Analysis of The Theme in J.D Salinger's 'The Catcher in The Rye and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar'.

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ABSTRACT

Proses untuk memasuki masa dewasa bukanlah suatu hal yang mudah untuk dilewati oleh seorang individu. Dibutuhkan serangkaian upaya penyesuaian diri akan ekspektasi, nilai-nilai, dan norma-norma yang dianut oleh suatu tatanan kebudayaan masyarakat tertentu. Kegagalan akan tuntutan internal dan eksternal dalam proses penyesuaian diri di dalam masa transisi remaja menuju dewasa, yang ditandai oleh adanya pembelajaran pola-pola tingkah laku sosial orang dewasa, acapkali menggiring individu terjebak ke dalam jurang depresi yang akan terus membawanya bertanya akan jati dirinya.

Penelusuran dan pencarian makna akan diri sebagai bagian dari proses penyesuaian diri menuju kedewasaan menjadi tema sentral yang diusung di dalam novel The Catcher in the Rye karya J.D. Salinger dan The Bell Jar yang ditulis dengan apik oleh Sylvia Plath.

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kepura-puraan dan kamuflase. Oleh karena itu, penulis menyimpulkan bahwa tema dari novel ini adalah “resistensi untuk menyesuaikan diri dalam proses menuju kedewasaan dapat menyebabkan seseorang mengalami depresi mental.”

Esther Greenwood, tokoh utama dalam novel The Bell Jar, mengalami depresi mental yang disebabkan oleh rasa frustrasi melihat begitu banyak pilihan yang ditawarkan namun kondisi masyarakat tidak memberikan peluang kepadanya untuk meraih sukses yang dianggapnya sebagai sebuah elemen penting di dalam proses pencapaian kedewasaan. Dengan demikian, tema dari novel The Bell Jar adalah “proses penyesuaian diri dalam tahap menjadi dewasa dapat menyebabkan depresi mental.”

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APPENDICES

SYNOPSIS OF THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

Holden Caulfield is the narrator of The Catcher in the Rye. Currently in psychiatric care, this teenager recalls what happened to him last Christmas, the story which forms the narrative basis for the novel. Holden, a student at Pencey Prep School, is irresponsible and immature. He is expelled for failing four out of his five classes.

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When he walks back to the hotel, Maurice, the elevator man, offers him a prostitute for the night. When this prostitute arrives, Holden becomes too nervous and refuses her. She demands ten dollars, but Holden only gives her five. Sunny (the prostitute) leaves and soon returns with Maurice to demand the extra five dollars. Holden argues with them, but Maurice threatens him while Sunny steals his money. Maurice punches him in the stomach before he goes. Holden then imagines shooting Maurice in the stomach and even jumping out of the window to commit suicide.

Holden calls Sally Hayes to meet her for dinner near the Grand Central Station. Before meeting Sally, Holden buys a record for Phoebe and feels depressed when he hears children singing the song "If a body catch a body coming through the rye." When Holden sees Sally, he immediately wants to marry her, even though he does not particularly like Sally. During dinner, Holden complains that he is fed up with everything around him and suggests that they run away together to New England, where they can live in a cabin in the woods. She rejects the idea.

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BIOGRAPHY OF J.D. SALINGER

J.D. Salinger was born in New York City on January 1, 1919. After brief periods of enrollment at both NYU and Columbia University, Salinger devoted himself entirely to writing, and by 1940 he had published several short stories. His career as a writer was interrupted by World War II as he was doing service in the U.S. Army. In 1946, after returning from the war, Salinger resumed writing for The New Yorker magazine. Some of his most notable stories include A Perfect Day for Bananafish (1948), and For Esmé With Love and Squalor (1950). In total, Salinger published thirty-five short stories in the Saturday Evening Post, Story, and Colliers between 1940 and 1948, and The New Yorker from 1948 until 1965.

Salinger received major critical and popular recognition with The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Salinger's novel finds great sympathy for its wayward child protagonist who views the adult world as ‘phony’. Salinger's only novel drew from characters he had already created in two short stories published in 1945 and 1946: This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise and I'm Crazy.

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SYNOPSIS OF THE BELL JAR

The Bell Jar takes place during the early fifties and begins in New York City. The narrator, Esther Greenwood, is an intern at a fashion magazine after winning a scholarship. She soon befriends Doreen, a fellow scholarship winner. Doreen takes Esther out for drinks, where they meet several men, including Lenny Shepherd, a disc jockey. Esther and Doreen go back to Lenny's apartment, where Doreen and Lenny become more intimate and even somewhat violent with each other. Esther leaves the apartment to return to her hotel, where she only wishes to forget the experience that night.

Mrs. Willard, the mother of Buddy Willard, a Yale student whom Esther has been seeing, arranges for Esther to meet with Constantin, an interpreter at the United Nations. While watching Constantin at work, Esther panics about her future, thinking that she knows nothing except how to win scholarships. She decides that she will let Constantin seduce her, but back at his apartment Esther and Constantin merely fall asleep beside each another.

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Esther leaves the asylum just before the new school semester commences. However, she’s become a changed person.

BIOGRAPHY OF SYLVIA PLATH

Sylvia Plath was born in Massachusetts on October 27, 1932. Sylvia's father, Otto, was a College Professor and self-described bee expert. He died just days after her 8th birthday. Sylvia was a model child; sensitive, popular with other children, intelligent and well behaved. She published her first poem before she reached the age of nine.

Sylvia was accepted into Smith College on scholarship in 1950. In 1952, she won first prize ($500) from Mademoiselle Magazine for her short story entitled, Sunday at the Mintons. The following June, Sylvia served as guest editor at Mademoiselle's New York offices. She recounted this part of her life in her later novel, The Bell Jar.

On August 24, 1952, Sylvia attempted suicide for the first time. She was institutionalized at Maclean Hospital. She continued to write during this time, which later resulted in the publication of her second award-winning short story, Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams.

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husband, Ted Hughes, an English poet. Sylvia married Ted in June of 1956 at the age of twenty-eight. Ted and Sylvia got a divorce in September 1962.

Sylvia packed her bags and moved with her two children to an apartment in London. The difficulty in her life allowed Sylvia to write vigorously. The Bell Jar was published under the pseudonym of Victoria Lucas in January, 1963, though it would never receive critical praise until after Sylvia's death. Depressed over the breakup of her marriage and lack of success, Sylvia felt she could no longer go on. Sylvia Plath died on February 11, 1963 by putting her head in a gas oven.

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

I choose to analyze J.D Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Sylvia

Plath’s The Bell Jar on the basis that these two novels are considered two of the

prominent novels which deal with the transition from adolescence to adulthood. In

my opinion, the stage in life where one undergoes changes from being a teenager

to becoming an adult is a confusing and complicated phase. During this stage, one

does a lot of self-searching and self-discovering. This is also the stage where one

feels intense loneliness and loses one’s sense of direction, because one is expected

to take more responsibilities for the first time in our life. J.D Salinger’s The

Catcher in the Rye and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar are the two novels which are

often referred to as the most reflective literary works on the issue of growing up.

The Catcher in the Rye is even included as a compulsory reading in many

American high schools’ curriculum. They are both considered important novels in

the American Literature, for they serve as rite-of-passage novels which centralize

on the issue of adolescence and its entailing emotional adjustments toward

adulthood. This type of novel is often referred to as bildungsroman or ‘coming of

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A Bildungsroman / bɪldʊŋs.ro ma n/, is a novel which traces the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character from childhood to maturity.

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildungsroman)

Coming of age is a young person's formal transition from adolescence to adulthood. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming of age)

“In these novels characters grow frustrated with the parameters of their world. At

an early age, they leave home to get an education in the larger world. But during

the separation from home, they regret the loss of innocence that connected them to

childhood.” (Adamson, 2002: xi).

I would like to focus on the protagonists and their actions. A protagonist is

the leading character around whom conflicts and events revolve in a literary work.

These conflicts and events serve as tools in revealing the author’s central and

dominating idea in the literary work.

The contrast between the behaviors of each character is what makes theme come alive and enable the reader to believe in them. The characters react to each other and develop throughout a novel, and it is this action and reaction that usually makes up the majority of a good book.

(Reader and Woods, 1987: 57)

Therefore, I decide to analyze the theme through the protagonists in J.D

Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.

I notice that the two novels share the same subject matter, which is

“growing up.” However, the themes are slightly different from each other. Even

though the two protagonists in the two novels share the same fate in the end, the

causes which lead them to this shared fate differ from each other. This will be

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I choose to analyze novel in lieu of the other literary genres because I find

novel most interesting. A work of prose presents detailed aspects of

well-orchestrated literary elements in creating one particular or various directions to

where the reader could explore. Hence, it allows the reader to come to his own

understanding regarding the novel and how he would interpret it in his own way.

According to Harry Shaw in his Dictionary of Literary Terms (1972), a novel is

defined as “…a lengthy fictitious prose narrative portraying characters and

presenting an organized series of events and setting. Every novel is an account of

life; every novel includes conflict, characters, action, setting, plot and theme”

(Shaw, 1972: 257). Therefore, I would like to analyze the “account of life” of the

two protagonists in the two novels and come to my own interpretations of the

central and dominating idea in the two literary works.

A renowned American writer, Sylvia Plath is well-noted for personal

imagery and intense focus in her poems. Plath won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize

for her Collected Poems (1981). The Bell Jar is her only novel, which has been

said to be her autobiographical novel for its narrative similarities to Plath’s own

life-story. The book is considered a powerful exploration of adolescence. With

J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye it is recognized as a classic of adolescent

angst.

J.D. Salinger received major critical and popular recognition with The

Catcher in the Rye. It has been said to be “reminiscent of Mark Twain’s

Adventure of Huckleberry Finn in many ways” (Adamson, 2002: 44). This is

because Twain’s protagonist in the novel also deals with the pressure to conform

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withdraw from his social circles and decide to live in solitude. The American

public has considered Salinger a sociopath – a fate similar to his main character in

his The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, who ends up becoming an anti-hero

character.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The problems that will be analyzed in this thesis are:

1. What are the themes of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Sylvia

Plath’s The Bell Jar?

2. How do the protagonists in both novels help to reveal the themes?

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purposes of doing this analysis are:

1. To show the themes of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Sylvia

Plath’s The Bell Jar.

2. To show how the protagonists in both novels help to reveal the themes.

METHOD OF RESEARCH

The research approach in writing this thesis is new criticism or formalism.

Therefore, the method of research used is library research. First of all, the two

novels are read as the primary texts. I then search and gather the information

needed for the thesis from some references and materials from the internet to

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THE ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS:

This thesis is divided into four chapters, which are preceded by the Preface

and the Abstract. Chapter One is the Introduction, which contains the Background

of Study, the Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study, the Method of

Research and the Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two deals with the analysis

of theme in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, whereas Chapter Three deals

with the analysis of theme in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Chapter Four is the

Conclusion, in which I conclude and compare my analysis in The Catcher in the

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

After careful analysis of the experiences of the two protagonists in the two literary works, I conclude that both The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar share the same subject matter, which is “growing up.” However, each book has a theme that is slightly different from the other. Although both protagonists in both novels experience mental depression due to their efforts to cope with life as they are transitioning from adolescence into adulthood, I noticed that the causes of their mental depression differ from each other.

In Holden’s case, he becomes mentally depressed in trying to reject the world of adulthood around him as phony, something which he does not want to belong to. He sees development toward maturity as losing one’s innocence. As such, he tries hard to preserve his innocence by identifying the things in the world which he rejects as phony. To Holden, adulthood consists of people who have given in to society and become something they are not. This state of constant rejection of the world frustrates Holden and leads him to mental depression. Therefore, the theme of The Catcher in the Rye is “resistance to conform in the process of growing up may well result in a depressive mental state.”

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each expectation, she finds herself making constant adjustments. Eventually, this leads her to mental breakdown.

In my opinion, the process of growing up requires making adjustments toward oneself and one’s society in order to adapt well to the norms and expectations of the society. However, the process of adjusting oneself during the transition from adolescence to adulthood is in itself depressive, especially for those who are not apt to change. These themes are derived from careful perusal at the protagonists’ experiences in facing their adolescence and adapting into their adulthood. Both protagonists end up institutionalized. However, Esther Greenwood’s ending is more resolute, whereas Holden Caufield’s ending is still very much an open-ending without much resolution offered to the readers. Having been written in the early 1950s, The Catcher in the Rye has an open ending, which is interesting because the open-ending narrative technique is mostly found in contemporary novels. I view this simply as a way the two authors would like their readers to accept their novels. Plath’s resolved ending gives the readers resolved feelings about Esther’s depressive experience. On the contrary, Salinger’s open ending allows the readers to draw their own conclusion about what they think would happen to the protagonist after having gone through the incidents in his life which lead to his mental depression. The narrative technique of not offering a resolved ending to the readers, in this case, intensifies the sense of depression that Salinger is trying to convey.

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one’s surroundings, but also toward oneself. The search of identity becomes a major issue for teenagers during their growing-up periods. In the same manner, Holden Caufield and Esther Greenwood, the protagonists in The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar respectively, both undergo the same experience in their process of growing up. What sets them apart is how each of these protagonists ends up coping with the changes in their lives as the result of their growing up. Holden rejects the changes as phony, whereas Esther is frustrated by not being able to seize all opportunities which she perceives as the definition of a successful life.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

REFERENCES

Adamson, Lynda G. Thematic Guide to the American Novel. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Shaw, Harry. Dictionary of Literary Terms. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1972.

INTERNET WEBSITES

Franklin, Carolyn. Sylvia and The Bell Jar. 5 June 2004. <http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/plath.html>

Herberle, Mark. Salinger. 27 May 2004.

<http://www.walmart.com/catalog/ product.gsp?>

The Wikipedia Online. 2003. 5 June 2006

<http://en.wikipedia.org/>

Folley, Tom. Mrs. America: Women’s Roles in the 1950s 20 June 2006 <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/p_mrs.html>

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