Each other possess very ambivalent attitude on intercourse: as they cam or think about sex nearly usually, plus offer to other people regarding their sexual knowledge and experience, they are both in reality scared off gender, actually try notice-confessed virgins
D. Salinger's The fresh Catcher on Rye, as identity ways, is actually a book constructed on literary the thing is that and allusions; thus, the character, Holden Caulfield, has been as compared to a host of most other characters, out-of each other American and you will globe literary works.step one Brand new nearest regarding Holden's blood brothers, while the even a cursory survey of your own issue away from Salinger's book can tell you, is thought to be Huckleberry Finn.2 And you will yes you'll find renowned likenesses anywhere between Huck and Holden: both are stressed teenagers away from home--mentally, linguistically, and you may geographically--out of a grownup business which they look for pretentious, hypocritical, shallow, horrible, and you can unsafe. 3 Interestingly, even in the event, such anxiety and you may obsessions is just the of those exhibited by the William Faulkner's Quentin Compson, among the protagonists of your own Voice and also the Rage. The answer to the brand new neurotic decisions from both characters is based in the Freudian principle regarding anality, including given that you to principle has been increased and you will reinterpreted because of the such as for instance later on psychologists because the Norman O. Brown and you can Ernest Becker. Each other Holden and Quentin display personality traits that will be from the anyone whose innovation has been detained at the rectal stage.
The outside similarities between them letters are easily established, and you can hitting. They are both intelligent, delicate, introspective, well-advised teenagers: Holden was a seventeen-year-dated creating college or university beginner exactly who checks out "much" (18) and you will whoever most useful subject is actually English (110); Quentin try a keen you are-year-dated freshman during the Harvard you never know Latin and you can estimates St. Francis. 4 Additionally, each other Holden and you can Quentin enterprise its intimate anxiety on to their sisters, implementing a defensive, "government" attitude and seeking to bar the new sisters' access toward carnal education. Finally, its confused and you can disturbed intellectual states lead both Holden and you can Quentin so you can think of committing suicide.5 Quentin, definitely, unlike Holden, actually observe by way of for the their dying wanna, to acquire a set of apartment-irons to own looks loads immediately after which hurling themselves away from a connection into Charles River.
But the most significant information on Holden Caulfield's characterization --his paralyzing concern about sexuality, their extremely defensive emotions towards the his aunt, and his awesome below average preoccupation having death--try shed in Twain's portrait off Huck
Given that ideal before, the newest unifying psychological foundation fundamental one another Holden and you will Quentin's anxieties out of sex, girls, and you will dying is usually to be based in the Freudian concept regarding anality. Centered on Freud, the rationale of all the mature neurosis is going to be utilized in new stifled intimate desires of young people. Freud posited around three levels off infantile sexual invention: the fresh oral (beginning to help you twelve months), within activities away from drawing and you can biting; the fresh new rectal (one three years), concentrating on the newest kid's love for this new anus and you will stools; together with phallic (two-and-a-half so you're able to six years), emphasizing the new children's advancement of your own vagina. If your children's passageway by way of all these stages isn’t negotiated effortlessly and you can happily, the newest stifled drives tend to chemistry mobile site resurface in the adulthood when it comes to certain neuroses. Based on Freud, the new adult characteristics which might be for the assertion and you may repression from inside the rectal phase is actually orderliness (together with neatness), obstinacy, and you will parsimony (otherwise possessiveness).six
To own Freud, rectal attraction and you will enjoy, for instance the children's actions for the most other phase of infantile invention, are primarily assertions of your pleasure concept along side facts and morality beliefs--what can be looked at for the retrospect since the useless initiatives from the child to help you stick in order to an enthusiastic Edenic field of simple independence and you can play facing following exile into the adult realm of performs and you will responsibility. However, later on psychologists such as for example Norman O. Brownish and Ernest Becker possess assisted us to keep in mind that the fresh new issue is considerably more tricky than just actually Freud had acknowledged. In his informative and you can important publication, Lives Against Demise, Brownish contends one to what is extremely are stamped with the awareness of every people when you look at the anal stage is absolutely nothing faster than just "new conflict anywhere between our very own animal body, correctly epitomized about rectal form, and you can our pretentious sublimations, a lot more particularly this new pretensions of sublimated or personal-Platonic love" (186). To phrase it differently, the new anal standing represents the kid's basic encounter which have mortality and you can rust. Just like the Becker notes, echoing Brownish, "Which have rectal have fun with the guy is already as good philosopher of the human being reputation. But as with any philosophers he or she is nevertheless bound by it, and his main activity in life gets the latest denial out of just what the brand new asshole means: that indeed, they are nothing but looks where character is worried. Nature's thinking is physical philosophy, individual beliefs was intellectual values, and although it do the loftiest aircraft he or she is oriented upon excrement, impossible without one, constantly brought back in order to they" (31). The brand new disagreement knowledgeable from the man at anal phase, therefore, is that of your own human anatomy rather than your head otherwise spirit, the real versus an appropriate.
