One another has extremely ambivalent thoughts regarding intercourse: as they cam otherwise consider intercourse nearly constantly, and even feature in order to someone else regarding their sexual knowledge and experience, they are both in fact fearful out of gender, in reality was worry about-confessed virgins
D. Salinger’s The fresh Catcher about Rye, as the title means, is actually a manuscript built on literary parallels and allusions; this means that, its character, Holden Caulfield, has been compared to a host of almost every other emails, from one another American and you may industry literature.1 This new nearest off Holden’s blood brothers, once the also a basic questionnaire of your own complaint from Salinger’s unique will highlight, is seen as Huckleberry Finn.2 And you can indeed you’ll find well known likenesses anywhere between Huck and you may Holden: they are both troubled kids while on the move–mentally, linguistically, and geographically–of a grownup business which they select pretentious, hypocritical, shallow, cruel, and you can dangerous. step 3 Interestingly, even if, this type of anxieties and obsessions are precisely the of them demonstrated because of the William Faulkner’s Quentin Compson, one of several protagonists of your own Sound together with Outrage. The secret to the latest neurotic behavior out-of one another characters might be based in the Freudian theory off anality, such since the you to theory could have been amplified and reinterpreted from the such as afterwards psychologists given that Norman O. Brown and you can Ernest Becker. Both Holden and Quentin showcase characteristics which might be from the people whoever creativity has been arrested during the rectal phase.
The outside similarities between the two emails are easily situated, and you will striking. They are both brilliant, sensitive, introspective, well-informed young men: Holden try a great seventeen-year-old preparing college college student whom reads “much” (18) and you may whoever better topic are English (110); Quentin was a keen to get-year-old freshman during the Harvard that knows Latin and you may rates St. Francis. cuatro Furthermore, both Holden and you may Quentin venture the sexual anxiety on to their siblings, implementing a safety, “your government” emotions and seeking to pub the newest sisters’ entry to the carnal studies. Ultimately, their mislead and you can disrupted intellectual claims lead one another Holden and you may Quentin to contemplate suicide.5 Quentin, naturally, instead of Holden, actually pursue through toward their dying would you like to, to find a couple of apartment-irons to possess body loads and throwing himself away from a link on the Charles River.
Nevertheless the most significant details of Holden Caulfield’s characterization –his paralyzing fear of sex, their very defensive emotions to the his sister, and his awesome unhealthy preoccupation which have demise–are missing for the Twain’s portrait from Huck
While the suggested before, the newest unifying emotional factor hidden both Holden and you will Quentin’s anxiety from sex, women, and demise will be found in the Freudian principle out-of anality. Considering Freud, the rationale of all of the adult neurosis is usually to be used in brand new stifled intimate desires regarding childhood. Freud posited about three values out-of infantile sexual development: the dental (delivery in order to 12 months), within situations out of drawing and you will biting; brand new anal (you to three-years), focusing on brand new children’s love for the brand new arsehole and feces; and also the phallic (two and a half to help you half a dozen ages), concentrating on the fresh new child’s breakthrough of your pussy. In case your children’s passageway by way of each of these stages isn’t discussed efficiently and joyfully, the new suppressed pushes usually resurface into the adulthood in the form of individuals neuroses. Considering Freud, the mature characteristics that are on the denial and you will repression in the anal phase are orderliness (as well as neatness), obstinacy, and you can parsimony (otherwise possessiveness).six
Having Freud, anal interest and play, for instance the kid’s procedures inside almost every other phases away from infantile invention, are primarily assertions of one’s pleasure idea along the reality and you will morality beliefs–exactly what do be considered from inside the retrospect due to the fact useless efforts off the kid in order to embrace to help you a keen Edenic realm of simple versatility and you will enjoy when confronted with upcoming exile toward adult realm of functions and you can responsibility. But afterwards psychologists such Norman O. Brownish and Ernest Becker has actually assisted us to keep in mind that the newest issue is somewhat more difficult than simply also Freud had acknowledged. Within his insightful and influential book, Lifestyle Up against Demise, Brownish contends that what exactly is really being stamped toward consciousness of each folks for the rectal phase is absolutely nothing faster than just “this new disagreement between all of our animal system, rightly epitomized about anal mode, and the pretentious sublimations, a lot more specifically brand new pretensions out-of sublimated otherwise romantic-Platonic like” (186). To put it differently, the fresh rectal status stands for the fresh new kid’s basic encounter that have death and you may decay. While the Becker notes, echoing Brownish, “That have anal have fun with the child is is a beneficial philosopher from the human condition. However, like all philosophers he could be nevertheless limited by they, and his awesome chief activity in daily life will get new assertion from exactly what the fresh arse signifies: you to definitely actually, he is only looks in which characteristics is worried. Nature’s values was physical opinions, person opinions are mental values, and though they make the loftiest routes he’s established through to excrement, impossible without one, usually brought back to they” (31). The fresh new dispute knowledgeable of the child in the anal stage, ergo, is the fact of your own human body in place of your body and mind otherwise heart, the true instead of the ideal.