The caracteristics of the narative discurse

In The Catcher in the Rye, the narrative order of the events Holden recounts is changed. The novel is not a formal autobiography, since Holden, the narrator, does not go into all that David Copperfield Kid or crap 1, in his story, he insists upon this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas 2. The novel can be viewed as a flashback (analepsis) explaining how he got pretty run down and had to come out here and take it easy 3; up to the end of the novel, the reader doesn t quite find out what Holden means by out here. This device is called by Rolland Barthes the hermeneutic code - the means by which a mystery is, in this case, postponed by partial answers.

Holden gives the account of this madman stuff that happened to him by using the Past Tense, but the narration of events is often interrupted by comments in the Present Tense.

He uses the Present Tense to express his views, to establish zone general truths about himself and the world, as if to underline the permanence of his judgements and his decision not to give in to the phoniness of society. By the use of the about school and education, about books and writers, about love and children / about life is general.

Holden Caulfield is the narrator of the novel and he uses the Present Tense in setting a frame to his story. Then, he shifts to the Past Tense and starts with a rather formal in media res: Anyway it was Saturday of the football game with Saxon Hall Salinger allows his center character to tell his adventures in his own way employing a first person narration.

Holden does not always function as a trustworthy narration.

He is presented as an imaginative teenager, a compulsive liar characterized by habitual exaggerations.

Holden gives us a partial view on reality, his view is often a diseases one and he doesn t give an objective account of the events. Although his state of mind makes him see only the filth and perversion around him, his criticisms are quite often valid.

Salinger uses the limited omniscient view: the reader sees everything trough Holden s consciousness. Thus, we speak about internal focalization. Since there is only one character through whose eyes the events are viewed, the internal focalization is fixed. Salinger does not use internal focalization rigorously, since the focalized character s appearance, behavior and thoughts can with difficulty be described objectively.

In Holden s narration, we encounter the traditional formulas used by narrators: You remember I said before, I ll just tell you, Some things are hard to remember. Salinger uses analepses within the story itself, but these are not formal flashbacks, since the earlier events come to us in fragments. The fragmented nature of their presentation is indicative of Holden s state of mind. There are certain events that deeply trouble him, that plague his thoughts.

Holden s flasks remembering the death of his brother Allie and that of James Castle, his ...