Catcher In The Rye Setting Analysis

During this essay I want to prove that both the author’s setting and the characters in the novel’s setting affect the way in which women are portrayed in this novel. The setting is, in turn affected by the historical events, the philosophy and the beliefs of that era. I am going to proof this by looking at the following novels; Catch-22, A Clockwork Orange, The Merchant of Venice and Catcher in the Rye;
The novel, Catch-22, is a satirical novel that is full of a male-centered view. The novel, Catch-22 is inhabited by men who are soldiers that are dependent on each other, but we find that they are devoid of female contact. The fact that the men have mostly friendly relationships with each other and not with women is influenced by their …show more content…
The use of the female character’s body in the novel is mostly for cheap, sexual entertainment. An example is when Alex and his droogs go to a small cottage with a plate with the word, HOME in front of it and tell the women a story to get into the house (Burgess, 2000). Alex then makes his droogs hold the women down while he tears the clothes of her body and end their night with raping the woman, while her husband is made to watch (Burgess, 2000). It is fun for Alex and his droogs to see the woman suffer while they rape her; it is also fun for them to see her squirm but is not able to get away from …show more content…
We get examples of the fact that the women are physically weak for example when Alex and his droogs barge into a store and beat up Mother Slouse, the wife of the housekeeper, kicking her, ripping her clothes and then staring at her breasts. In this scene we can see that the women can’t fend for themselves (Burgess, 2000). In this we also see the fact that the women are seen as sex object. An example of the women being intellectually inferior can be seen as in the scene were Alex go to Melodia, a record store, where Alex flirt with girls and promise them food and music if they would leave with them. When Alex and the girls get to his house he gives them Scotch and encourage them to drink more and quickly. Then Alex put on Beethoven’s Ninth, and he leaps on the girls, raping them. We can see here that the women in the novel are intellectually inferior because they couldn’t see that what they were doing is dangerous, they also trusted Alex too quickly (Burgess, 2000).
When we look at the time that Anthony Burgess wrote the novel, A Clockwork Orange, we find that is was written during 1946 to 1962 and was published in 1962. That was during the times of the Hippies, the time