J.D. Salinger: Personal Experiences Reflected in Literature

1572 Words4 Pages

ENG3U ISU PHASE II
Authors always have their own way to express their experiences through writing. Often their book talks about their personal life. Same as J.D.Salinger, born from a Jewish Father and Christian mother (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2015) made him experience a lot of dramatic things in his life, this influenced him to write a novel about his personal life. The Catcher in The Rye was written based on his personal experiences and makes him become one of the most influential American writers during 20th century. Shutting himself from the society where he lived in affected the story line. Lastly, the cultural changes happened in his life made him interested to write this novel. Moreover, his personal life affected most of the story …show more content…

Although he was joining World War II, for a few years, he chose to keep writing his novel. After the war finished, he decided to go back to United States, and he finished his novel and published The Catcher in the Rye In the book, the plot was in New York City because it was the city where Salinger grew up and he tried to show the reality of living in New York City looks like. In 1930, United State society was experiencing the progressive era. During the World War II, the economic crisis also happened in America. In his book, Holden Caulfield also experience the economic crisis as well, and he mentioned “In New York, boy, money, really talks - I’m not kidding.” (Salinger 69). Other than that, in Salinger’s life time period, a lot of youth culture loses their innocent in America and Salinger wants to protect their innocent. Like Caulfield, he sayid that “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some on this big field or rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around -- nobody big, I mean -- except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff -- I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.” (Salinger, 173) Holden Caulfield feels a similar desire to protect the youth culture of America from the inevitable corruption of conformist America. During that time, there was a lot of demo happened in his life. No one tried to fight against the government, this inspired Salinger to reflect Holden Caulfield as the character of the rebellion. After the novel was published, it started to make the young people rebel against the society and make them be able to keep their purity. Adopt the cultural changes happen in the society is not an easy things to do for

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