Title: None of that David Copperfield crap: Clive Baldwin explores masculinity in The Catcher
in the Rye
Author(s): Clive Baldwin
Source: The English Review. 19.2 (Nov. 2008): p21. From Literature Resource Center.
Document Type: Critical essay
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2008 Philip Allan Updates
http://www.philipallan.co.uk/englishreview/index.htm
Full Text: 
In this article I outline an approach to J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951) that
foregrounds masculinity and identity. Such an approach takes as its starting point the idea that it
is not a straightforward matter to 'become a man' and that masculinity is an unstable attribute that
appears in multifarious forms across different cultures. Holden Caulfield's expensive boarding
school in Pennsylvania--Pencey Prep--echoes this in its claim to manage the transformation from
adolescence: 'Since 1888 we have been molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men'
(The Catcher in the Rye p. 2).
Caulfield's dismissal of Pencey Prep's grandiose claim is typical of his narrative voice through
the text: 'Strictly for the birds'. His judgement of the school's claim is part of his attitude towards
adult 'phoniness' and positions the novel from the beginning in a critical relation to notions of
adult male identity. The centrality of the theme of 'phoniness' in the novel may be viewed as
Caulfield's search for authenticity. His principal concern, in emphasising the 'phonies' all around
him, is to attempt to differentiate his own authentic male identity.
The novel, however, questions whether such an identity is possible and this can be seen in its
attitude to traditional masculine coming-of-age narratives. Caulfield tells his readers in the first
sentence that he will not be going into 'all that David Copperfield kind of crap' (p. 1). Unlike
other male narrators of fictional biography, who look back on their adolescence from maturity,
Caulfield remains ambiguously located at the end of the novel, with his development into
conventional adult masculinity still open to doubt.
Feminine digression
One way in which the form of The Catcher in the Rye differentiates it from narratives of
masculine achievement is in Caulfield's notion of digression. He articulates his fondness for this
during his conversation with his ex-English teacher, Mr Antolini. He explains that the
requirement of his Oral Expression teacher at Pencey, Mr Vinson, was that speakers 'unify and
simplify all the time' (p. 166). If a speaker failed to keep to the point, the rest of the class yelled
'Digression!' (p. 165). However, Caulfield likes digression, which he believes is 'more
interesting'. Vinson's view of the ideal form of narrative seems to be conventionally
rationalistic--story-telling should be direct, logical, purposive--traits commonly associated with
masculinity. 'Digression', on the other hand, which is impulsive rather than linear, fits with

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conventional notions of the 'feminine'. So in preferring digression, Caulfield rejects the rational,
structured speech of male authority in favour of a more feminine mode of narration. Digression
is characteristic of Caulfield's narrative voice throughout the novel, so its form disrupts a simple
masculine point of view and associates Caulfield with the feminine.
While aspects of the novel's form question the forms of masculinity available to Caulfield, so too
do the events described. Most of the narrative is focused on Caulfield's experiences in Manhattan
after he has run away from Pencey Prep and it is a sophisticated, white, heterosexual
metropolitan masculinity that Caulfield aspires to in New York. The novel scrupulously
represents the actualities of Manhattan cultural experience and social interactions in the period. It
is possible to identify from the New York City Guide of 1939, with its detailed maps and listings
of hotels and night spots, most of the places Caulfield visits and to trace his journey right through
to the carrousel marked on the map of Central Park. Caulfield is determined to counter his
humiliation at the hands of his Pencey teacher, Mr Spencer, who continually addresses him as
'boy' and has made him read out a particularly feeble essay (p. 11). However, as Caulfield
recounts his experiences in the public spaces of adulthood, it becomes clear that although he has
moved beyond childhood he cannot effectively embody sophisticated Manhattan masculinity.
A boy about town
Caulfield tries and fails to be the 'man about town' in touring the bars and night clubs of New
York. For example, he goes to the Lavender Room of the Edmont Hotel, where he is staying, but
he is given a 'lousy table' and then, because he is under age, is refused the Scotch and soda he
tries to order (p. 62). He dances with three young women, but Salinger's ironic treatment of the
encounter reveals that Caulfield's ineptitude is mocked by the women (pp. 62-3). He later moves
on to the Wicker Bar in a 'swanky hotel' (p. 118) where he meets Luce, formerly a school friend.
He imagines that he will have a sophisticated conversation with Luce but ends up being asked,
'When in hell are you going to grow up?' (p. 131). Luce leaves and Caulfield remains in the bar,
eventually becoming very drunk. In the end he leaves ignominiously, weeping and being treated
by the 'hatcheck girl' as a child after he has tried to fix a date with her: 'She said she was old
enough to be my mother and all' (p. 138). Again his supposed adult male behaviour--getting
drunk in public--has the opposite effect. Yet the novel is not simply an account of an adolescent
out of his depth in New York. Through Caulfield's voice, Salinger interrogates the expectations
of contemporary adult male identity. In this, the novel articulates a tension between the idealised
sophistication of a particular section of New York cultural life and the realities of Salinger's
traumatic experience of the Second World War. Some of this may be exemplified by focusing on
a key episode in the novel which deals with courage and violence--consistently perceived as
measures of 'real' masculinity.
This episode is at the end of Caulfield's encounter with Maurice and the prostitute, Sunny.
Caulfield decides not to go through with sex with Sunny, but, as a result, there is a dispute about
her payment, which brings Maurice to Caulfield's room. Caulfield's failure to step towards male

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adulthood by gaining an initial sexual experience is reflected in his physical vulnerability in
relation to Maurice. First, under pressure, he begins to cry (p. 92)--his body fails him, expressing
childish (or perhaps 'feminine') emotional weakness. Then Maurice 'snapped his finger very hard
on my pyjamas, ... it hurt like hell' (p. 93). This humiliating assault on his genitals is followed by
a punch in the stomach. Maurice and Sunny leave, with Caulfield lying on the floor in agony.
Eventually, he gets up:
About halfway to the bathroom, I sort of started pretending
I had a bullet in my guts. Old Maurice had plugged me.
Now I was on my way to the bathroom to get a good shot
of bourbon or something to steady my nerves and help me
really go into action. (p. 93)
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Caulfield imagines himself getting his gun and ringing for the elevator. As soon as the doors
open, Maurice screams for mercy,
But I'd plug him anyway. Six shots right through his fat,
hairy belly. [...] Then I'd [...] call up Jane and have her
come over and bandage up my guts. I pictured her holding
a cigarette for me to smoke while I was bleeding and all.
There is a juxtaposition here of sexuality and violence. First, his shooting of Maurice in his 'fat,
hairy belly' implies a castrating act of revenge for Caulfield's humiliation. Then the consoling
appearance of Jane is represented as the reward for 'the man of action'. The narrative continues:
The goddam movies. They can ruin you. I'm not kidding.

[...] Then I got back into bed. It took me quite a while to get
to sleep--I wasn't even tired--but finally I did. What I really
felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out
the window. (p. 94)
Fantasies of masculinity
The novel here shows the disparity between the artificiality of the cultural constructions that bear
down on Caulfield and his authentic feelings--'what I really felt like'. The fantasies of
masculinity derived from the movies offer a consolation. However, Caulfield is aware of being
contained within the artificial cinematic tropes of tough masculinity--guns, girls and cigarette
smoke. This perception and his vulnerability generate what he represents as an authenticity of
feeling, but in fact it summons up feelings of violent anger that he directs against himself. Yet,
while the novel criticises this performance of a certain style of contemporary masculinity, it
doesn't offer Caulfield a viable alternative masculine subjectivity. So his failure to act according
to dominant ideals of masculine strength and self-assertion leaves him loathing himself.

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Indeed, in this failure to act, the narrative emphasises the vulnerability of Caulfield's body. This
is shown in a number of ways in the text, but the most dramatic is the trope of 'falling', which
might be seen as a psychological symptom, but which he experiences as an overwhelming
physiological sensation. His first recounted experience is associated with the cold and his visit to
Spencer:
Anyway, as soon as I got my breath back I ran across
Route 204. It was icy as hell and I damn near fell down. [...]
After I got across the road, I felt like I was sort of disappearing.
It was that kind of crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun
out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every
time you crossed a road. (p. 4)
By the end of the novel this has become a terrifying symptom of his collapse. He is walking up
Fifth Avenue:
Then all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening.
Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the
goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other
side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down,
and nobody'd ever see me again. Boy, did it scare me. You can't
imagine. I started sweating like a bastard--my whole shirt and
underwear and everything. (p. 178)
This vertiginous sensation is connected with the prediction of his former teacher, Antolini, that
he is heading for a 'terrible fall'. Antolini tries to explain to Caulfield that there might be other
ways of growing into manhood than what seems obviously available. He describes the 'horrible'
kind of fall experienced by 'men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for
something their own environment couldn't supply them with. [...] So they gave up looking' (p.
169). Antolini's anticipation of Caulfield's experience suggests that this crisis is indeed a problem
of masculinity.
From boy to man
Yet Caulfield also observes a young boy confidently occupying the liminal border zone between
the road and the pavement. The boy is seen as potentially in danger: 'cars zoomed by, brakes
screeched all over the place' (p. 104). Yet 'The kid was swell. [...] He was walking in the street,
instead of on the sidewalk, but right next to the curb' (p. 104). In a 'pretty little voice' he is
singing: 'If a body catch a body coming through the rye'.
It is this that Caulfield recalls when he is trying to answer his sister Phoebe's question about what
he would 'like to be' (p. 155). He pictures thousands of small children in a field and he would be
'the catcher in the rye' stopping these children from going over a cliff (p. 156). Phoebe's response
to this is simply to repeat what she has already said: 'Daddy's going to kill you' (p. 156). By all
conventional measures, Caulfield's vision is an escapist fantasy, a denial of the work ethic and so

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evidence of his failure to be the 'mature man' idealised in contemporary American culture--it is
for this that he will invoke the wrath of his father. He will not conform to the demands made of
contemporary American masculinity, and in the words of one of the novel's reviewers, Harrison
Smith, he is failing 'to pass successfully the barrier between childhood and young manhood'
(Saturday Review of Literature, 14 July 1951). The metaphor for this passage from one state to
another is crossing the road, and Caulfield's fear of disappearing as he does so shows his inability
to grasp--or believe in--a satisfactory model of manhood.
In conclusion, reading The Catcher in the Rye in relation to masculinity is to place it in a critical
relationship to the tradition of masculine coming-of-age narratives because it questions the
protagonist's desire to mature into the conventional male role. Caulfield's resistance opens up to
critical scrutiny the expectations of men and the ways in which the conventional codes of gender
were rehearsed in the mass media, such as the movies. Moreover, Caulfield's digressive narrative
approach and his ambition to occupy a maternal role as the 'catcher' of young children aligns him
with the feminine in a further subversion of contemporary expectations of masculinity.
Further reading
Graham, S. (2007) J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Routledge.
Hamilton, I. (1988) In Search of J. D. Salinger: a biography, Random House.
Salinger, J. D. (1994) The Catcher in the Rye, Penguin.
Clive Baldwin works at the Open University where he is the Arts Faculty's Associate Dean for
Learning and Teaching. He is carrying out research into the representation of masculinity in
American novels published immediately after the Second World War.
Baldwin, Clive
Source Citation   (MLA 7th Edition)
Baldwin, Clive. "None of that David Copperfield crap: Clive Baldwin explores masculinity in
The Catcher in the Rye." The English Review 19.2 (2008): 21+. Literature Resource Center.
Web. 1 Sept. 2015.
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