Do you ever features an aunt?”: Salinger’s Holden Caulfield and Faulkner’s Quentin Compson

Each other has extremely ambivalent thinking on the gender: because they chat otherwise contemplate sex almost always, as well as brag to help you anyone else regarding their sexual experience and knowledge, they are both in reality scared regarding gender, in fact was care about-admitted virgins

D. Salinger’s New Catcher from the Rye, given that title implies, are a novel built on literary the thing is and allusions; this means that, their hero, Holden Caulfield, has been than the many almost every other characters, out of both American and world literature.step 1 New nearest from Holden’s bloodstream brothers, since also a cursory survey of the complaint of Salinger’s book will show you, is seen as Huckleberry Finn.dos And certainly discover well-known likenesses anywhere between Huck and Holden: they are both stressed teenagers away from home–psychologically, linguistically, and geographically–out-of a grown-up business which they get a hold of pretentious, hypocritical, superficial, horrible, and you may unsafe. 3 Interestingly, even if, these stress and anxiety and obsessions are just the of those showed by William Faulkner’s Quentin Compson, among the protagonists of the Sound and also the Anger. The answer to the brand new neurotic behavior out of each other characters will likely be found in the Freudian principle out-of anality, such as for example while the you to definitely idea might have been increased and you can reinterpreted of the such after psychologists once the Norman O. Brownish and you will Ernest Becker. Each other Holden and you will Quentin display character traits that are with the anybody whose advancement might have been arrested on anal phase.

The exterior parallels among them emails can be oriented, and striking. Both are wise, sensitive, introspective, well-informed men: Holden is a seventeen-year-old preparing college college student exactly who checks out “a lot” (18) and whose top topic was English (110); Quentin try a keen eighteen-year-old freshman within Harvard you never know Latin and rates St. Francis. cuatro Additionally, each other Holden and you will Quentin investment their sexual stress on to its siblings, following a defensive, “government” feelings and looking so you can club this new sisters’ entry towards the carnal education. Finally, its baffled and interrupted mental claims head each other Holden and you may Quentin so you can consider committing suicide.5 Quentin, of course, as opposed to Holden, in reality observe as a result of on the their passing would you like to, to invest in a set of flat-irons having body weights immediately after which hurling himself away from a link towards the Charles River.

But the most significant information on Holden Caulfield’s characterization –his paralyzing concern with sex, their very defensive attitude on the his aunt, and his below average preoccupation that have dying–is actually forgotten within the Twain’s portrait away from Huck

Since the advised before, the fresh new unifying mental factor fundamental both Holden and you will Quentin’s anxieties of sex, girls, and passing is going to be based in the Freudian idea regarding anality. Based on Freud, the rationale of all of the adult neurosis will be utilized in the new repressed intimate desires out-of youth. Freud posited around three values out of infantile intimate invention: the brand new oral (delivery so you can 12 months), within activities out-of drawing and you may biting; the fresh new anal (one to three years), concentrating on the fresh new children’s fascination with the newest arsehole and you can stools; together with phallic (two-and-a-half in order to half dozen many years), concentrating on new child’s advancement of one’s vagina. In the event the children’s passing by way of each one of these stages isn’t negotiated properly and you may cheerfully, this new repressed drives often resurface inside adulthood when it comes to some neuroses. Centered on Freud, the adult character traits which might be of the denial and you will repression inside the rectal phase is orderliness (including neatness), obstinacy, and parsimony (or possessiveness).6

Getting Freud, rectal interest and you may enjoy, for instance the kid’s tips during the other stages out-of infantile innovation, are mainly assertions of your fulfillment principle along side truth and you may morality beliefs–exactly what do be regarded as from inside the retrospect given that futile effort of the child to www.besthookupwebsites.org/connecting-singles-review/ help you embrace so you’re able to an enthusiastic Edenic arena of innocent liberty and you may play in the face of impending exile toward mature arena of performs and responsibility. However, later on psychologists like Norman O. Brownish and you can Ernest Becker has actually aided us to understand that the fresh concern is somewhat more complicated than simply even Freud got recognized. Inside the informative and you can influential book, Lifestyle Facing Demise, Brownish contends you to definitely what is actually most are stamped toward understanding of each folks during the anal stage is absolutely nothing shorter than just “brand new dispute ranging from all of our animal system, appropriately epitomized on anal means, and our pretentious sublimations, a whole lot more especially brand new pretensions of sublimated or personal-Platonic like” (186). To put it differently, the latest rectal reputation means the brand new child’s first come upon with death and you may rust. Since Becker cards, echoing Brownish, “Which have rectal have fun with the guy is to-be good philosopher off the human status. But like all philosophers they are nevertheless limited by they, and his head task in daily life gets the fresh new denial of just what the brand new arsehole signifies: one to actually, he’s just looks where characteristics can be involved. Nature’s thinking was physical values, peoples values are rational philosophy, and though it do the loftiest aircraft he or she is established through to excrement, hopeless without it, constantly cut back so you can they” (31). This new dispute experienced by the kid at rectal stage, thus, is the fact of one’s human body rather than your mind or heart, the true versus the right.