The Catcher in the Rye

Salinger, J. D. (1991). The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN-10: 0-316-76948-7 (Originally published in 1951.)

Why read this book

Spend 48 hours inside the mind of an astonishing 16-year-old named Holden Caulfield as he runs away from high school, hangs out in New York city, and struggles with the death of his younger brother a few years earlier.

Plot summary

Holden Caulfield is 16 years old, and things are not going well. Sure, he has a privileged life, growing up on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, spending summers in Maine, and attending elite prep schools. And he’s basically a good kid, respectful of his elders, curious about life, and eager to embrace the world around him. But when he looks at that world, he mostly sees phoniness, like people who laugh at all the wrong places in the movie theaters and take their own meaningless chitchat way too seriously. He’s depressed, so depressed that can’t study, and he’s just been kicked out of his fourth prep school. He knows he’s depressed, but all he can think to do about it is to change his whole life scenario, like going off to Colorado to get a job pumping gas and living in a cabin in the wilderness. His peers think he’s too high-strung and they’re too wrapped up in their own worlds to help him figure out what’s going on in his. The adults in his life think they know that it was the death a few years earlier of his younger brother Allie that has thrown Holden for a loop, but they don’t seem to know how to help him overcome the loneliness that Allie’s death has created. In the end, it is his relationship with his 10-year-old sister Phoebe that is Holden’s lifeline to a more hopeful future.

Critical evaluation

Although written before the concept of young adult literature existed, The Catcher in the Rye sets the standard for the entire field. The protagonist’s voice is masterfully unique, engaging, and authentic. Though all our knowledge of Holden is filtered through his own first-person narrative, that rich narrative provides information through which we can infer much about Holden’s situation that he does not understand yet about himself (an excellent example of Roxburgh’s “unreliable narrator” [p. 7]). Holden’s generous and forgiving nature temper his fixation on the phoniness of those around him, such that we see all the characters in the story in shades of grey rather than in blacks and whites. The story is not about blame but about struggle.

The Catcher in the Rye provides a great example of Roxburgh’s maxim that “A writer needs to strip off and discard the layers that obscure the essential plot” (Roxburgh, 2005, p. 7). Although on the surface Holden’s narrative recounts his haphazard wanderings through Manhattan, everything he tells us counts for something in our understanding of the implications of his story for the wider world. Early in the novel Holden’s history teacher tries to reach him by discussing the fragment of an essay that Holden has written on ancient Egypt, a topic that Holden claims holds no interest for him. Later, in Manhattan, when Holden remembers his childhood visits to the Museum of Natural History and then briefly visits the museum again, we see that Egypt means more to him and to his story than he realizes. Ancient Egypt becomes a means by which Salinger says something important about how we construct our understanding of troubled adolescents. Similarly, each detail of Holden’s relationship with his 10-year-old sister Phoebe contributes to our understanding of why that relationship may be Holden’s salvation. Because she is a child, Holden suspends his phoniness filter in his dealings with her, and she becomes the vehicle by which Holden suggests how adults should relate to the young people whom they attempt to guide and support. The audience for this theme is the adult reader, but Holden’s story and his voice are so compelling and authentic that many young readers also benefit from seeing their world articulated so masterfully.

About the author

J. D. Salinger was born in 1919 and grew up in the Bronx in New York City. He published several short stories before serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. After the war The New Yorker began publishing his short stories, and in 1951 he published The Catcher in the Rye, his only novel. Catcher was a best-seller and received critical acclaim, generating publicity that Salinger found uncomfortable. In 1953 he moved from New York to the small town of Cornish, New Hampshire, where he continues to live today. Salinger published short stories through 1965, when his last work appeared. The Catcher in the Rye continues to sell approximately 250,000 copies each year (Wikipedia).

Genre: Crossover

Curriculum ties

The Catcher in the Rye, which provides ample material for rigorous traditional literary analysis (plot, theme, character development, symbolism, etc.), is frequently taught in high school literature classes. Twice Holden uses the term “ironic” correctly, providing a point of entry to that important but difficult concept.

Because some parents and students over the years have objected to the novel (see challenge issues below), it can also be used to teach about issues around censorship and appropriateness of reading material for teenagers. New York English teacher Sandy Scragg (Scragg, n.d.) has published a set of lessons that takes this approach.

Book-talking ideas

Because the narrator’s voice is very engaging, a dramatic reading of almost any passage from the book would send many teens rushing to the checkout counter. I would avoid the more controversial sections (see challenge issues below) for most book-talk audiences, and focus instead on sections where Holden relates to the well-intentioned but ineffective efforts of adults to discuss his problems. Holden’s descriptions of his talks with “old Spencer” (p. 14-15) and “old Antolini” (p. 187-189) might ring familiar to teens looking for a good book to read.

As with curriculum ties, explaining the novel’s important historical and literary position in post-World War II culture in the United States may also be a draw for students, as might be a description of the controversies and court cases around the novel’s appropriateness for high school readers.

Reading level/interest age

New York high school teacher Sandy Scragg (Scragg, n.d.) targets her Catcher-based curriculum for grades 9 through 12, but I would more likely recommend the book for 11th and 12th graders. Younger high school students have probably been exposed via television or movies to alcohol and sexual content comparable to that of the novel, if not more graphic and explicit. And they may have experienced loneliness, depression, and confusion similar enough to Holden’s to relate personally to those aspects of his story. But I think older readers are more likely to understand, discuss in depth, and benefit from the themes in the novel.

Challenge issues

The Catcher in the Rye has evoked challenges for decades, primarily because of profane language, underage drinking, and sexual encounters. These aspects of the story are somewhat less controversial now than they were when the novel first appeared in 1951, but The Catcher in the Rye ranked 13th on the American Library Association’s list of 100 most frequently challenged books between 1990 to 2000 (American Library Association).

Responses

• Determine precisely what aspects of the novel the challenger objects to and whether the challenger has read the entire novel.

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

• Remind the challenger that generations of both younger and older readers have praised the book since it was first published in 1951. It has become an important historical document as well as a part of the literary canon.

Why I chose to read this book

Never having read The Catcher in the Rye during my youth, I decided I shouldn’t go through this young-adult-literature class without addressing that shortcoming. During my high school years in rural Illinois in the 1960s, I never heard of the novel, and when I did hear about it in college everyone else I knew had already read it and considered it a bit passé. I always had the misconception that it was an East Coast suburban experience that wouldn’t relate very directly to my students in urban California. Having read it, I finally understand the universality of its appeal.

References

American Library Association. (n.d.). 100 most frequently challenged books: 1990 to 2000. Retrieved September 6, 2009 from http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengedbydecade/1990_2000.cfm

Roxburgh, S. (2005, Winter). The art of the young adult novel. The ALAN Review, 4-10.

Scragg, S. (n.d.). Catching on to Catcher in the Rye. TeachNet. Retrieved September 5, 2009, from http://teachersnetwork.org/teachnetnyc/sscragg/catcher.htm

Wikipedia. (n.d.). J. D. Salinger. Retrieved September 6, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Salinger