One another have extremely ambivalent thoughts regarding sex: while they speak otherwise consider gender almost constantly, and even offer so you’re able to anyone else regarding their intimate experience and knowledge, both are actually scared off gender, indeed was notice-admitted virgins
D. Salinger’s The Catcher regarding Rye, because label implies, was a novel constructed on literary the thing is and you will allusions; as a result, its champion, Holden Caulfield, has been versus many other characters, out-of each other Western and you can industry literary works.step 1 The fresh nearest regarding Holden’s bloodstream brothers, just like the also a cursory survey of one’s issue regarding Salinger’s novel will highlight, can be recognized 
as Huckleberry Finn.dos And you can indeed you’ll find well known likenesses ranging from Huck and Holden: both are stressed kids on the go–emotionally, linguistically, and you can geographically–from a grownup business that they get a hold of pretentious, hypocritical, superficial, vicious, and you may hazardous. 3 Remarkably, whether or not, these types of stress and anxiety and you may obsessions was precisely the ones displayed from the William Faulkner’s Quentin Compson, among the many protagonists of your own Voice while the Anger. The key to the newest neurotic choices off both emails are based in the Freudian theory away from anality, such as for instance once the that concept has been increased and you may reinterpreted by for example after psychologists since the Norman O. Brown and you can Ernest Becker. Each other Holden and Quentin exhibit personality traits that will be from the anyone whoever development could have been detained during the anal stage.
The surface parallels between the two letters can be depending, and you will striking. Both are smart, sensitive, introspective, well-told teenage boys: Holden is a beneficial seventeen-year-old creating university pupil whom reads “a great deal” (18) and whoever top topic was English (110); Quentin was a keen eighteen-year-dated freshman on Harvard you never know Latin and you can rates St. Francis. cuatro Furthermore, both Holden and you may Quentin endeavor the intimate stress to its siblings, adopting a protective, “your government” ideas and looking so you’re able to bar the sisters’ access for the carnal studies. Finally, their puzzled and you may disrupted rational says direct each other Holden and you will Quentin to help you think of committing suicide.5 Quentin, obviously, as opposed to Holden, in fact employs as a consequence of with the their passing desire to, buying a pair of apartment-irons for looks weights then throwing themselves away from a connection for the Charles Lake.
However the biggest specifics of Holden Caulfield’s characterization –his paralyzing concern about sex, his overly defensive ideas with the their sister, and his awesome unhealthy preoccupation which have dying–is forgotten from inside the Twain’s portrait out-of Huck
Because suggested earlier, the brand new unifying emotional factor root one another Holden and you will Quentin’s anxiety out of sex, girls, and you may passing is to be found in the Freudian principle out of anality. Predicated on Freud, the rationale of all adult neurosis will be found in the fresh new repressed sexual desires of youngsters. Freud posited about three degree out of infantile intimate creativity: the newest oral (delivery in order to yearly), involving the circumstances away from drawing and biting; the latest rectal (you to three years), concentrating on the fresh kid’s love for this new arsehole and stools; therefore the phallic (two-and-a-half to half a dozen age), focusing on the child’s finding of the pussy. If for example the child’s passing compliment of all these stages is not discussed effectively and joyfully, the suppressed drives often resurface in the adulthood in the way of individuals neuroses. According to Freud, the fresh new mature character traits that will be regarding the denial and you may repression during the rectal stage try orderliness (including neatness), obstinacy, and you may parsimony (or possessiveness).six
For Freud, anal interest and you may enjoy, for instance the child’s steps in other stages off infantile innovation, are mainly assertions of your own fulfillment idea along side truth and you can morality prices–exactly what can be viewed within the retrospect since useless attempts from the little one in order to cling so you can an Edenic world of simple versatility and you will gamble in the face of following exile with the mature realm of work and you may obligation. However, afterwards psychologists eg Norman O. Brown and you may Ernest Becker keeps helped us to keep in mind that the fresh concern is significantly more tricky than just even Freud got accepted. Inside the informative and important guide, Lives Against Demise, Brownish contends that what exactly is really getting stamped towards consciousness each and every of us within the anal phase is nothing shorter than “brand new argument between the animal looks, correctly epitomized in the anal mode, and you will our very own pretentious sublimations, way more especially the fresh new pretensions off sublimated or intimate-Platonic love” (186). In other words, the fresh new anal status signifies the new child’s first stumble on having mortality and decay. Because Becker cards, echoing Brown, “Which have anal play the child is to-be good philosopher of the human position. But as with any philosophers he is nevertheless limited by it, and his head activity in life becomes this new assertion from just what the fresh arsehole is short for: one actually, he could be only human body in which nature is concerned. Nature’s opinions is actual beliefs, people viewpoints was rational thinking, and though it take the loftiest routes he is depending abreast of a stool, impossible without it, usually cut back so you can they” (31). The fresh new dispute educated by guy within anal stage, hence, is that of one’s human body instead of your brain otherwise heart, the actual versus a suitable.
