It is clear that J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye belongs to an ancient and honorable narrative tradition, perhaps the most profound in western fiction. The tradition is the central pattern of the epic and has been enriched by every tongue; for not only is it in itself exciting but also it provides the artist a framework upon which he may hang almost any fabric of events and characters.

It is, of course, the tradition of the Quest. (p. 129)

There are at least two sorts of quests, depending upon the object sought. [James Joyce's] Stephen Dedalus sought a reality uncontaminated by home, country, church; for … he knew that social institutions tend to force what is ingenious in a man into their own channels. He sought the opposite of security, for security was a cataract of the eye. Bloom [also in Joyce's Ulysses], on the other hand...