Holden as the American Adam

1. Holden as the American Adam By Pamela Hunt Steinle

2. The rhetorical situation • The author is discussing Holden Caulfield in relation to the “American Adam”, outlined by Richard Warrington Baldwin Lewis.

3. Purpose • The author’s purpose is to inform the audience of Holden Caulfield’s role in The Catcher in the Rye as the “American Adam”.

4. Author’s Message • Steinlepreaches the concept of the “American Adam” and how it relates to Holden Caulfield. “just as the moment of trial and rebirth was the creation of Lewis’s Adamic character, it was his survival through a later “fall” from grace that brought the character to heroic status.”

5. Evidence • “If the notion of rebirth is characteristic of the American Adam, it is crucial to the overlapping American narrative of “regeneration through violence” in which acts of violence and destruction are seen as fair practice when they purportedly allow a morally strengthened conscientiousness to emerge. And it is in keeping with both traditions, then, that early on in catcher, Holden Caulfield purchases a red hunting cap that his prep school roommate calls a “deer-shooting cap”.” • “His ritual battle endured, Holden’s reversal of the hunting cap brings to mind the cap of a baseball catcher.” • “Holden’s experiences after he leaves Pencey Prep can be seen as necessary to his developing moral stature: from his introduction to the seamy side of New York City life via bar flies, stale cabs, hotel pimps and prostitutes to his confrontation with Mr. Antolini.

6. Tone • This essay has a very intellectual tone, it informs the reader while comparing the novel to other famous examples of post world war II “American Adams”.

7. Language & Style • Steinle uses copious amounts of quotes, not only when citing directly from the book but when stating vague ideas. Such as, “The American Adam”, “frontier” and “fall from grace”. • She also uses references to lots of other works, not written by herself.

8. Organization • The author starts off by describing the American Adam as “some of the very few novels to continue the Adamic fictional tradition of solitary experience and moral priority over the waiting world”, and explaining what Lewis novels identifies as the “truest and most fully engaged American fiction after the second war”. She continues to give examples of ways Holden in The Catcher in the Rye is similar to characters from other novels Lewis described as Adamic.

9. Our opinion • Steinle brings up many comparisons between Holden and the Adamic heroes that would certainly be missed by reading solely the book. There are many deeper layers that Steinle brings up about traits in Holden and changes that he goes through that truly do reflect his status as an adamic hero.