The first page of <The Catcher in the Rye> could tell me many things. From style to diction, from point of view to character, there're so many things that I can tell from the first page of the book. So today I will briefly analyze the book, and see how much the first page of the book could tell me.
Apparently, the author is trying to make a leisurely and even lazy atmosphere with many long sentences as the main character - Holden, is talking about his life. And so the tone of Holden is a little bit ironic, because Holden seems like one of those people who are called "phonies". It is hard to tell Holden has a good mood or not, but I can see that his attitude is like not caring all the things. As the author is trying to make Holden a phony, so the diction-choosing is not pretty good. There is appearing bad words such as "goddam", which is not a very appropriate diction choosing. As I said that this book is told by Holden, so it is told in a first-person point of view. In the narrative presence part, we can tell from the first sentence that the character is talking about his life. So this is a kind of autobiography. The narrator, who is the main character Holden, has a weird attitude. He is trying to tell the readers about his story, but it is like he just wants to tell the story in the way he likes and always being cynical. From the first page, we can tell that the story, which is going to be told by the character was happened around last Christmas. In the first paragraph, the character is just kind of picking anything that he wants to say, so I don't see that there's any time management. The character doesn't say about the exact place, so it is a sort of vague. There's neither motif nor theme on the first page, but there're some ironies on the first page. The character ironize about his childhood, his parents, and even his beloved brother. About the rhythm, I think it is more of a prose way than a narrative way. Because the character just says whatever he wants and doesn't seem to have a completely structure. I don't think I have an expectation on this first page, since I have no idea what it will go like.
So these are the thing I can tell from the first page, and I think it is pretty amazing. :)
Apparently, the author is trying to make a leisurely and even lazy atmosphere with many long sentences as the main character - Holden, is talking about his life. And so the tone of Holden is a little bit ironic, because Holden seems like one of those people who are called "phonies". It is hard to tell Holden has a good mood or not, but I can see that his attitude is like not caring all the things. As the author is trying to make Holden a phony, so the diction-choosing is not pretty good. There is appearing bad words such as "goddam", which is not a very appropriate diction choosing. As I said that this book is told by Holden, so it is told in a first-person point of view. In the narrative presence part, we can tell from the first sentence that the character is talking about his life. So this is a kind of autobiography. The narrator, who is the main character Holden, has a weird attitude. He is trying to tell the readers about his story, but it is like he just wants to tell the story in the way he likes and always being cynical. From the first page, we can tell that the story, which is going to be told by the character was happened around last Christmas. In the first paragraph, the character is just kind of picking anything that he wants to say, so I don't see that there's any time management. The character doesn't say about the exact place, so it is a sort of vague. There's neither motif nor theme on the first page, but there're some ironies on the first page. The character ironize about his childhood, his parents, and even his beloved brother. About the rhythm, I think it is more of a prose way than a narrative way. Because the character just says whatever he wants and doesn't seem to have a completely structure. I don't think I have an expectation on this first page, since I have no idea what it will go like.
So these are the thing I can tell from the first page, and I think it is pretty amazing. :)