The Catcher in the Rye is thought to be one of the best coming-of-age novels in the American literature. Holden Caulfield, a teenager from an affluent family, who is expelled from the elite school for underachievement, has become a symbol of a universal teenager due to the problems he experiences while he spends several days in New York before he comes back to his parents. Alienation and loneliness, failures, innocence and deceitfulness, anger, denial of the ideals of adulthood, and struggle with the emerging sexual identity all characterize the protagonist and the novel and are seen by many as typical attributes of any American teenager. THESIS STATEMENT: Yet, Holden Caulfield is not a universal coming-of-age character due to his racial bias. Instead, he should be perceived within the confines of his racial attributes, which means the story should be perceived as a coming-of-age story of a white adolescent.
Holden Caulfield’s bias expresses itself in his naming of other skin colors (ASSERTION). In the novel, the protagonist never mentions his race, nor does the novel mention his race anywhere. Instead, the text contains lots of labels used to refer to the people of color: “Coloreds”, “Indians”, and “Chinese.” (Salinger 180, 104, 130) (EVIDENCE). This is how Holden Caulfield sets himself apart from persons of other races. The fact that he does not refer to his body with the adjective describing color proves his whiteness and superiority. It also shows that Caulfield perceived people of other races as ‘others.’ What is more, Caulfield’s separation from the people of other races serves evidence that he thought of himself in terms of racial superiority (COMMENTARY). This, however, is not the only proof of his racial bias.
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"Racial Bias in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye".
Holden Caulfield’s racial bias is expressed in the chain of racial stereotypes he holds. Specifically, for Caulfield, Estelle Fletcher’s style of singing is “very Dixieland and whorehouse” (Salinger 104). Also, for him, the Chinese girls are associated with stereotypical sexual renown (Salinger 133). Besides, a Cuban man in the novel is portrayed as drunk and leaving ‘a dumpy looking bar’, with ‘stinking breath’ (Salinger 82). These stereotypes are clearly “white”, which means generated by white people about other races. Their wide use points out at the protagonist’s racial bias. The recurrent use of stereotyping by whites to distance themselves from other races is well shown in the following comment by Lipsitz, “the recurrence of racial stereotypes in art and in life […] and the white fascination with certain notions of primitive authenticity among communities of color, all testify to the white investment in images that whites themselves have created about people of color” (Lipsitz 118).
Additionally, the racial bias is expressed through class distinction. We get to know that Holden Caulfield comes from affluent background and belongs to the American upper class. This adds to his superior position with regard to other races and other ethnicities. The fact that he was expelled from the privileged school, where one will not meet a person of color, enhances our understanding that Holden was not simply white, but a white teenager from the upper class. According to the U.S. Census, 88 per cent of the upper class are whites, whereas African and Asia Americans constitute 5 and 7 per cent respectively (“Who’s in the Upper Class by Race”). Therefore, Caulfield’s belonging to the upper class is another factor that affected his racial bias.
In a nutshell, Holden Caulfield is not a universal representation of an American adolescent. Given his racial bias, which is expressed by his stereotypical thinking, his labeling of people of other colors, and his admitting to his upper-class status, the protagonist is the character representative of his own category. Holden Caulfield represents a particular young white man, who sees everything from his white perspective and is biased in his own way. It has been clearly demonstrated that Holden’s perception if his whiteness contributes greatly to shaping his racial bias.
- Lipsitz, George. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness. Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1998. Print.
- Salinger, Jerome David. The Catcher in the Rye. Penguin Books Limited, 1998. Print.
- “Who’s in the Upper Class by Race.” City-Data.Com. 12 February 2008. Web. 28 February
2014.
