A response to ‘the adolescent incapacity to distinguish between dream and reality, between the terms demanded of life and the terms offered’ (William Troy) using The Bell Jar and Catcher in the Rye.

Content Warning: talks of declining mental health and prostitution 

Within the classic novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J.D Salinger and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (1963) we see two adolescents making their way through New York in the 1950s both with different reasons to be there and both with very different outcomes. The 1950s within America had a huge societal change, everything was changing and fast. These two novels show how the protagonists make their way through this change and by doing so expanding ‘the boundaries of tolerance and the definition of what it meant to be a respected citizen in American society’ (Bodnar, P.21). In The Catcher in the Rye, we follow Holden Caulfield, a sixteen-year-old, and the two days he spends after being kicked out of the prestigious ‘Pencey’. Being sixteen Holden still has a few more years developing from child to adult whereas Esther Greenwood, a nineteen-year-old, has near reached the end of adolescence. Esther finds herself in New York after she was given a sought-after internship at a magazine. Both the novels are told in the first-person perspective.

One of the first instances we see Holden trying to distinguish ‘between the terms demanded of life and the terms offered’ comes in the second chapter. Holden goes to visit his flu ridden teacher from his previous school, which he again ‘flunked’ out of. Here, we see Mr Spencer trying to warn Holden that ‘life is a game that one plays according to the rules’ (Salinger, P.9) as if laying down the ‘terms demanded of life’ (Troy) to Holden. This is where we see such an adolescent response to the advice that’s been given to him. His immediate response to this advice is to brush it off with ‘game, my ass’ (Salinger, P.9) and that he doesn’t have to ‘listen to this crap’ (Salinger, P.9). Here, we see how young Holden truly is with his juvenile responses to what the reader may see as genuine advice. Further in this chapter we see Mr Spencer’s words slowly starting to effect Holden as he warns Holden that he will only learn ‘when it’s too late’ (Salinger, P.15) and that he’d only like to ‘put some sense in that head of’ (Salinger, P.15) his. This is where we see Holden realise that ‘he really was’ (Salinger, P.15) trying to help and that he ‘could see that’ (Salinger, P.15). Once the ‘terms demanded of life’ were placed right in front of him we see Holden once again take the adolescent response and try to get away from the conversation by telling Mr Spencer he had to go and retrieve some of his old gym equipment which in his own words is a ‘sheer lie’ (Salinger, P.17).

After looking at this interaction we must look towards the end of the novel where he stays over at Mr Antolini’s ‘very swanky apartment’ (Salinger, P.195). The two interactions are completely different but that’s because we see them before and after the two-day journey Holden has taken. Here, Holden is faced with terms that life demands as Mr Antolini warns him that he’s ‘riding for some kind of terrible terrible fall’ (Salinger, P.201). In this instance we don’t see Holden shut down the ‘very intellectual’ (Salinger, P.195) tennis player, instead he wants to ‘continue the conversation in the morning’ (Salinger, P.202) but of course that may just be an excuse for wanting this conversation to stop. We see the difference in respect he has for each teacher as he keeps referring to Mr Antolini as ‘Sir’ (Salinger, P.202), a sign of respect, or how their own places of living are described as, one is ‘depressing’ (Salinger, P.8) the other ‘swanky’ (Salinger, P.195).

One of the chapters within the book I think we really see how young Holden truly is, is when he is faced with a prostitute in his room. After lying about his age to a hotel worker he finds himself in a room with a prostitute. It is important to note that here, Holden does not actively seek out a prostitute but is offered one by the adult elevator operator Maurice. After accepting the offer, Holden admits that ‘it was so against my principles’ (Salinger, P.99) and yet he agreed as he ‘was so depressed [he] didn’t even think’ (Salinger, P.99). This is where we see the ‘terms offered’ and how he reacts to it. The time between him agreeing to having the prostitute visit him and when she actually arrives at his hotel door, we see his internal thought process about the situation. After admitting to the reader that he is in fact a virgin we see his mind take a darker turn, blaming the women he’s been with for not being able to lose his virginity. He blames them for ‘telling you to stop’ (Salinger, P.100) and how ‘most girls are so dumb and all’ (Salinger, P.100), and yet he is constantly chasing Jane Gallagher throughout the novel or going on date with Sally Hayes. In his adolescent mind we see he decides to use this opportunity to get ‘some practise on her, in case I ever get married or anything’ (Salinger, P.101). It’s almost bittersweet that his sixteen-year-old boy is thinking in such a way. John Bodnar makes an interesting observation, stating that ‘traditional homes and relationships were often portrayed in ‘classic’ Hollywood narration as the goals for which American thought’ (Bodnar, P.22). Again, we see Holden falling into terms demanded of life after adolescence.

Although the thought of this prostitute coming over and using her for his own sexual education was starting to sound like a good idea to Holden once she actually arrives at his hotel room, the situation turns south. Again, we see Holden battling with the dream of having a prostitute over and the reality hitting him in the face. Once Summer arrives sex seems to take a back seat in Holdens mind. In a humorous way, they both start questioning how old each other seem to be. Holden is then hit with the gravity of this situation when Summer takes off her dress, and he states that ‘sexy was the last thing I was feeling’ (Salinger, P.102) and then goes on to make excuses as to why he couldn’t ‘perform’. Anthony DeJovine mentions that ‘It is hard to conceive that any normal adolescent boy could be enticed by this scene to visit a prostitute or that any normal adolescent girl could be enticed by it to become a prostitute’ (DeJovine, P.36) after reading this specific chapter and it is believable that this was a conscious choice by Salinger, it shows the adolescent dream of being with a prostitute and then the awkward reality when the situation plays out.

We truly see the terms demanded of life when we look at Holden’s ‘love life’. More specifically Jane Gallagher. It seems after every time Holden distinguishes between his adolescent dreams and reality one of his first thoughts, although fleeting, is to call Jane Gallagher. We first see it when Stradlater first mentions her as his date it made Holden ‘so nervous [he] nearly went crazy’ (Salinger, P.32). This clearly shows the past feelings for Jane as he soon goes into detail about how she used to dance and how they played checkers together and yet when he says he want to go say hello to her he’s suddenly ‘not in the mood right now’ (Salinger, P.34). It makes the reader question what reality he’s hiding from us, how do we know there was anything between Jane and Holden. This infatuation with Jane continues throughout the novel. After Stradlater’s date with her he refuses to reveal whether they had slept with each other and then eventually pushes Holden over the edge by stating ‘that’s a personal secret, buddy’ (Salinger, P.45) and that’s when Holden tried to ‘sock him’ (P.45) and they eventually have a fight over her. Further on the novel we have a few different instances that show that the thought of Jane is almost grounding Holden in reality, something he reaches for but can’t quite achieve. For example, after thinking about having sex with a girl in a club he then toys with the idea of ‘giving old Jane a buzz’ (Salinger, P.68) or after dancing with a different girl at a jazz club he reveals he’s ‘got old Jane Gallagher on the brain’ (Salinger, P.83). Even after being robbed by Maurice and Summer he thinks ‘of giving old Jane a buzz’ (Salinger, P.114) but instead calls Sally.

Very similar to The Catcher in the Rye, we also Esther starting to distinguish her adolescent dreams with reality. I think the first instance we see this is in the third chapter of Plath’s The Bell Jar. Whilst at the dinner table, Esther recalls a meeting she had with her manager Jay Cee that she believes to be a weighty conversation she starts crying in to her rich ‘dessert dish of meringue and brandy ice cream’ (Plath, P.27). She claims that ‘Jay Cee had said some terrible things to [her]’ (Plath, P.29) and yet we soon find out that it was a talk of her future and what she would like to achieve. We can see here how Esther wants to be living in her adolescent fantasy as once she is faced with reality she starts crying over her dessert.

In this talk with her manager Esther is questioned on whether her works interest her and this acts as a catalyst for Esther as she starts to not only convince Jay Cee she enjoys her work but herself. She claims how her work does interest her but she feels like ‘yelling the words, as if that might make them more convincing’ (Plath, P.29). We then go on to what she what she does and what she enjoys like how she was a ‘college correspondent for the town Gazette’ (Plath, P.29), how she has ‘promises of full scholarships’ (Plath, P.29) or that she’s ‘apprenticed to the best editor’ (Plath, P.29) but when it comes to actually talking the ‘words [fall] with a hollow flatness’ (Plath, P.29) as if she’s starting to realise what’s going to happen after all that is over. However, we really see Esther face her reality when Jay Cee questions ‘what do you have in mind after you gradate?’ (Plath, P. 30). This is where we truly see Esther come to her realisation and to why she was crying at the dinner table. She normally thinks about how she’d get into graduate school and then become a ‘professor and write books or poems’ (Plath, P.30) or ‘be an editor of some sort’ (Plath, P.30). Very creative for a woman of a 1950s. However, this time she responds, ‘I don’t really know’ (Plath, P.30) which is then followed by a ‘deep shock’ (Plath, P.30) because this time, she believes it. As if for the first time she realises she doesn’t have plan, she knows what is expected of her and yet what she wants if the opposite of the terms that life demands.

At the UN with Constantin in Chapter 7, we can see the societal pressure of what to do after college push down on Esther, here she’s facing the terms demanded life. Whilst watching Constantin talk with another member of the UN she starts ‘adding up all the things she couldn’t do... [she] started with cooking (Plath, P.71) and then recalls how her mother and grandmother were both good cooks. This is where we see her falling into societal norms as she is equating herself to how well she can cook much like a housewife of a mother and not how she’s won scholarships and gotten in to a prestigious internship. She realises that she has ‘been inadequate all along’ (Plath, P.72) in the eye’s of 1950s society, she can’t cook, clean and writes all day. Caroline Smith asserts ‘that Esther becomes exposed to women defying the standards of femininity, but she is never fully able to rid herself of the anxiety she feels about her association with them’ (Smith, P.13) and you can see this here. Elaine Showalter makes a fascinating point when rejecting the norms of this society however, when Esther rejects the societal pressures there is nowhere for to hide and we can see that and yet in complete opposite ‘Sylvia Plath has the option to hide behind the normal mother and housewife façade’ (Showalter, P. 212) so although Esther is exposed to these women fighting the norms the Plath can almost hide behind them.

When having this realisation, she sees her life ‘branching out before [her] like the green fig- tree’ (Plath, P.73) with each fig being ‘a wonderful future’ (Plath, P.73). We see all the options life is offering to Esther, one fig is a ‘husband with a happy home’ (Plath, P.73), one is a poet, another a professor or editor or all the countries to go to. It shows the endless possibilities of Esther’s life and yet she sits under the with her metaphorical starvation watching these hypothetical lives fall to the floor rotting. This dark imagery of the rotting fig tree surrounding her shows that the time to choose is what path in to take in life is drawing closer and how she is going to have to come to terms with the terms offered from 1950s life.

In both these adolescent novels we see both protagonists fighting their own way through 1950s New York through their own inner thoughts. This unlocks a connection with them and reader that makes the novels more personal. We can truly grasp a deeper understanding of the ‘adolescent incapacity to distinguish between dream and reality’ they both have and how they work through it. Although both characters are at different stages of their personal adolescent, we can see a connection between them when it comes to the terms of life offered and the terms demanded.

Works Cited:

Bodnar. J, Unruly Adults: Social Change and Mass Culture in the 1950s, OAH Magazine of History, Vol. 26, No. 4, The 1950s (October 2012), pp. 21-23

Cuordileone. K. A. "Politics in an Age of Anxiety": Cold War Political Culture and the Crisis in American Masculinity, 1949-1960, The Journal of American History, Vol. 87, No. 2 (Sep. 2000), pp. 515-545

DeJovine. F. A, Catcher In The Rye And Sex Education, American Secondary Education, Vol. 6, No. 1 (December, 1975), pp. 35-36

Plath. Sylvia, The Bell Jar, first published 1963, London: Faber, 2005

Salinger. J. D, The Catcher in the Rye, first published 1951, London: Penguin, 2019

Showalter. E, Killing the Angel in the House: The Autonomy of Women Writers, The Antioch Review, Vol. 50, No. 1/2, 50th Anniversary Issue (Winter - Spring, 1992), pp. 207-220

Smith. C. J, “The Feeding of Young Women”: Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar, Mademoiselle Magazine, and the Domestic Ideal, College Literature, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Fall 2010), pp.1 – 22