Key Fact The Catcher In The Rye

Key Facts
FULL TITLE • The Catcher in the Rye
AUTHOR • J. D. Salinger
TYPE OF WORK • Novel
GENRE • Bildungsroman (coming-of-age novel)
LANGUAGE • English
TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN • Late1940s–early 1950s, New York
DATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION • July 1951; parts of the novel appeared as short stories in Collier’s, December 1945, and in The New Yorker, December 1946
PUBLISHER •Little, Brown and Company
NARRATOR • Holden Caulfield, narrating from a psychiatric facility a few months after the events of the novel
POINT OF VIEW • Holden Caulfield narrates in the first person,describing what he himself sees and experiences, providing his own commentary on the events and people he describes.
TONE • Holden’s tone varies between disgust, cynicism, bitterness, and nostalgiclonging, all expressed in a colloquial style.
TENSE • Past
SETTING (TIME) • A long weekend in the late 1940s or early 1950s
SETTING (PLACE) • Holden begins his story in Pennsylvania, at his formerschool, Pencey Prep. He then recounts his adventures in New York City.
PROTAGONIST • Holden Caulfield
MAJOR CONFLICT • The major conflict is within Holden’s psyche. Part of him wants to connectwith other people on an adult level (and, more specifically, to have a sexual encounter), while part of him wants to reject the adult world as “phony,” and to retreat into his own memories of childhood.RISING ACTION • Holden’s many attempts to connect with other people over the course of the novel bring his conflicting impulses—to interact with other people as an adult, or to retreat from them asa child—into direct conflict.
CLIMAX • Possible climaxes include Holden’s encounter with Sunny, when it becomes clear that he is unable to handle a sexual encounter; the end of his date with Sally,when he tries to get her to run away with him; and his departure from Mr. Antolini’s apartment, when he begins to question his characteristic mode of judging other people.
FALLING ACTION •...