《麦田守望者》与《挪威的森林》的艺术风格比较研究(2)

2. Different Cultural Background

The 50s were a time of repression. Although the laws of a free America were inexistence, an inordinate amount of strict societal controls were placed upon daily life.People weren’t allowed to do what they wanted to do, say what they want to say, orexpress their thoughts. There was enormous pressure to conform.

This is exactly the phony attitudes and standpoints of the world that HoldenCaulfield in the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger despises. What mayseem like teenage anxiety and cynicism is Holden’s attempt to show a surely differentpoint of view on what goes on around him, as well as on the characters in the bookthat share prototypes with both real people of the 50s and even today.

Many similarities exist between Holden Caulfield and J. D. Salinger: both ofthem grew up in upper class New York and both of were flunked out of prep schools.It’s no wonder that Salinger’s experience in World War II should give us a glimpse ofHolden’s views and experiences in The Catcher in the Rye. World War II strippedmillions of young men and women of their youthful innocence. Salinger was awitness of the slaughter of thousands at Normandy, one of the war’s bloodiest battles.In The Catcher in the Rye it can be seen the impact of Salinger’s World War IIexperience in Holden’s skeptical, cynical view of adult society. Holden regardsgrowing up as a gradual surrender to the “phony” duties of adult life, such asmaintaining intimate relationships, getting a decent job and serving in the army. WorldWar I was supposed to be the war to end all wars. World War II proved that this claimwas as barren as the “phony” ideas which adult characters impose on Holdenthroughout The Catcher in the Rye.

Little is known about the influences Salinger drew upon to write The Catcher inthe Rye. During World War II he met Ernest Hemingway in Paris, which indicates thatSalinger admired Hemingway’s work. Even though that’s true, it’s difficult to discoverany particular author’s influence in Catcher because it’s written in a new and uniqueway with a degree of frankness and brashness perhaps unprecedented in American fiction.

As a bestseller and a frequently challenged book, The Catcher in the Rye has had apermanent influence. Plenty of works in popular culture have cited the novel. Factorsattributing to the novel’s glamour and impact include its vivid description ofprotagonist Holden Caulfield; its sincere tone; its themes of falling and salvation,tension between rebellious teens and society; its banned status; and Salinger’s .

Murakami Haruki is to the Japanese what Hollywood stars are to Americans. Hisliterary career began in the late 1970s and earned him popular acclaim that drove himinto the national and international spotlight. He became so popular, as a matter of fact,that he fled Japan to live in relative seclusion. For several years, he lived in the UnitedStates, guest lecturing at Princeton, as well as residing in Italy and Greece. Intheselocations, he was less easily recognizable or altogether obscure, at least until thetranslation of his texts into multiple national languages. However, Murakami’s lifebegan much differently than it now appears to his readers.

Chapter II Similarities Between the Two Novels

The Catcher in the Rye is a narration of a teenage boy’s three-day wandering inNew York city and Norwegian Wood is a sad love story about a young adult’sdilemma between life and death. While the two fictions are written in differentcontinents, the two fictions share many aspects in common—they both belong toinitiation fictions. So the purpose of this chapter is to discover and explore thesimilarities between the two novels.

The two fictions are similar to each other in the following aspects, namely,similar theme, similar plot and structure and similar characters. These similarities willbe respectively elaborated in the following branches.

1．Similarities in Theme

A novel’s theme is the main idea that the writer wants to express. It is the central or overriding idea of the novel. Theme can also be defined as the core meaning of the story. The theme of a novel is more than its subject matter, because an author’s technique can play as strong a role in developing a theme as the actions of thecharacters do. A major theme of the two fictions is the alienation of youth in modern society. J. D. Salinger and Murakami Haruki convincingly depict teenagers’ desperate search for identity, love and salvation and their protest against the corruption of theadult world.

A. Theme of Love, Sex and Death

In The Catcher in the Rye, Jane Gallagher, who is secretly admired by Holden, isthe only person whom Holden ever shows Allie’s baseball glove. They have becomeclose since then. For Holden, love is complicated. The most telling scene is one weget in a flashback. The checker-playing scene is to Jane’s character what the baseballmitt is to Allie’s. We lead into it sort of unintentionally (Holden just sits down in a“vomity-looking” chair in the hotel lobby and meditates), and he delivers the pivotalinformation we’ve been looking for. Holden can’t imagine getting too sexy with a girlhe has genuine emotion for, and Jane is an obvious example. They hold hands, they sitclose to each other, Jane puts her hand on the back of his neck…cute, but not exactlythe most exciting Friday night with your significant other. Again, this was the 1940s,but as we see from the other boys at Pencey, young relationships aren’t devoid offooling around. We can’t blame Holden’s lack of advances on old-fashioned values –we have to look further. Through Holden’s nostalgic memories of Jane, we gaininsight into the type of companionship Holden wants. He mentions that he knows heis happy when he is with Jane. His memories of Jane are particularly moving becausehe describes a very deep emotional connection. Additionally, their moments ofintimacy are subtle and extremely personal, free of any sort of posturing or phoniness.

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