One another possess highly ambivalent attitude on the sex: as they talk otherwise contemplate sex almost usually, plus offer in order to others about their sexual experience and knowledge, both are actually fearful off sex, indeed try notice-admitted virgins

D. Salinger’s This new Catcher regarding Rye, just like the name ways, was a book built on literary the thing is and allusions; because of this, its champion, Holden Caulfield, could have been compared to the many almost every other letters, regarding each other Western and business literature.step 1 The new closest of Holden’s bloodstream brothers, since actually a basic survey of your own grievance from Salinger’s novel will reveal, are recognized as Huckleberry Finn.2 And you may indeed you can find prominent likenesses between Huck and you can Holden: they are both stressed teens on the run–mentally, linguistically, and you may geographically–from a grown-up industry that they look for pretentious, hypocritical, low, horrible, and harmful. 3 Surprisingly, regardless if, such anxiousness and you will obsessions try only the of them exhibited because of the William Faulkner’s Quentin Compson, one of many protagonists of the Sound and Rage. The key to the latest neurotic decisions regarding both characters will likely be based in the Freudian idea off anality, such as for instance because the one concept has been increased and you will reinterpreted by the such as for example later on psychologists once the Norman O. Brown and you will Ernest Becker. Both Holden and you may Quentin display characteristics that will be of someone whoever development could have been arrested at anal stage.

The outside parallels between them emails are typically dependent, and you may striking. They are both intelligent, painful and sensitive, introspective, well-advised teenagers: Holden is actually an excellent seventeen-year-old planning school college student whom reads “much” (18) and you will whoever better topic was English (110); Quentin was a keen you are-year-old freshman on Harvard that knows Latin and you can quotes St. Francis. cuatro Additionally, one another Holden and you can Quentin endeavor the sexual anxiety to its sisters, adopting a defensive, “your government” attitude and looking to help you pub the new sisters’ access to the carnal training. In the end, the puzzled and you will disturbed intellectual states lead both Holden and you will Quentin to think about committing suicide.5 Quentin, of course, unlike Holden, actually observe as a consequence of to the their demise wanna, to purchase a pair of flat-irons for looks loads right after which throwing himself of a bridge on the Charles River.

Nevertheless greatest details of Holden Caulfield’s characterization –his paralyzing concern about sex, their overly protective thinking towards their cousin, with his below average preoccupation having demise–try missing into the Twain’s portrait out of Huck

As suggested before, the latest unifying psychological factor underlying each other Holden and you can Quentin’s stress and anxiety out of sex, women, and passing is to be found in the Freudian theory regarding anality. Centered on Freud, the rationale of all the mature neurosis is going to be found in the new repressed intimate wants off youth. Freud posited three grade out-of infantile sexual invention: the new dental (beginning so you’re able to a year), between the affairs from sucking and you can biting; the latest rectal (you to definitely 36 months), targeting the fresh new children’s love for this new arse and stools; together with phallic (two-and-a-half so you can half a dozen age), concentrating on this new kid’s have a peek at tids website breakthrough of your pussy. When your kid’s passing through every one of these phase isn’t negotiated effectively and you will joyfully, the fresh new repressed pushes usually resurface during the adulthood when it comes to some neuroses. According to Freud, the newest adult personality traits which can be regarding the assertion and repression in anal phase try orderliness (and neatness), obstinacy, and parsimony (or possessiveness).6

Having Freud, rectal fascination and enjoy, like the children’s actions into the almost every other levels out of infantile innovation, are mainly assertions of the fulfillment principle along the facts and morality values–what can be looked at inside retrospect just like the futile efforts out of the little one in order to cling in order to a keen Edenic arena of simple liberty and you can enjoy in the face of coming exile on mature arena of performs and you can obligation. But later psychologists instance Norman O. Brownish and you will Ernest Becker has actually aided us to remember that this new issue is somewhat more challenging than even Freud had recognized. In his informative and you may influential publication, Lifestyle Against Passing, Brownish contends one what is actually most becoming stamped into awareness of every people in the anal stage is nothing reduced than “the fresh new argument anywhere between the creature human anatomy, appropriately epitomized on the anal mode, and you may our pretentious sublimations, a great deal more particularly the brand new pretensions of sublimated otherwise close-Platonic like” (186). This means, the newest rectal position is short for the latest child’s earliest find that have mortality and you may decay. Because Becker notes, echoing Brown, “Having anal play the guy has already been getting good philosopher off the human being standing. But as with any philosophers he could be however limited by they, and his main activity in daily life will get the fresh new assertion out-of exactly what the brand new anus stands for: you to definitely actually, he is just looks where character is concerned. Nature’s thinking are bodily philosophy, individual beliefs is actually rational viewpoints, and although it grab the loftiest routes he could be depending abreast of excrement, hopeless without one, always cut back to help you it” (31). The fresh disagreement experienced because of the son at anal phase, thus, would be the fact of the system in place of your body and mind otherwise soul, the genuine instead of a suitable.