Poetic Dwelling in the Repressive Urban Space——A Spatial Narratological Study of the Existential Crisis in J.D.Salinger’s“The Young Folks”,The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey

罗姒妤

（云南大学外国语学院，云南 昆明 650504）

In the 1950s and early 1960s,the American society took on an air of unprecedented material prosperity.However,the flourishing economy failed to provide people with the spiritual content they expected to come with it.The inanition in the spiritual world and the affluence in the material world created a sharp contrast which led to a growing sense of anxiety and dissatisfaction.As a result, “many Americans reacted to these developments with ambivalence,even hostility.” (Brinkley 1999:1010)It was against this milieu that Jerome David Salinger examines his growth as a young middle class American in retrospect and started his literary career.

Salinger’s sharp observation and critique of the capitalist society exert great influence on the American society,especially on the adolescents.Along with its author,his narratives attracted extensive attention from the literary critics.Papers on Salinger and his works swarm in such enormous amount that the phenomenon is referred to as“the Salinger industry.” Along with the development on theories of literary criticism, the critics applied the newest theoretical achievements to lucubrate the text.In the 1970s,influenced by the prevailing psycho analytics,the critics generally used psychological analysis in studying the characters and their fate.From the 1980s till now,some of the critics used the New Critics theories to study the rhetoric of the text.Some applied the structural/deconstructive theories to analyze the inner structure or motif.Another popular view the critics use is comparative literature study,in which the protagonists are often compared with other young characters in American literature.Recently,riding the waves of narratological studies,many critics analyze the narrative techniques in Salinger’s novels.Most of the critiques were conducted under the influence of temporality which dominates the traditional literary criticism,and ignored or rarely mentioned the spatiality.To break away from this diachronic paradigm of criticism mentioned above,the spatial narratology rose as a response to the“spatial turn” in the 20th century.Narratologists apply the spatial theories to literary criticism,and analyze the relationship between space and fate in Salinger’s novels.Criticism on Salinger’s work is generally focused on The Catcher in the Rye,and a very few are from the perspective of spatial narratology.They lack of a macroscopic understanding of Salinger’s ideas and tend to ignore the development of his studies.This paper tends to analyze three narratives representing Salinger’s different stages,and find out the solutions he provides the young in coping with the existentialcrisisin modern citiesby analyzing the space,power and fate in these narratives.

The complexity of the experience in urban space dissolves the rationality and efficiency of traditional cognitive style,thinking mode,and discourse pattern.Literature,as well as art,is casted in the predicament of representational crisis.It appeals to a new form of narrative which fits the urban spatial experience. “Literary space,which can also be called representational space,is a field permeated by political and cultural powers.It manipulates and disciplines human existence.” (Xie,2010:89)Salinger is a connoisseur in depicting urban spaces by expatiating on the existentialexperience of his protagonists.In his early narratives,Salinger criticizes the profound boredom and mediocrity of the urban space by reflecting on tragic fate of thoughtful minds.In his first published short story “The Young Folks,”Edna the meditative artistic young lady sits alone and aloft in a party, “who since eight o’clock had been sitting in the big red chair,smoking cigarettes and yodeling hellos and wearing a very big bright eye which young men were not bothering to catch.”(Salinger,1940)Then she starts a conversation with a shallow college boy Jameson,and the conversation ends when Jameson lies about going home but actually he goes to accost another girl.Edna hates the vulgarity of the party,and wants to talk about something otherworldly.She gets bored and disappointed when Jameson gabbles on and on about his thesis,so she outbursts in calling him “ninny.” In the end,Edna still sits in the big red chair alone,just as the way she started.The space is constructed around the center of Edna,and everything else is in a blur except the center.It is a representative of mundane space,with lucid thinkers in the center and others in the back ground of a blur.Edna resists the pressure to participate in the boring occasions according to social protocols.She rebels silently and she is doomed to live in isolation because she is vulnerable against the power dispersed in urban space,which is designed to manipulate people into meek,submissive and unreflecting herd.In his early stages,Salinger suggests one should silently resist the power of urban space,but this only lead to ultimate breakdown or forever loneliness.

After his military service,Salinger focused on the construction of his most famous character Holden Caulfield in several short stories and a novel The Catcher in the Rye.This paper takes Holden’s experience in the Edmont Hotel as a pointcut to analyze the corruptive power of urban space.“As a public place in the city,the hotel has the characteristics of being transient.” (Kou,2012:104)The Edmont Hotel serves as a kaleidoscope of the evil of urban space.As soon as Holden enters his room,he observes a collection of choice specimens of sin and distortion of urban people through his window.Holden is drawn to the perversity and corruption of the view,so later that night,he tries to follow up as“I also took a look out the window to see if all the perverts were still in action,but the lights and all were out now.”(80)The next morning,when Holden wakes up,again “I took a look out the window before I left the room,though,to see how all the perverts were doing,but they all had their shades on.”(106)Considering himself to the only normal person in the hotel,Holden fails to grasp the gravity of being a peeping tom.Fascinated by the perversion of adult world,Holden is under the influence of the corruption power of urban space.In the end,he is touched by the humanistic care and family love of his sister Phoebe,and decides to let go of his illusive dream and adopt a more optimistic view of the world.He finally comes to peace with the space around him,and accomplishes the revival of humanity against alienation.Salinger provides the young a clear picture of the evil urban space and its corruptive power,and guides the youth to a positive reconciliation with the world.

In his later works,Salinger devoted himself to a family of young sages—theGlassFamily.Theytranscend themundaneworld by philosophical introspection or religious epiphany to reach reconciliation with the world.The youngest brother Zooey and the youngest sister Franny are performers,and they are tormented by the mediocrity of the world.Franny has a nervous breakdown during a date with her boy friend Lane who gorges down lots of food while Franny moans about the suffocating hypocrisy of the urban space. “I’m just so sick of pedants and conceited little tearer-downers I could scream.”(Salinger,1961:17)Indeed she screams in horror and exhaustion,but Lane hears nothing.Franny goes home depressed and Zooey,who also can not sit down and have a dinner with any mediocre man,pretends to be their reclusive brother Buddy to enlighten Franny to transcend desires of urban space.In the end,they both transcend and come to realize the true exists in one’s heart,as “There isn’t anyone out their who isn’t Seymour’s Fat Lady….Don’t you know who that fat lady really is?It’s Christ Himself.”(201-202)In a space where lucid people suffocates by the vulgarity of others,transcending is the ultimate solution to reach reconciliation with oneself.Salinger suggests the young introspect for balance and tranquility that foster a transcendence form the mundane space.

In conclusion,along with deeper observation of the modern spaces,Salinger deepens his comprehension of the existential crisis of young people.He provides three solutions to compromise with the world:silent resistance,positive reconciliation and ultimate transcendence,each one more reclusive and practical than the last.Through transcendence,one can maintain a fare share of self-realization in the corruptive and repressive urban space.

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