Creation of Emptiness and Hopelessness: A Close Reading of The Catcher in the Rye

Abstract

Through a close reading of the text it is concluded that the symbolic description of the protagonist Holden's context, clothing, use of language, and psychological state plays a crucial role in the creation of the hopelessness and emptiness of American youth after WWⅡ who were psychologically paradoxical owing to the troubles they met and the loneliness they felt, and that dirty words in the text, once making the novel controversial, merely represent the youth’s hopelessness and emptiness.