Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Salinger, J.D. - Study Questions

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Study Questions

1. Critics in the 1950s and 1960s frequently compared Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye with Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, arguing that both novels were in the tradition of the quest narrative. In what way is Holden Caulfield’s journey a quest? What has he been seeking, and what have been the results of that search?
2. In “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor” the narrator points out that the first part of the story is about love and the second part about squalor. Why does the narrator shift from a first-person to a third-person point of view and refer to himself as Sergeant X in the squalor part of the story?
3. Critics have noted that the last two stories in Nine Stories, “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period” and “Teddy,” marked a shift in Salinger’s narrative focus that anticipated his stories about the Glass family. Read these two stories, as well as “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut” and...

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1. Introduction
2. About J. D. Salinger
3. Salinger at Work
4. Salinger’s Era
5. Salinger’s Works
6. Salinger on Salinger
7. Salinger as Studied
8. Study Questions
9. Bibliography
10. Copyright

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