"By their deeds shall ye know them." We often judge people by what they do; therefore, we consider people who commit cruel or reprehensible acts corrupt, base or amoral. In literature, however, authors often introduce us to characters whom we learn to like or even respect, despite their deeds.
Write an essay about one such character for whom you developed admiration or compassion. Briefly explain why you felt his or her behavior to be condemnable or contemptible, and how the author's techniques influenced you to admire that person. Do not summarize the plot. (40 minutes)
In the light, or perhaps shadow, of Holden Caulfield, the quote, “By their deeds shall ye know them,” is wrong. Caulfield is not nearly understood when just looking at his deeds. A person’s deeds can say a lot about their character, psychology, or culture, however, deeds can, too, be misleading. People act certain ways regardless of their typical disposition when put in difficult situations. There are so many outer world variables and forces influencing a person’s actions that, in some cases, one’s actions may be completely determined regardless of that one’s own desires, thus revealing to the watcher of the one’s deeds, a falsity, an incongruity between person and deed. In Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger wrote Caulfield, on the surface of deeds, to be extremely disagreeable. However, within Caulfield’s depths, we find a different truth. This is revealed to us by Salinger through plot, and first person narration.
Holden Caulfield appears to the reader, at first glance, disgusting. He is perverted, lies to any and nearly everyone, he is impulsive and reckless, has been expelled multiple times, gets in fights, doesn’t do his work, uses foul language, and treats those who tried to help him like garbage. Despite all of this, Salinger coaxes his audience into admiration of Caulfield with plot events. Major plot points within the novel reveal Caulfield’s real underlying character that his deeds misrepresent.
The novel begins with the audience seeing Caulfield as a judgmental character. Judging people all of the time, everywhere he walks. All of his judgments are of negative point of view. However, it is learnt that what Caulfield is really doing, is putting up a wall between himself and these people he is judging. By mentally cutting himself off from people, he can in turn physically cut himself off from them. What he is trying to do in all of this is cope with the death of his really close brother. His brother who had everything: talent, skill, intelligence, attractiveness, and emotion, a person quite the opposite to Caulfield in deeds. Death took his brother and Caulfield, throughout the entire novel, is coping with this. The understanding, however, would not have been claimed had Salinger not written in the first person narrative.
Through Caulfield’s first person narration he reveals head on what he is thinking and feeling. The audience experiences some horrible deed like lying to an adult impulsively, without thought, yet at the same time the audience is being told, by Caulfield, that he shouldn’t have done that, or that he did it for some other reason that could be justifiable. In other words, the narration technique provides another layer to the character that isn’t attained by just the deeds. This is crucial to making Caulfield an admirable character in the end. Also, through this narration Caulfield reveals his past, reveals that his brother died and that could be the cause of his awful behavior, that he has feelings for a girl and that she could turn around his entire psychological health, reveals that he is just jaded and disillusioned; he’s fallen off the right path due to tragedy. These truths revealed through first person narration create a character that is unappealing on the surface but likable in the depths because the audience feels they can help him or they feel he is justified.
Nonetheless, Holden Caulfield is a delinquent made likeable by the author, J.D. Saliger through events within the novel and the first person narration of Caulfield. Thus, Caulfield’s true character is determined by his thoughts, concluding that, “By their deed shall ye know them not.”
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