Unreliable Narration In The Catcher In The Rye

Jerome David Salinger is a well-known American novelist and short story writer, best known for his influential novel The Catcher in the Rye which was published in 1951. Ever since its publication, The Catcher in the Rye has served as a firestorm for controversy and debate. Critics have argued the moral issues raised by the book and the context in which it is presented. Some have argued that Salinger's tale of the human condition is fascinating and enlightening, yet incredibly depressing. The psychological battles of the novel's main character, Holden Caulfield, serve as the basis for critical argument.This essay takes a tentative approach to discuss the narrative techniques Salinger uses in The Catcher in the Rye through the application of James Phelan's systematic theory of unreliable narration, aiming to offer a new perspective to understand and appreciate Salinger's novel. Phelan, taking the distance between the narrator and the implied author as the yardstick, broadens"unreliable narration"from two axes (facts /events and ethics/values) to three axes(facts/events, ethics/values and knowledge/perception ) , illustrating its six subtypes in detail: misreporting, underreporting, misreading, underreading, misregarding, and underregarding.The first chapter is an introductory part, including some information about J.D.Salinger's life and works, the background of The Catcher in the Rye and literature review on the novel.The second chapter describes and analyzes major approaches towards unreliable narration, such as rhetorical approach and cognitive/constructive approach, especially the elaboration of James Phelan's theory of unreliable narration.The third and fourth chapters discuss various types of unreliable narration occur in the novel by applying James Phelan's identification of six subtypes along three axes.Chapter five, as a conclusive part, makes a summary of the thesis and relates the specific meaning of deploying James Phelan's theory in analyzing The Catcher in the Rye.