The Catcher in the Rye is a novel by American authorJ. D. Salinger that was partially published in serial form in 1945–46 before being novelized in 1951. Originally intended for adults, it is often read by adolescents for its themes ofangst andalienation, and as a critique ofsuperficiality in society.[4][5] The novel also deals with themes of innocence, identity, belonging, loss, connection, sex, and depression. The main character,Holden Caulfield, has become an icon for teenage rebellion.[6] Caulfield,nearly of age, gives his opinion on a wide variety of topics as he narrates his recent life events.
The Catcher in the Rye has been translated widely.[7] About one million copies are sold each year, with total sales of more than 65 million books.[8] The novel was included onTime's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923,[9] and it was named byModern Library and its readers as one of the100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.[10][11][12] In 2003, it was listed at number 15 on the BBC's survey "The Big Read".
Holden Caulfield recalls the events of a long weekend, shortly before the previous year's Christmas. The story begins at Pencey Preparatory Academy, an eliteboarding school in the fictional town of Agerstown, Pennsylvania, where he has been expelled after failing all his classes, except English.
Later, Holden agrees to write an English composition for his roommate, Ward Stradlater, who is heading out on a date. He is distressed when he learns that Stradlater's date is Jane Gallagher, with whom Holden has been infatuated. When Stradlater returns, hours later, he fails to appreciate the deeply personal composition Holden has written for him about thebaseball glove of Holden's late brother, Allie, who died fromleukemia years earlier, and refuses to say whether he had sex with Jane. Enraged, Holden punches and insults him, but Stradlater easily wins the fight. Fed up with the "phonies" at Pencey Prep, Holden decides to catch a train to New York, planning to stay away from his home until Wednesday, when his parents will have received notification of his expulsion.
Throughout the night, Holden has unpleasant encounters with aprostitute named Sunny, and herpimp, Maurice, who ends up in a physical altercation with Holden; a familiar date, Sally Hayes, who Holden invites to run away with him but is rejected; and an old classmate Carl Luce, who Holden unrelentingly questions about his sex life. Holden eventually gets drunk, awkwardly flirts with several adults, calls Sally again, and runs out of money.
Nostalgic to see his younger sister Phoebe, Holden sneaks into his parents' apartment while they are out and wakes her. Though happy to see him, Phoebe quickly guesses he has been expelled and chastises him for his general aimlessness and disdain. When she asks if he cares about anything, Holden shares a fantasy (based on amishearing ofRobert Burns'sComin' Through the Rye), in which he imagines himself saving children running through a field of rye by catching them before they fall off a nearby cliff. Phoebe points out that the actual poem says, "when a body meet a body, comin' through the rye." Holden breaks down in tears, and his sister tries to console him.
As his parents return home, he slips out and visits his former English teacher, Mr. Antolini, who expresses concern that Holden is headed for "a terrible fall". Mr. Antolini advises him to begin applying himself and provides him with a place to sleep. Holden awakens to find Mr. Antolini patting his head, which he interprets as a sexual advance. He leaves and spends the rest of the night in a train-waiting room atGrand Central Terminal, sinking deeper into despair.
In the morning, having lost hope of ever finding meaningful connection in the city, he decides to head outWest to live as a deaf-mute gas station attendant in a log cabin. He arranges to see Phoebe at lunchtime to explain his plan and say goodbye. When they meet up at theMetropolitan Museum of Art, she arrives with a suitcase and asks to go with him. Holden refuses, which upsets Phoebe. He tries to cheer her by allowing her to skip school at theCentral Park Zoo, but she remains angry. They eventually reach the carousel, where they reconcile after he buys her a ticket. The sight of her riding the carousel fills him with happiness.
He alludes to encountering his parents that night, "getting sick," and being sent to asanatorium in California near his older brother, D.B. He also mentions that he will be attending another academy in September. The novel ends with Holden stating that he is reluctant to say more because talk of school has made him miss his former classmates.
Various older stories by Salinger contain characters similar to those inThe Catcher in the Rye. While atColumbia University, Salinger wrote ashort story called "The Young Folks" inWhit Burnett's class; one character from this story has been described as a "thinly penciled prototype of Sally Hayes". In November 1941 he sold the story "Slight Rebellion off Madison", which featured Holden Caulfield, toThe New Yorker, but it was not published until December 21, 1946, due toWorld War II. The story "I'm Crazy", which was published in the December 22, 1945 issue ofCollier's, contained material that was later used inThe Catcher in the Rye. In 1946,The New Yorker accepted a 90-pagemanuscript about Holden Caulfield for publication, but Salinger later withdrew it.[13] The school Holden attends is Pencey Preparatory Academy, aboarding school in Pennsylvania that Salinger may have based on theValley Forge Military Academy and College.[14]
The Catcher in the Rye is narrated in asubjective style from the point of view of Holden Caulfield,following his exact thought processes. There is flow in the seemingly disjointed ideas and episodes; for example, as Holden sits in a chair in his dorm, minor events, such as picking up a book or looking at a table, unfold into discussions about experiences.
Critical reviews affirm that the novel accurately reflected the teenagecolloquial speech of the time.[15] Words and phrases that appear frequently include:[16]
Bruce Brooks held that Holden's attitude remains unchanged at story's end, implying no maturation, thus differentiating the novel fromyoung adult fiction.[18]In contrast,Louis Menand thought that teachers assign the novel because of the optimistic ending, to teach adolescent readers that "alienation is just a phase."[19] While Brooks maintained that Holden acts his age, Menand claimed that Holden thinks as an adult, given his ability to accurately perceive people and their motives. Others highlight the dilemma of Holden's state, in between adolescence and adulthood.[20][21] Holden is quick to become emotional. "I felt sorry as hell for..." is a phrase he often uses. It is often said that Holden changes at the end, when he watches Phoebe on the carousel, and he talks about the golden ring and how it's good for kids to try to grab it.[20]
Peter Beidler in hisA Reader's Companion to J. D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" identified the movie that the prostitute "Sunny" refers to. In chapter 13 she says that in the movie a boy who looked like Holden fell off a boat, and from this detail, Beidler deduced that the movie wasCaptains Courageous (1937), with the boy played by child-actorFreddie Bartholomew.[22]
Each Caulfield child has literary talent. D.B. writes screenplays in Hollywood;[23] Holden also reveres D.B. for his writing skill (Holden's own best subject), but he also despises Hollywood industry-based movies, considering them the ultimate in "phony" as the writer has no space for his own imagination and describes D.B.'s move to Hollywood to write for films as "prostituting himself"; Allie wrote poetry on his baseball glove;[24] and Phoebe is a diarist.[25]This "catcher in the rye" is an analogy for Holden, who admires in children attributes that he often struggles to find in adults, like innocence, kindness, spontaneity, and generosity. Falling off the cliff could be a progression into the adult world that surrounds him and that he strongly criticizes. Later, Phoebe and Holden exchange roles as the "catcher" and the "fallen"; he gives her his hunting hat, the catcher's symbol, and becomes the fallen as Phoebe becomes the catcher.[26]
In theirbiography of Salinger,David Shields andShane Salerno argue that: "The Catcher in the Rye can best be understood as a disguisedwar novel." Salinger witnessed the horrors of World War II, but rather than writing a combat novel, Salinger, according to Shields and Salerno, "took the trauma of war and embedded it within what looked to the naked eye like a coming-of-age novel."[27]
In his bookRebels: Youth and the Cold War Origins of Identity,[28] Professor Leerom Medovoi posits that The Catcher in the Rye’s story is centered on identity, and that Holden Caulfield “epitomizes the triumph of the young rebel as a requisite figure for representing the national identity of America.”[28] Medovoi says that in contrast to the oppressive governance of the 1950s Soviet Union, America thought itself a plucky and rebellious player on the world stage, similar to how Holden felt in contrast with the phony adult world. Like many teens today, Holden struggles to find a balance between the adult world and the world of childhood. His desire to be “the catcher in the rye,” preventing children from falling into the symbolic death that is maturity, reflects his own fear of growing up.
The Catcher in the Rye has been consistently listed as one of the best novels of the twentieth century. Shortly after its publication, in an article forThe New York Times, Nash K. Burger called it "an unusually brilliant novel,"[3] while James Stern wrote an admiring review of the book in a voice imitating Holden's.[29]George H. W. Bush called it a "marvelous book," listing it among the books that inspired him.[30] In June 2009, theBBC's Finlo Rohrer wrote that, 58 years since publication, the book is still regarded "as the defining work on what it is like to be a teenager."[31] Out of all teen demographics over the years, troubled and depressed teens seem to have a greater tendency to relate with Holden. In a 1975 interview with Robert Coles,[32]renowned child psychoanalyst Anne Freud shares her experience treating teens who readThe Catcher in the Rye for school. “I got to know this Holden Caulfield by hearsay before I met him as a reader. My analytic patients spoke of him sometimes as if they’d actually met him; they used his words, his way of speaking. [...] I began to realize that they had taken him into their minds, and hugged him – they spoke, now, not only his words in the book (quotations from it) but his words become their own words.”[32]Adam Gopnik considers it one of the "three perfect books" in American literature, along withAdventures of Huckleberry Finn andThe Great Gatsby, and believes that "no book has ever captured a city better thanCatcher in the Rye captured New York in the fifties."[33] In an appraisal ofThe Catcher in the Rye written after the death of J. D. Salinger, Jeff Pruchnic says the novel has retained its appeal for many generations. Pruchnic describes Holden as a "teenage protagonist frozen midcentury but destined to be discovered by those of a similar age in every generation to come."[34]Bill Gates said thatThe Catcher in the Rye is one of his favorite books,[35] as hasAaron Sorkin.[36]
Not all reception has been positive. The book has had its share of naysayers, including the longtimeWashington Post book criticJonathan Yardley, who, in 2004, wrote that the experience of rereading the novel after several decades proved to be "a painful experience: The combination of Salinger'sexecrable prose and Caulfield'sjejune narcissism produced effects comparable to mainlining castor oil." Yardley described the novel as among the worst popular books in the annals of American literature. "Why," Yardley asked, "do English teachers, whose responsibility is to teach good writing, repeatedly and reflexively require students to read a book as badly written as this one?"[37] According to Rohrer, many contemporary readers, as Yardley found, "just cannot understand what the fuss is about.... many of these readers are disappointed that the novel fails to meet the expectations generated by the mystique it is shrouded in. J. D. Salinger has done his part to enhance this mystique. That is to say, he has done nothing."[31] Rohrer assessed the reasons behind both the popularity and criticism of the book, saying that it "captures existential teenage angst" and has a "complex central character" and "accessible conversational style"; while at the same time some readers may dislike the "use of 1940s New York vernacular" and the excessive "whining" of the "self-obsessed character".
In 1960, a teacher inTulsa, Oklahoma, was fired for assigning the novel in class. She was later reinstated.[38] Between 1961 and 1982,The Catcher in the Rye was the mostcensored book in high schools and libraries in the United States.[39] The book was briefly banned in theIssaquah, Washington, high schools in 1978 when three members of the School Board alleged the book was part of an "overall communist plot".[40] This ban did not last long, and the offending board members were immediately recalled and removed in a special election.[41] In 1981, it was both the most censored book and the second most taught book in public schools in the United States.[42] According to theAmerican Library Association,The Catcher in the Rye was the 10th most frequentlychallenged book from 1990 to 1999.[10] It was one of the ten most challenged books of 2005,[43] and although it had been off the list for three years, it reappeared in the list of most challenged books of 2009.[44]
The challenges generally begin with Holden's frequent use of vulgar language;[45][46] other reasons include sexual references,[47]blasphemy, undermining of family values[46] and moral codes,[48] encouragement of rebellion,[49] and promotion of drinking, smoking, lying,promiscuity, and sexual abuse.[48] The book was written for an adult audience, which often forms the foundation of many challengers' arguments against it.[50] Often the challengers have been unfamiliar with the plot itself.[39] Shelley Keller-Gage, a high school teacher who faced objections after assigning the novel in her class, noted that "the challengers are being just like Holden... They are trying to be catchers in the rye."[46] Censorship of the book often causes aStreisand effect, as such incidents cause many to put themselves on the waiting list to borrow the novel, where there was no waiting list before.[51][52]
Early in his career, Salinger expressed a willingness to have his work adapted for the screen.[56] In 1949, a critically panned film version of his short story "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" was released; renamedMy Foolish Heart, the film took great liberties with Salinger's plot and is widely considered to be among the reasons that Salinger refused to allow any subsequent film adaptations of his work.[20][57] The enduring success ofThe Catcher in the Rye, however, has resulted in repeated attempts to secure the novel's screen rights.[58]
WhenThe Catcher in the Rye was first released, many offers were made to adapt it for the screen, including one fromSamuel Goldwyn, producer ofMy Foolish Heart.[57] In a letter written in the early 1950s, Salinger spoke of mounting a play in which he would play the role of Holden Caulfield oppositeMargaret O'Brien, and, if he couldn't play the part himself, to "forget about it." Almost 50 years later, the writerJoyce Maynard definitively concluded, "The only person who might ever have played Holden Caulfield would have been J. D. Salinger."[59]
Salinger told Maynard in the 1970s thatJerry Lewis "tried for years to get his hands on the part of Holden,"[59] the protagonist in the novel which Lewis had not read until he was in his thirties.[51] Film industry figures includingMarlon Brando,Jack Nicholson,Ralph Bakshi,Tobey Maguire andLeonardo DiCaprio have tried to make a film adaptation.[60] In an interview withPremiere,John Cusack commented that his one regret about turning 21 was that he had become too old to play Holden Caulfield. Writer-directorBilly Wilder recounted his abortive attempts to snare the novel's rights:
Of course I readThe Catcher in the Rye... Wonderful book. I loved it. I pursued it. I wanted to make a picture out of it. And then one day a young man came to the office ofLeland Hayward, my agent, in New York, and said, "Please tell Mr. Leland Hayward to lay off. He's very, very insensitive." And he walked out. That was the entire speech. I never saw him. That was J. D. Salinger and that wasCatcher in the Rye.[61]
In 1961, Salinger deniedElia Kazan permission to direct a stage adaptation ofCatcher forBroadway.[62] Later, Salinger's agents received bids for theCatcher film rights fromHarvey Weinstein andSteven Spielberg, neither of which was even passed on to Salinger for consideration.[63]
In 2003, theBBC television programThe Big Read featuredThe Catcher in the Rye, interspersing discussions of the novel with "a series of short films that featured an actor playing J. D. Salinger's adolescent antihero, Holden Caulfield."[62] The show defended its unlicensed adaptation of the novel by claiming to be a "literary review", and no major charges were filed.
In 2008, the rights of Salinger's works were placed in the JD Salinger Literary Trust where Salinger was the sole trustee. Phyllis Westberg, who was Salinger's agent at Harold Ober Associates in New York, declined to say who the trustees are now that the author is dead. After Salinger died in 2010, Westberg stated that nothing had changed in terms of licensing film, television, or stage rights of his works.[64] A letter written by Salinger in 1957 revealed that he was open to an adaptation ofThe Catcher in the Rye released after his death. He wrote: "Firstly, it is possible that one day the rights will be sold. Since there's an ever-looming possibility that I won't die rich, I toy very seriously with the idea of leaving the unsold rights to my wife and daughter as a kind of insurance policy. It pleasures me no end, though, I might quickly add, to know that I won't have to see the results of the transaction." Salinger also wrote that he believed his novel was not suitable for film treatment, and that translating Holden Caulfield'sfirst-person narrative intovoice-over and dialogue would be contrived.[65]
In 2020,Don Hahn revealed thatThe Walt Disney Company had almost made an animated film titledDufus which would have been an adaptation ofThe Catcher in the Rye "withGerman shepherds", most likely akin toOliver & Company. The idea came from then CEOMichael Eisner who loved the book and wanted to do an adaptation. After being told that J. D. Salinger would not agree to sell the film rights, Eisner stated, "Well, let's just do that kind of story, that kind of growing up, coming of age story."[66]
In 2009, the year before he died, Salinger successfully sued to stop the U.S. publication of a novel that presents Holden Caulfield as an old man.[31][67] The novel's author,Fredrik Colting, commented: "call me an ignorant Swede, but the last thing I thought possible in the U.S. was that you banned books".[68] The issue is complicated by the nature of Colting's book,60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, which has been compared tofan fiction.[69] Although commonly not authorized by writers, no legal action is usually taken against fan fiction, since it is rarely published commercially and thus involves no profit.[70]
^abBurger, Nash K. (July 16, 1951)."Books of The Times".The New York Times. RetrievedMarch 18, 2009.
^Costello, Donald P., andHarold Bloom. "The Language of 'The Catcher in the Rye:' Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations: The Catcher in the Rye (2000): 11–20. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. December 1, 2010.
^According to List of best-selling books. An earlier article says more than 20 million:Yardley, Jonathan (October 19, 2004)."J. D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, Aging Gracelessly".The Washington Post. RetrievedJanuary 21, 2007.It isn't just a novel, it's a dispatch from an unknown, mysterious universe, which may help explain the phenomenal sales it enjoys to this day: about 250,000 copies a year, with total worldwide sales over – probably way over – 10 million.
^Costello, Donald P. (October 1959). "The Language of 'The Catcher in the Rye'".American Speech.34 (3):172–182.doi:10.2307/454038.ISSN0003-1283.JSTOR454038.Most critics who glared atThe Catcher in the Rye at the time of its publication thought that its language was a true and authentic rendering of teenage colloquial speech.
^Yasuhiro Takeuchi (Fall 2002). "The Burning Carousel and the Carnivalesque: Subversion and Transcendence at the Close ofThe Catcher in the Rye".Studies in the Novel. Vol. 34, no. 3. pp. 320–337.
^Shields, David; Salerno, Shane (2013).Salinger (Hardcover ed.). Simon & Schuster. p. xvi.ASIN1476744831.The Catcher in the Rye can best be understood as a disguised war novel. Salinger emerged from the war incapable of believing in the heroic, noble ideals we like to think our cultural institutions uphold. Instead of producing a combat novel, like Norman Mailer, James Jones, and Joseph Heller did, Salinger took the trauma of war and embedded it within what looked to the naked eye like a coming-of-age novel.
^abcRohrer, Finlo (June 5, 2009)."The why of the Rye".BBC News Magazine. BBC. RetrievedJune 5, 2009.
^abColes, Robert. “Holden Caulfield Is a Teenage Everyman”Social Issues in Literature:Depression in J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Greenhaven Press, 2009, pages 137-47.
^Gopnik, Adam.The New Yorker, February 8, 2010, p. 21
^Pruchnic, Jeff. "Holden at Sixty: Reading Catcher After the Age of Irony." Critical Insights: ------------The Catcher in The Rye (2011): 49–63. Literary Reference Center. Web. February 2, 2015.
^Dutra, Fernando (September 25, 2006)."U. Connecticut: Banned Book Week celebrates freedom". The America's Intelligence Wire. Archived fromthe original on February 15, 2013. RetrievedDecember 20, 2007.In 1960 a teacher in Tulsa, Okla. was fired for assigning "The Catcher in the Rye". After appealing, the teacher was reinstated, but the book was removed from the itinerary in the school.
^Jenkinson, Edward (1982).Censors in the Classroom. Avon Books. p. 35.ISBN978-0380597901.
^Andrychuk, Sylvia (February 17, 2004)."A History of J.D. Salinger'sThe Catcher in the Rye"(PDF). p. 6. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on September 28, 2007.During 1981,The Catcher in the Rye had the unusual distinction of being the most frequently censored book in the United States, and, at the same time, the second-most frequently taught novel in American public schools.
^abFrangedis, Helen (November 1988). "Dealing with the Controversial Elements inThe Catcher in the Rye".The English Journal.77 (7):72–75.doi:10.2307/818945.JSTOR818945.The foremost allegation made againstCatcher is... that it teaches loose moral codes; that it glorifies... drinking, smoking, lying, promiscuity, and more.
^Yilu Zhao (August 31, 2003)."Banned, But Not Forgotten".The New York Times. RetrievedDecember 20, 2007.The Catcher in the Rye, interpreted by some as encouraging rebellion against authority...
.jpg)
