Themes - The Catcher in the Rye

Themes - The Cathcer in the Rye

•  Youth and Innocence
• Loneliness and Isolation
• Sexuality and Sexual Identity
• Madness, Depression, and Suicide
• Wisdom, Knowledge, and Academic Success
• Lies, Deceit, and Phoniness

         ***   “Phony” is the most frequently repeated word in this novel. Holden applies “phony” to anything hypocritical, shallow, superficial, inauthentic, or otherwise fake. “Crazy,” “madman,” and “depressed” rank close behind it.   *** 

American Cultural History - The 1940's

•The 1940's were dominated by World War II (1939-1945).

•US isolationism was shattered by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.

•War production pulled us out of the Great Depression.

•World War II changed the order of world power; the United States and the USSR became super powers.

•Women were needed to replace men who had gone off to war, and so the first great exodus of women from the home to the workplace began.

•Rationing affected the food we ate, the clothes we wore, the toys with which children played.

•The successful use of an antibiotic, penicillin, by 1941 revolutionized medicine.

•After the war, the men returned, having seen the rest of the world.

•The GI Bill allowed more men than ever before to get a college education.

Women had to give up their jobs to the returning men, but they had tasted independence.

The Catcher in the Rye - Vocabulary (Chapters 1-3)

1.  hemorrhages
2.  foils
3.  ostracized
4.  grippe
5.  chiffonier
6.  lagoon
7.  compulsory
8.  falsetto
9.  hound's tooth