I think that Holden is narrating his story, and we are reading his narration. There are too many instances of colloquialisms and slang to be otherwise.
Holden himself says, at the beginning of the novel:
“Besides, I’m not going to tell you my whole goddamn autobiography or anything. Ill just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy.” (pg1)
This indicates that he has started telling his story to an audience, and we are reading the text of it. He uses the word ‘tell’ quite often, which also points at the idea of him narrating his story.
Some other instances in the novel that support this are:
“He wrote me a note saying he wanted to see me before I went home. He knew I wasn’t coming back to Pencey. I forgot to tell you about that.” (pg6)
A writer would not have used “I forgot to tell you about that.” in the writing of a novel – people use this term when they speak. It shows that he was speaking, or narrating the text of the novel.
“Grand. There’s a word I really hate. It’s a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.” (pg14)
J.D Salinger’s application of short sentence structures and colloquialisms, such as the words ‘phony’ and ‘puke’ also point to idea that Holden is narrating his own story.
I really want to know the difference between word "phony" and word "puke". Why the main character of the book which is Holden is using this words often? I know he hates people protent to be something that actually they are not. But I feel like the word "phony" is telling us more than am I right? What else the word "phony" means?
ReplyDeletephony means fake and puke means vomit ezik :D he uses the word phony very often cuz he thinks everyone is fake.. definition: a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold in order to conceal his or her real feelings or motives
ReplyDelete