The Caulfield Effect
Holden Caulfield, hyperbole and a lesson in anxiety
“People are always ruining things for you.” — Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield, the angsty protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye, is always testing limits. Because his narration is mostly monologue, he tests these limitations internally (or with a therapist). Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, our lyingly (by his own admission) honest protagonist uses language to bring attention to specific scenarios he feels deeply about. Because most of the novel communicates what Holden thinks, Josef Benson calls this kind of narration closeted. “This diatribe can be read in part as Holden’s failed attempt to emerge from the various closets in which he dwells.” (Benson 2018, 9).
Most of the narration happens in the space of the last chapter when we find Holden recollecting his story in a psychiatric ward. It is in the commentary that we find his conviction. Any real action is found in the language Holden uses to bloviate his experiences. While the novel continually aims at the door, there needs is rarely any movement toward it.
Holden Caulfield’s use of hyperbole asks the question, to what end does the use of hyperbole in language lead us? What does hyperbole do and to what end does it help? How is it used to satisfy our own ends and ideas?
