Cynicism And Conciliation: The Heterotopias In The Catcher In The Rye

On July 16,1951,The Catcher in the Rye was released,and it has been 70 years since its publishment.Holden,the protagonist of this work,has become one of the classic figures in the history of literature,who has accompanied generations of youths through adolescence.The Catcher in the Rye as Salinger’s only novel which sets off “Salinger Industry”,a rare phenomenon in literature,coupled with Salinger’s hidden life,has triggered critics’ research enthusiasm of the work and Salinger himself all the years.Holden never stops wandering around New York,and the different spaces he shuttles in are similar to French philosopher Michel Foucault’s idea of “heterotopias”,which was put forward in 1960 s.As a new concept of understanding “marginal space”,heterotopias are of some value in explaining the isolation chaos in the current living space.Coincidentally,Holden has also undergone a series of heterogenous spaces of reality and imagination.Given the resonance of the parallel experiences of the protagonist,it seems apposite to draw primarily on Foucauldian spatial articulations of power and resistance in order to analyze the spiritual changes of the hero,and the relationship in the text between the space and people who live under it.By referring to Foucault’s heterotopias thought,the question of “how spaces themselves in this work can become heterotopias,and how they change the protagonist” could be answered.By exploring the manifold junctions between constructions of space and the performance of protagonist,it can be concluded that the spatial influence is the direct factor leading to his psychological transition.Heterotopias can be a form of limitation and control of the protagonist’s nature,but also it is a site of his selfactualization,of breaking out of cynicism and ultimately of absorbing positive energy to achieve conciliation,thus gaining the ability of getting rid of the power of heterotopias.