One another has extremely ambivalent thoughts in the sex: because they chat otherwise consider gender nearly usually, plus boast to help you anyone else regarding their intimate experience and knowledge, they are both actually scared regarding intercourse, actually try mind-admitted virgins

D. Salinger’s New Catcher on Rye, as the title implies, try a manuscript constructed on literary the thing is and you will allusions; this means that, the champion, Holden Caulfield, might have been as compared to a number of most other letters, out-of each other American and globe literature.step 1 The fresh new nearest from Holden’s bloodstream brothers, because also a basic questionnaire of one’s complaint of Salinger’s book will reveal, can be recognized as Huckleberry Finn.dos And indeed you will find renowned likenesses anywhere between Huck and you can Holden: both are stressed kids while on the move–emotionally, linguistically, and you may geographically–from an adult world which they look for pretentious, hypocritical, superficial, vicious, and you will hazardous. 3 Surprisingly, regardless if, such stress and anxiety and you may obsessions is actually just the of these demonstrated of the William Faulkner’s Quentin Compson, among the many protagonists of your own Sound plus the Outrage. The key to the brand new neurotic choices of each other emails can be based in the Freudian theory from anality, for example because the you to principle has been amplified and reinterpreted from the such later psychologists just like the Norman O. Brownish and you may Ernest Becker. One another Holden and you will Quentin display personality traits that are of individuals whose invention has been arrested at rectal stage.

The surface similarities between the two characters are typically oriented, and you will hitting. They are both wise, painful and sensitive, introspective, well-informed men: Holden is a great seventeen-year-old planning college pupil just who checks out “much” (18) and whoever greatest topic try English (110); Quentin was an to get-year-old freshman at the Harvard that knows Latin and you can prices St. Francis. cuatro Also, one another Holden and Quentin investment its sexual nervousness on to their siblings, implementing a safety, “big brother” ideas and seeking to club brand new sisters’ entrance on carnal knowledge. Ultimately, its mislead and you will disrupted rational claims direct both Holden and you can Quentin in order to think about suicide.5 Quentin, naturally, instead of Holden, actually employs as a consequence of into their passing want to, to acquire a couple of apartment-irons having system loads and throwing themselves from a bridge with the Charles River.

However the biggest specifics of Holden Caulfield’s characterization –their paralyzing concern with sexuality, his very protective attitude with the their sibling, and his unhealthy preoccupation which have demise–is actually lost from inside the Twain’s portrait out of Huck

As recommended earlier, this new unifying emotional factor underlying both Holden and you may Quentin’s stress and anxiety out of sex, people, and you can dying is to be based in Blued sign in the Freudian theory away from anality. According to Freud, the rationale of the many adult neurosis is to be included in brand new stifled intimate wants out of teens. Freud posited three level from infantile intimate creativity: the fresh new oral (beginning to help you one year), within things from sucking and you will biting; the fresh new anal (one 3 years), emphasizing the brand new child’s love for brand new arse and you will stools; together with phallic (two and a half to half dozen ages), concentrating on this new kid’s knowledge of your own genitals. When your children’s passageway using every one of these stages isn’t discussed properly and gladly, the latest stifled pushes will resurface in the adulthood in the form of various neuroses. According to Freud, the fresh adult personality traits which might be of this denial and you can repression during the anal phase are orderliness (along with neatness), obstinacy, and you may parsimony (otherwise possessiveness).six

For Freud, rectal fascination and you may enjoy, like the child’s methods in other phases off infantile creativity, are mainly assertions of your own satisfaction idea along side fact and you will morality beliefs–exactly what can be looked at inside the retrospect while the useless effort out-of the kid so you can stick to help you an Edenic arena of simple freedom and you may play when confronted with coming exile into mature field of performs and you may obligation. However, afterwards psychologists particularly Norman O. Brown and you may Ernest Becker have assisted me to understand that the fresh issue is considerably more difficult than just actually Freud got recognized. Within his informative and you can important publication, Life Facing Passing, Brown contends you to definitely what exactly is very are stamped with the understanding of each of us within the anal stage is nothing shorter than just “the fresh dispute between our very own creature muscles, rightly epitomized regarding rectal means, and you will our very own pretentious sublimations, even more especially the new pretensions of sublimated otherwise intimate-Platonic like” (186). This basically means, the new rectal condition means the children’s basic come across which have mortality and rust. Just like the Becker notes, echoing Brown, “Which have rectal have fun with the son is already getting an effective philosopher regarding the human reputation. But like all philosophers he or she is still limited by it, and his awesome head activity in life becomes this new assertion out-of what new asshole is short for: one to in reality, he is simply looks where characteristics is worried. Nature’s beliefs try actual thinking, person viewpoints was mental beliefs, and although it do the loftiest routes they are centered through to excrement, impossible without one, constantly cut back so you’re able to it” (31). The fresh new conflict educated by the son during the rectal stage, therefore, is that of your human body in the place of the mind otherwise spirit, the actual versus a suitable.