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Ellis’ “Less than Zero” – “The Catcher in the Rye” for the MTV Generation?
Bret Easton Ellis, “Less than Zero” Jerome David Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye”
1st September 2010
Universität Stuttgart SS10 Essay Writing/ Research Skills Ronja Tripp
Ellis’ “Less than Zero” – “The Catcher in the Rye” for the MTV Generation?
Lukas Fath
Table of Contents
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 3 Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” …………………………………………………………………………. 3 Ellis’ “Less than Zero”……………………………………………………………………………………………. 5 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8 Works Cited ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9
The Term Paper on Controversy in “Catcher in the Rye”
In this novel, the author creates Holden Caulfield, a boy that is the world's ‘punching bag', and illustrates his difficult life through presenting his failures clearly to the reader. Salinger shows that Holden has had a ‘deprived' childhood by explaining to the reader that Holden's beloved brother Allie died at a young age. Holden still has not gotten over this unfathomable loss. Another way the ...
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Ellis’ “Less than Zero” – “The Catcher in the Rye” for the MTV Generation?
Lukas Fath
1. Introduction
“The Catcher in the Rye for the MTV generation” 1 USA Today (ELLIS, 202)
On the backside cover of the Picador edition of Ellis’ “Less than Zero”, there is this quote from USA Today: Less than Zero is “The Catcher in the Rye” for the MTV generation; the Eighties’ version of Salinger’s all time classic. But is it? Is it just an “update” to “The Catcher in the Rye” or a totally different story with but a few similarities? This research paper analyzes Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” and Ellis’ “Less than Zero” and demonstrates how similar or different these two novels are.
2. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know where I was born. And what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. . .” Holden Caulfield (SALINGER, 1)
“The Catcher in the Rye” is set in the New York of the late 40s or early 50s. Holden Caulfield is sixteen. He is in a mental hospital in California (a fact that is revealed first at the very end of the book) and retells his experiences the days before Christmas to his brother D.B. He leaves school early (because he was expelled again) and spends the last days before the Christmas Holidays in his hometown New York City where he turns crazy over the superficiality and meaninglessness of the adult world.
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USA Today about “Less than Zero”
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Ellis’ “Less than Zero” – “The Catcher in the Rye” for the MTV Generation?
Lukas Fath
Holden is quite frustrated by the situation he is in: he has been expelled from four schools in succession (he does not give reasons for this).
The Essay on Catcher in the Rye Immaturity of Holden Caufield
In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher is the Rye, the protagonist Holden Caufield emerges from a trying and emotional series of events and does not grow emotionally but remains as immature as he was at the beginning of the novel. The story is about the difficulties of growing up. Most people come out of their teenager years as more responsible and mature people. Holden goes through many stressful events ...
He has a very negative view of life and maintains a cynical and biting tone; he uses blasphemous profanities such as “goddamn!” (SALINGER, 1) or: “for chrissake!” (SALINGER, 20).
His brother Allie died of leukaemia some years ago. Holden cannot get over it. His brother’s useless death and his general view of life paralyse him: he is incapable of keeping up any closer relationship. At every school he is, he quarrels with his roommates. He doesn’t have any real friends. He tells Sally Hayes, an old friend, that she gives him “. . . a royal pain in the ass . . .” (SALINGER, 133) He invents ridiculous reasons why he does not want to have sexual intercourse with the prostitute he has just ordered:
“The thing is, I had an operation very recently.” “Yeah? Where?” “On my wuddayacallit [sic!] – my clavichord.” (SALINGER, 96)
Surprisingly, he is very kind to children: he helps a girl in Central Park putting on her skates. This kindness to children, his dream of being the “catcher in the rye” and protecting children from falling off a cliff, the joy watching his sister Phoebe ride on the carousel and his anger about the “f*** yous” in her school show his wish to protect these children from losing their innocence and his own wish to be innocent. His transition from an innocent child to a responsible adult makes him feel uncomfortable. He dismisses quite a number of people as superficial or hypocritical, phony, as he would put it. Sometimes he may be right in his judgement, but he seems to use his
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Ellis’ “Less than Zero” – “The Catcher in the Rye” for the MTV Generation?
Lukas Fath
concept of phoniness as a “protecting screen” against an adult world that seems to overstrain him. He sees himself as the only honest person in a world full of hypocrisy and does not understand that he himself is rather hypocritical. He lies to a schoolmate’s mother on the train to New York City, judges the girls in the hotel lobby by their outer appearance and makes nasty remarks about homosexuals in a bar. His extreme judgments and his stereotyped thinking lead to alienation and loneliness. “The Catcher in the Rye” is narrated as a flashback in a stream-of-consciousness by the first-person narrator Holden Caulfield. He narrates with cynical undertones and uses profanities and youth language. As Holden tells this story to his brother, the reader takes the position of his brother. Holden’s mental disorders leave open the question in how far his narration is reliable.
The Essay on Catcher In The Rye Vs Don Quixote
J.D. Salingers TheCatcher in the Rye can be compared to Cervantes Don Quixote. Both novels feature naive protagonists pining for an ideal world. In Salingers novel, Holden Caulfield is a sixteen year old who experiences challenging and questionable events in the mid-stage of his adolescence. Holden wants to protect the innocent children like the catcher in the rye from the immorality and ...
3. Ellis’ “Less than Zero”
“People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles. This is the first thing I hear when I come back to the city . . .” Clay (ELLIS, 1)
“Less than Zero” is set in the Los Angeles of the early Eighties. Clay, aged 18, comes home to Los Angeles from his school in New Hampshire for Christmas Holidays. In the beginning of the story he enjoys the reckless abandon of his old friends, but in the course of the story, he develops a strong disgust against their superficiality, nihilism and violence.
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Ellis’ “Less than Zero” – “The Catcher in the Rye” for the MTV Generation?
Lukas Fath
Clay is quite happy to meet his old friends. Like him, they are upper-class children. He first notices the superficiality he seems to have forgotten about over his four months in New Hampshire, when Blair tells him that “People are afraid to merge on the freeways in LA . . .” (ELLIS, 1) rather than that their friend Muriel is at a hospital because of her anorexia. When he meets his friends at Blair’s Christmas party, they talk about tanning studios and modelling for magazines. Clay searches for his cocaine dealer. This party already shows the things that seem to matter to him and his friends: fashion, drugs, MTV, expensive cars (Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, Ferrari to name but a few) and sex. Everyone, including Clay, is “blond and tan”. He shares these interests with his friends. He consumes lots of cocaine and valium, lies in his bed for hours watching music videos and porn. He has casual sex with numerous girls as well as boys, although Blair is his girlfriend, who does not really seem to care about Clay’s promiscuity. Aimlessly cruising around town and going to random bars and fast-food places seems to be a very popular occupation for Clay and his peers. They are constantly surrounded by television, fashion magazines, video games and music. While cruising around town, Clay notices a billboard advertising a holiday resort that says “Disappear here” (ELLIS, 30).
This advertisement seems to strike him because he mentions it often and tries hard to get it out of his mind, but this does not work. He cannot forget it, because he feels that he himself is slowly disappearing in Los Angeles. He has nightmares about drowning in the mud; he feels that the California earth is consuming him. This scene can be regarded as a turning point, because Clay begins to reflect on the lack of meaning in his and his peers’ lives. They can have everything money can buy, but this does not satisfy them anymore; they need more exciting and thrilling experiences to keep themselves entertained. Clay’s friends watch a snuff video; the suffering and death of a human being become mere entertainment. Their desire to experience
The Essay on The Catcher in the Rye: An Innocence Lost
The Catcher in the Rye is a book by J. D. Salinger and the story of a boy named Holden Caufield. He is no longer innocent, but exposed to the world. Phoebe, Holden's sister, is the opposite she is quite the innocent, never really being exposed to the world outside her protective bubble. Holden wants to protect such precious innocence only found in the children as a guardian of the innocent a ...
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Ellis’ “Less than Zero” – “The Catcher in the Rye” for the MTV Generation?
Lukas Fath
something more exciting and thrilling than ever before has made them grow coldhearted and insane. Clay and Blair are the only ones who are disgusted by the snuff video and leave the room. A few days later, one of Clay’s friends invites some boys to his apartment. He keeps a very young girl in captivity in a bedroom and has tied her naked to the bedposts. He puts her under the influence of drugs. The boys want to gang rape the girl, but Clay objects that their doing is not right:
“It’s . . . I don’t think it’s right” “What’s right? If you want something, you have the right to take it. If you want to do something, you have the right to do it.” Clay, Rip (ELLIS, 177)
This scene shows how far Clay’s friends are willing to go. He criticizes them:
“But you don’t need anything. You have everything,” I tell him. Rip looks at me. “No. I don’t.” “What?” “No, I don’t.” There’s a pause and then I ask, “Oh shit, Rip, what don’t you have?” “I don’t have anything to lose.” Clay, Rip (ELLIS, 177)
Clay’s comment on Rip (and all the others) having everything puts his peers’ dilemma in a nutshell: they have everything, but they are not satisfied with it. “In Less than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis depicts the directionless life of the supersaturated children of Hollywood magnates [. . .]” (GÖHN, 7) This lack of orientation gives them a feeling of “not having anything to lose”. Because they “don’t have anything to lose“, they maltreat a young girl (who has something to lose).
At the very end of the story, Clay leaves Los Angeles. He is alienated from his “friends”, he cannot stand them anymore; he splits up
The Term Paper on Catcher in the Rye 29
Chapters 1-3Catcher in The RyeAfter discussing the book catcher in the rye I have already began to like and I have started reading it and being open to the character. After reading through chaptersOne and three I have not seen any signs yet of Holden's mind not being right or something being wrong with his head so far to me he seems ok although I have realized that so far most of the problems in ...
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Ellis’ “Less than Zero” – “The Catcher in the Rye” for the MTV Generation?
Lukas Fath
with his girlfriend Blair. He thinks he hears a song about Los Angeles by a local group, but this song seems to be in his mind. He believes that he sees images of people being driven mad because of the city. “[T]he images were so harsh and bitter that they would reverberate in my mind for days,” (ELLIS, 195) This could mean that life in this city has turned Clay’s friends mad, and he has finally escaped from this madness. What is quite striking about “Less than Zero”, is it’s style of narration: we actually “see” what is happening through Clay’s eyes. This effect is achieved by making Clay the first person narrator of “Less than Zero”. The use of tenses also adds to this effect: except for a few “flashbacks” (memories of a happier place in Clay’s childhood) Ellis uses present tense for the largest part of the story. At the very end of the novel, the tense changes to a past tense. The use of past tense creates a distance between the action and the narrator. This could represent Clay’s alienation from his “friends” and finally his leaving Los Angeles. Like all first-person narrators, Clay is susceptible to unreliability, especially because of his drug abuse. Clay maintains a colloquial language, but is far from the slang used in “The Catcher in the Rye”
4. Conclusion
“Less than Zero” may be similar to “The Catcher in the Rye”, but it is definitely more than just an “update”: “Both novels [. . .] depict a formative phase in their protagonists’ adolescence.” (GÖHN, 3).
In other words, both novels can be regarded as a Bildungsroman2. Both Clay and Holden Caulfield search for an identity. Both of them undergo certain changes within the course of the story; begin to question the values they have (or haven’t) lived up to. While Holden turns crazy over his loss of innocence and his fight against
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“a novel dealing with one person’s formative years or spiritual education” Oxford Dictionaries Online
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Ellis’ “Less than Zero” – “The Catcher in the Rye” for the MTV Generation?
Lukas Fath
superficiality and ends up in a mental hospital, Clay leaves behind Los Angeles because he cannot stand the nihilism of his “friends” anymore. While Holden becomes a victim of his inability to keep up normal relationsships, Clay takes the action and leaves the environment that would turn him crazy. While Holden remains complaining selfrighteously about the superficiality of the society and does not notice that he himself is rather superficial, Clay succeeds in leaving the vicious circle of drugs, sex, financial potency and a spoiled youth, and actually changes his attitude towards life for the better. At first glance, it’s the main characters that let “The Catcher in the Rye” and “Less than Zero” appear to be somewhat similar, especially as both main characters also narrate their stories themselves. Taking a closer look, one discovers that it’s actually the main characters that make the biggest differnce between the two novels. “Despite of many parallels and analogies in the novels, however, “Less than Zero” and “The Catcher in the Rye” are far from being similar. The differences in tone, form and especially in characterization of their protagonists are great and far-reaching.” (GÖHN, 3)
The Essay on The Catcher In The Rye: Growing Up With Holden
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, explores the topic of adolescence through Holden Caulfield , a troubled teenager. Salinger throws adolescentbased problems, such as loss of innocence, rejection and disgust at the adult world, and alienation from society, at Holden. This is representative of struggles and obstacles being important during times of adolescence in order for one to mature. ...
5. Works Cited
Ellis, Bret Easton. Less than Zero. London: Picador, 2006. Flory, Alexander. “Out is in”: Bret Easton Ellis und die Postmoderne. Heidelberg, 2008. Göhn, Christpoher. American Adolescence: J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” and Bret Easton Ellis’ “Less Than Zero”. Norderstedt: GRIN Verlag, 2008.
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Ellis’ “Less than Zero” – “The Catcher in the Rye” for the MTV Generation?
Lukas Fath
Münder, Peter. Jerome David Salinger Der Fänger im Roggen (The Catcher in the Rye) – Interpretationen und unterrichtspraktische Vorschläge. Vol. 39. Hollfeld: Joachim Beyer Verlag, 2005. Salinger, Jerome David. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1991. Steed, J.P. The Cacher in the Rye – New Essays. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2002.
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