释，从而找到小说中主人公的价值观与当时社会主流价值观冲突的根源。

关键词：儿童形象 价值观 冲突   

Abstract

In the early 1950's, American writer Jerome David Salinger published his masterpiece, The Catcher in the Rye. And it is also his only novel. This novel can be regarded as the author's autobiography which is of the shadow of the writer's adolescence. The protagonist of the novel is a sixteen-year-old teenager, Holden Caulfield. Before Christmas, he is expelled from the school because he fails four courses out of five. The novel is a couple of days' experience of depression, decadence and entanglement after his expulsion. In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, there is a great discrepancy between the child image J. D. Salinger describes and the reality in the 1950s' society. In this essay, an analysis is preceded thoroughly and the value of the 1950s' American society is elaborated specifically. In this case, this essay clarifies the roots of the conflict between the value of the child and the value of American society. 

Key words: child image, value, conflict     

1. Introduction 
This novel is telling about a child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. He leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment on him or his story.
The research is trying to explain and analyze the child images from different aspects. The analysis of Holden has a strong link with the value, meaning and theme of this novel, because Holden is the only main character, such as the rebel of the American society, the catcher of the spirit pure land, the loner in the western literature and the anguished awaken. And the analysis of Phoebe is also vital to the study of children's value, because Phoebe's role influences the mental growth of Holden and it also reveals the theme of the novel.