Denial, Choice And Love

Because of the publication of The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger has become one of the most important American writers. And The Catcher in the Rye has also become one of the two"modern classics"in contemporary American literature. After its publication, this novel has received widespread attention. Literary critics have analyzed this novel with different approaches. However, the author of this thesis found that whether at home or abroad, there was nearly no critics trying to analyze this novel from the existentialistic way.Existentialism is one of the most effective branches of modern western philosophy. It stretches from WWI to WWII. Therefore, Salinger must have been influenced by this ideology more or less. Among all the representatives, Sartre is one of the most important ones. This thesis tentatively analyzed The Catcher in the Rye with Sartre's existentialism, in order to provide a new way for analyzing this novel.This thesis consists of 6 chapters: In the first chapter, the author gave a brief introduction to Salinger's lifetime, The Catcher in the Rye, and literary reviews at home and abroad. In the second chapter, the author gave a brief introduction to the birth of existentialism, its representatives and the thoughts at first. Then, the author introduced Sartre's idea in three parts: being-in-itself & being-for-itself; freedom & responsibility; and the other. In the third chapter, the author tried to analyze this novel with the concept of being-in-itself and being-for-itself. And the process of Holden's escape was just a process of denial. In the forth chapter, the author tried to analyze this novel with the concept of freedom and responsibility. In the fifth chapter, the author analyzed this novel with the concept of the other, and argued that it was love that pulled Holden back to the society. In the sixth chapter, the author gave the conclusion. Today, in order to construct harmonious society, this kind of love was the most important element.