2008 年 JOURNAL OF YULIN NORMAL UNIVERSITY (Philosophy & Social Science)1 Introductionhe protagonist Holden Caulfield in thenovel The Catcher in the Rye is one of the American heroes, but with a significantdifference. Unlike the other American knight-errants, Holden seeks virtue second to love. (Salzberg, 1990:33) He wants to be good. When the little childrenare playing in the rye—field on the cliff top, Holden wants to be the one who catches them before they fall off the cliff. He is not driven toward honor or courage. He is not driven toward love of woman. Holden is driven toward love of his fellowman, charity—virtues which were perhaps not quite virile enough for Natty Bumppo, Ishmael, Huck Finn, or Nick Adams.寂寞的守望者——《麦田里的守望者》中主人公 霍尔顿“爱”的追寻和缺失□龙森祥1王小玲2（1.玉林师范学院 大学外语教学部 讲师 硕士，广西 玉林 537000）（2.玉林师范学院 大学外语教学部 讲师 硕士，广西 玉林 537000） 【摘 要】《麦田里的守望者》中的主人公霍尔顿在故事的叙述中提到三十多次他的“寂寞”。
事实上霍尔顿是一个充满爱心并渴望爱的青少年，但他却生活在一个缺失爱和温暖，并且处处被背叛的世界。
正是这样的环境导致了他的寂寞、学业上的失败甚至精神上的崩溃。
【关键词】《麦田里的守望者》；寂寞；爱；缺失【中图分类号】I106.4【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】1004-4671（2008）02-0028-05Lonely Catcher——The Protagonist Holden's Pursuit and Loss of“Love”in The Catcher in the Rye□LONG Sen-xiang 1 WANG Xiao-ling 2(1. Lecturer, MA., Dept. of College Foreign Languages Teaching,Yulin Normal University,Yulin,Guangxi 537000)(2. Lecturer, MA., Dept. of College Foreign Languages Teaching, Yulin Normal University,Yulin,Guangxi 537000)Abstract: The protagonist Holden in The Catcher in the Rye mentions his loneliness more than 30 times. In fact, Holden is a teenager full of love and eager for love, but he lives in a world without love and warm, and a world of betrayal, which leads to his loneliness, his failures at school and even his mental problems. Key words: The Catcher in the Rye; loneliness; love; loss 第 ２９ 卷 第 ２ 期 玉林师范学院学报（哲学社会科学） Ｖｏｌ．２９ Ｎｏ．２(Salzberg, 1990:33) The phoniness of society forces Holden Caulfield to leave it, but he is seeking nothing less than stability and love.Holden is eager for love, and he himself is also full of love. But ironically for such a person who is full of love, he always feels lost and lonesome. In the novel, Holden's loneliness is mentioned in many places. According to Holden's narration, there are thirty times when he feels “damn lonesome and depressed.” In Chapter 7, after fighting with his roommate Stradlater, Holden goes into Ackley's room, and then he goes over and looks out the window. He narrates, “I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead.”(P.52) “It was even depressing out in the street. You couldn't even hear any cars any more. I got feeling so lonesome and rotten.”(P.53) In Chapter 19, Holden goes to the Wicker Bar to meet Luce who was supposed to be his student adviser, he also feels “lonesome as hell.” Then he is drunk, dunks his head right up to the ears in one of the washbowls with cold water. After that, he walks over to the radiator by the window and sat down on it. Having nothing to do there, he keeps sitting on the radiator and counting the little white squares on the floor. Finally he got down of the radiator and goes to the hat-check room. At this time, he “was crying and all. I don't know why, but I was, I guess it was because I was feeling so down depressed and lonesome.”(P.159) Why does Holden always feel so lonesome? There are some reasons behind it..2 Reasons for Holden's loneliness2.1 A world without love and warmthIn Holden's narration in the novel, he mentions “phony”for more than 50 times to indicates that the world he lives is“phony”. It is also a world without love and warm.In Chapter 16, when Holden follows the poor family along the street, He finds that the husband and wife “were just walking alone, talking, not paying any attention to their kid about six years old.”(P.121) The little boy “was walking in the street, instead of on the sidewalk, but right next to the curb.” The cars zooms by, brakes screeches all over the place, but “his parents paid no attention to him.”(P.121) It is clear that Holden isblaming the couple for not taking their responsibilities as parents by not giving the kid parental care. From this we can see that Holden longs for love, but in the world he lives, parental care and love are inadequate or even absent.Once Holden horses around with Ackley, he pretends to be a blind guy, saying “Mother darling, everything getting so dark in here…Mother darling, give me your hand. Why won't you give me your hand ？”(P.25) Apparently, Holden is so eager for parental love. Another example happens after Holden arrives at Penn Station, he sets off for a hotel by a cab, but gives the cabdriver his home address instead—presumably because he “ completely forgot I (Holden) was going to check up in a hotel for a couple of days and not go home till vacation started.”(P.63) One can, of course, wonder whether or not this is a“Freudian slip”, the sort driven by unconscious wishes, because Holden is lonely. A part of him really does want to go home, where his father may yell and his mother cry. (Sanford, 1993: 54) No wonder, in Holden's unconsciousness, he really loves his home and looks for family love.However, Holden's mention of his father is conspicuous by its almost total absence from the novel. He has said that his father is quite wealthy but also quite busy; they do not seem to share many experiences. Though his father is very angry with Holden for expelling from school several times, he does not try to find out the reasons why Holden does not like to go to school. When his sister Phoebe says to him “Daddy will kill you,” we can understand that his father is crude to him. Psychologists might say that he is failing in his schoolwork in order to gain the attention of his father and to command his father's love. His mother is“up all night smoking cigarettes”and Holden repeatedly notes that she is too nervous and anxious herself to do more than pay perfunctory attention to her children's needs. Apparently, except materials, Holden cannot get adequate love from the family. He even does not dare to seek spiritual support or help from his parents. So he has “no home to go to.”(P.159) This lack of affection from his parents has a profound effect on Holden's life.In such a world in lack of love and warmth, Holden asks Ackley to go to movies together although龙森祥，王小玲 Lonely Catcher ——The Protagonist Holden's Pursuit and Loss of“Love”in The Catcher in the Rye玉林师范学院学报2008 年第 2 期he dislikes him. In the night club Levender room of thehotel, Holden is so lonely that he chats and dances withthe three ugly girls he meets and even tries to get themto stay a little longer although he finds it hard even tocommunicate with them, but they wouldn't becausethey want to get to bed early so that they can get upearly the next day to see the first show at Radio CityMusic Hall where they might see some movie starts.When Holden arrives at Penn Station the first thinghe does is to go into a phone booth, he launches intoa flurry of mental activities there: he imagines givingsomebody a buzz, but his list of possible candidates—D.B.—his writer brother, now in Hollywood; Phoebe(who goes to bed around nine o’clock); Jane Gallagher(he doesn't felt like it) and finally Sally Hayes, aconsummate phony, but something of a girlfriend; CarlLuce (but he doesn't like him much), is soon exhausted.Finally, having nobody to call to, after about twentyminutes, he has to come out of the booth. Holdendoesn't care for Sally Hayes, but he asks her to runaway with her and stay in the cabin camps, which sherefuses. Jane Gallapher is the one he really loves, butfor one reason or another he fails to meet or talk withher. He wants only to have a chat with the prostituteSunny, but she is not at all interested in talking. Healso wants an intellectual conversation with Carl, who'sgot the highest I.Q. at Whooton, but it turns out to bea disappointment. In such a world without love andwarmth, Holden even tries to communicate with thepeople he does not like or the strangers, but he can'tfind anybody to whom he can express his feelings andthoughts.2. 2 A world of betrayalThe story is narrated by the protagonist Holden,most of the events he tells us happen in several daysbefore and after he leaves Pencey Prep. But accordingto what have happened during this short period of time,Holden feels betrayed by several people.The first person Holden feels betrayed by isSpencer—Holden's history teacher in Pencey Prep.He is also one of the few teachers Holden likes in thatschool. In fact, Spencer has been very kind to Holdenand often shows consideration for him. He has metHolden's parents when they have little chat with theheadmaster Dr. Thurmer; He talks about life (“life is agame, boy, Life is a game that one plays according tothe rules.”)(P.13) with him and also concerns Holden'sdifficulty as he says:“I believe you also had somedifficulty at Whooton School and at Elkton Hills.”(P.118)He also likes to help Holden; he says to Holden:“I'dlike to put some sense in that head of yours, boy. I’mtrying to help you. I'm trying to help you, if I can.” (P.118)Learning that Holden would be flunked of the school,he has even written a note asking Holden to see himbefore he leaves Pencey.Holden is grateful for Spencer's concerns andconsiders that he is one of the few teachers he likes.During the history exam he knows that he would fail,so he writes a letter to Spencer on the paper “So thathe wouldn't feel too bad about flunking me (Holden).”(P.16) But it all turns out to be a feeling of betrayal afterHolden’s visit to say goodbye to Spencer.For one thing, Holden is depressed to note that theSpencers are, by Holden's reckoning, poor, without abutler, they must answer knocks at the door; without amaid, Mrs. Spencer serves whatever refreshments theirmeager funds can afford. For another, Mr. Spencer is,like the“history”he teachers, old, which alone is enoughto be one of the reasons at least a portion of Holden'scontempt:“if you thought about him too much, youwondered what the neck he was living for. I mean hewas all stooped ever, and he had very terrible posture,and in class, whenever he dropped a piece of chalk atthe blackboard, some guy in the first row always hadto get up and pick it up and hand it to him.” (P.11) Tomake matters worse, as Holden puts it, “ even moredepressing,”Mr. Spencer is sick: “there are pills andmedicines all over the place, and every smelled likeVicks Nose Drops.” (P.10) The scene is that Mr. Spencer,with the bathrobe and bumpy chest sits on one side andHolden is forced to sit on his teacher's bed on the other.Mr. Spencer is obviously disturbed by having to fail aPencey student, but he is also interested in exoneratinghimself, in getting the student in question to admit thathe had no other choice, that what he did was right.Rather than argue with Mr. Spencer about his mark,Holden freely admits that he knew (in Spencer's words)“absolutely nothing”about history, and that, at best,he had“ sort of glanced through”the textbook a coupleof times. Furthermore, Holden admits that his teacher was right, that he has no choice but to fail him and that he would have done the same thing in Spencer’s place. Even though Holden surrenders unconditionally, Spencer must grind Holden's nose in his exam essay, and even reads it aloud.Originally, Holden thinks Spencer is one of the teachers he likes and is grateful for the teacher's invitation to his home (“I've got your note, Thanks a lot.”)(P.12), but what Spencer says and does makes Holden feels betrayed.The second person Holden feels betrayed is his roommate Stradlater. Holden convinces that Stradlator is a secret slob: “He's always all right, Stradlater, but for instance, you shouldn't be seen the razor he shaved with. It was always rusty as well and full of lather and hairs and crap…He always looked good when he was finished fixing himself up, but he was a secret slob anyway.”(P.31) But Holden can live with him peacefully. He also agrees to lend him his hound's tooth jacket for dating, and even agree to write a composition for him although he has been flunked out as he says:“I'm the one that's flunking out of the goddamn place, and you're asking me to write you a goddamn composition.”(P.32) One will think that Stradlater should be grateful for him.It all turns out on Holden's last night at Pencey, the girl Stradlater has a date with is Jane Gallagher, a girl Holden respects and is more than half in love with. In a word, Holden cares for her very much.“ He used to play checkers with her all the time,”(P.35) and what he remembers about their idyllic comments from his past is that Jane “wouldn't move any of her kings, What she'd do, when she’d get a king, she wouldn't move it. She'd just leave it in the back row. She'd get them all lined up in the back row. Then she'd never move them. She just liked the way they looked when they were all in the back row. ” (PP.35-6)After Stradlater returns from his date, Holden launches into a self-styled inquisition, one that begins by asking Jane still kept her kings in the back row. (“Did you ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row?”)(P.46) And then cuts to the chase: “What'd you do?” Give her the time in Ed Bndky's goddamn Car?”(P.47) Not surprisingly, Stradlater can understandneither why Holden should be so curious as to whether or not Jane asked about him, nor why the way she played checkers is so important. As he puts it: “Checkers, for Chrissake!” (P.47) But for Holden, Jane Gallagher's kings in the back row are rather like the purity of snow in winter: “nice and white.” It in fact symbolizes a need to be protected —for if one moves a king onto the playing field of a checkbook, it might, after all, be “jumped.” What Holden fears, of course, is that Jane will move her kings out of the back row and that Stradlater will “jump” her, that she will no longer be the sad, virginal girl he loves. (Sanford, 1993: 45) But to Holden's disappointment, Stradlater neither asked Jane “if she keeps all her kings in the back row?”, nor did he answer whether “he gave her (Jane) the time or not.”(P.47) He just answers: “That's a professional secret, buddy.”(P.47)Furthermore, Stradlater does not thank for Holden's composition written for him, instead he is very angry at it though it takes Holden about an hour to write. No wonder Holden also becomes so angry that he“ got up from the bed, like I (Holden) was going down to the can or something, and then I tried to sock him (Stradlater), with all my might, right smack in the toothbrush, so it would split his goddam throat open.”(P.47)Apparently, Holden not only feels betrayed by Stradlater’s dating with his best friend, Jane, who he also has a crush on but also feels betrayed by Stardlter's attitude toward Holden's composition written for him. With the exception of his dead brother, Allie, and his sister, Phoebe, practically everyone is put down as a phony. (Lowell, 1959:85) But Holden even cannot avoid feeling betrayed by his little sister Phoebe. Holden appreciates every minute detail of Phoebe's existence, such as her series of stories about “Hazle Weather field. Girl Detective”and treats Phoebe with more respect and kindness than he treats any other character in the story. And in Chapter 21, believing that he is going to catch pneumonia and die, Holden decides to go home to see his sister. Then, he sneaks home and finds that his sister Phoebe is sleeping, and he turns on the light and wanders about the room, looking at families objects, touching Phoebe's things; he sits on the desk and reads her books. Slowly he reestablishes contact with her through inanimate objects. So after龙森祥，王小玲 Lonely Catcher ——The Protagonist Holden's Pursuit and Loss of“Love”in The Catcher in the Rye玉林师范学院学报2008 年第 2 期he goes around the room, looking at stuff for a while,he begins to feel good, as he puts:“I felt swell, for achange. I didn't even feel like I was getting pneumoniaor anything any more. I just felt good, for a change.”(P.166) He then talks about her neatness, her habits, herattitudes, and her intelligence. It is not difficult for us tobelieve that Holden loves his sister Phoebe very much,who can bring him happiness and peace.Finally, Holden wakes Phoebe up. At first, she isdelighted to see him. She puts her arms around him.She talks childishly about a movie she has seen. Shealso tells him, incidentally, that his parents are out forthe evening—thus his caution was unnecessary. Shetalks about a play she is going to be in. She fills himin on family events. Holden also tells her about therecords he bought for her, which he dropped in his lastvisit to Central Park when he was drunk and gives herthe pieces of record, which she takes and cherishes.The intimacy between them can be seen clearly. Nowonder Holden considers that his sister should accepthim unconditionally after she knows the facts that hehas been expelled from Pencey Prep.But in the midst of the happy reunion, sheguesses that he has been expelled from schoolagain. Her comment is “Daddy'll kill you.”(P.171) Herdisappointment is obvious: she hits him. At last, sheputs her pillow over her hands and she will not talkto him. Her rejection to him is the cruelest relfectionof all. Holden tries to tease her out of it, but she isadamant. So he is very disappointed and feels betrayed.3 ConclusionTeens should be one of the most happiest periodsof life, But Holden often feels lonesome. He loves hishome and looks for family love, but he can not getedequate love and spiritual supports from his family.Holden is sincere and faithful to his teachers andfriends and his family, but he feels betrayed by severalpeople, including his history teacher Spencer, hisroommate Stradlater and even his little sister Phoebe. Ina world without love and warm and a world of betrayal,no wonder Holden has no“home”to go back, or hasnobody to call to when he goes into a phone booth totalk with someone. Such a world definitily leads to hisloneliness, his failures at school and even his mentalproblems. ■【参考文献】[1] Lowell, Robert. Life Studies [M]. New York: Farrar, Straus &Giroux, 1959.[2] Ohmann, Carol and Ohmann, Richard. Reviewers, Critcs,and ' The Catcher in the Rye' [M]. 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