Araby

J. D. Salinger

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of ... or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press.” This is part of the first amendment to the United States Constitution regarding the right to the protection of freedom of speech. However, over time, in order to protect the public, peoples rights to speak openly and freely have been censored and revoked (Pinsker, UTCTR 27). A perfect example of this is the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

“This book is part of an overall communist plot in which a lot of people are used and may not even be aware of it” (qtd. in Pinsker, UTCTR 41). This comment, referring to The Catcher in the Rye, does not even begin to show the depth of the controversy surrounding the novel. The Catcher in the Rye is the second most challenged novel in the United States since 1982 (Pinsker, UTCTR 44) and has been censored numerous times. So why, might one ask, did J.D. Salinger write The Catcher in the Rye with such distasteful characteristics when he undoubtedly knew it would be so controversial?

The answer to the previously stated question is actually quite simple; the novel correctly depicts the juvenile behavior of the era in which it was written (Costello 32). The lingo, morality, and questioning of numerous established principles was all a part of a normal teenager’s life in the 1950’s. Critics of the novel who lived during the time it was written admit that at the time, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, would have been a normal child. In point of fact, in an interview with a high school student in 1953, Salinger told her that his childhood was much like that of Holden Caulfield’s (French 33).

In fact, it is believed by some authors that modern readers have trouble understanding the character of Holden Caulfield because they try to take him out of context (Costello 32).

So in order to understand why Salinger would include such material in this novel, one must first accept that, although likely added more for comic effect (Costello 37) the crude language, smoking, drinking, sexuality, and other “Catcher tendencies” are all real.

When one opens The Catcher and begins reading, the first line almost seems uninviting:

If you really want to hear about it, the first

thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was

born, and what my lousy childhood was like ...

and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but

I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to

know the truth (Salinger 1).

This famous opening line seems insidiously blunt, and almost rude. However, it sets the tone for the rest of the novel.

The style of The Catcher in the Rye is what draws the reader deeper into the book. Salinger uses a first person perspective that is, as author Donald P. Costello put it, “versatile yet narrow, expressive yet unimaginative, imprecise, often crude, and always trite” (Costello 36). One thing is certain about the style of this novel: it is different. One may take ‘different’ however they like, but one must also realize The Catcher was published at a time when to be different was almost seen as a crime (Pinsker UTCTR 29).

The 1940’s and -50’s were known as “the age of conformity” (Pinsker UTCTR 94) and Holden in The Catcher in the Rye clearly disproves that theory. Holden sees the society in which he lives in as phony (Pinsker UTCTR 88) and never as much as wishes to fit in.

Although this essay and many scholars state that Holden is like any other youth of his day, he would likely not fit in too well with his peers. In fact, that is precisely what J.D. Salinger had in mind when he wrote The Catcher in the Rye. While writing the novel, Salinger was not attempting to necessarily focus on the culture and language of a teen in the 1950’s, but to make an individual character (Costello 33).

Through witty comments such as the opening line, the reader becomes familiar with the “radical individuality” of Holden Caulfield (Pinsker, UTCTR XVI).

Perhaps one reason that the readers seems to fall in line and agree with Holden’s thoughts is that he is an outcast. Take, for example, America’s former president Bill Clinton. Although this man was no perfect role model, Americans seemed to fall in love with him and re-elected “the come-back kid” to a second term despite his terrible mistakes. In a way, Holden closely resembles the former president. America loves the outcast. No one wants a spotless character; everyone