Caulfield and Morrison

After reading Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, it was somewhat difficult for me to analyze the novel based on Toni Morrison's ideals of race in literature that she discussed in Playing in the Dark. This was partially because Playing in the Dark caused me so much difficulty/confusion (which was thankfully clarified in our class discussions), but also partly due to the lack of race in Salinger's novel.

The book is about Holden Caulfield, a teenager growing up in the 50's. He is surrounded in a world he doesn't understand -- full of uncertainty and "phoniness." He isolates himself from the people around him in fear of being emotionally confused and as a result has a hard time making connections with anyone. The beauty of Catcher in the Rye is that it remains just as relevant today as it was back when the plot was set. Holden seems to symbolize everything a stereotypical teenager is -- angsty, doubtful, and rebellious. Often times when reading, I would find myself comparing my personality to Holden's, and I think this may also be the case for other teens.

The concept from Playing in the Dark that really fit with the novel was the idea of completely ignoring race in a novel. All characters I can recall from the novel are white. This seems hardly fitting, considering the time period the book was written/set in was during the 1950's, an era of peaking racial conflicts. I would have thought that Salinger might have included something of the aspects of the Civil Rights period in the novel, such as increasing racial tension, but I didn't find anything of the sort. According to Morrison, this implies that he was being ignorant in his writing and this exclusion of African-Americans actually makes his novel more about race than most people would think. The truth of this, however, is that perhaps I was being the ignorant one; for the first half or so of the book, I didn't notice this lack of diversity. Had I read Playing in the Dark before I had finished Catcher in the Rye I may have picked up on subtle racial references that were included. This just goes to show how little I consider race in a novel and what little exposure I recieve to multicultural literature.

While Playing in the Dark (to me) is an extremely dense book, Morrison brings up many good points about race and writing. From this point forward, I will surely take note of ethnicities (or lack thereof) in books I read.