There's some important context to go over to better understand Jerome David

Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye. Actually, the 1950s and the 1960s
constitute very important periods for the American society at all the levels
characterized as it were by numerous contradictions. Despite, the psychological and
moral impacts of WWII, the nation enjoyed a widespread prosperity and a rising
educated and well-to-do middle class that would persist throughout the 1950s and
the 1960s. In fact during the war and even a long time after, the United States have
become the only financial and industrial purveyor to Europe and much of the rest of
the world. This huge market with an almost absent serious competition made the
national economy growing strong and wealthy. This led to a kind of general
confidence that the future held nothing but peace and prosperity. The rates of
employment and inflation were low and wages have become higher. In the 1950s
the variety and availability of consumer goods expand for long with the economy
and as the middle class which constitutes a very large of the population had more
money to spend and more things to spend it on. The consumer society was at its
height and encouraged by new techniques of advertising through powerful media
like TV, leading to the equation of the prevailing commercialism with social and
moral conformity.
However, at the same time of this material prosperity, a sort of cultural and
social discomfort spread all over the society mainly among the youth. It was
provoked by the prevailing a strict social conformity and a moral hypocrisy which is
actually the major theme of Salinger’s novel. The period witnessed also an
extremely active concern with diversity including both racial and gender issues. As
far as gender is concerned, the period saw great changes in women condition. In the
revolution of the 1920s, women had gained a lot of rights and their social role
changes from mothers and housekeepers to claim social and political equality, but
the dark period of the 1930s following 1929 Great Depression much of these rights
faded away as survival had become people’s main concern. Later on and during the
war most men were engaged into the conflict and women had taken over the needed
jobs replacing men workforce. However and after the war has ended , there was no
remaining jobs for the demobilized soldiers. Therefore, the official attitude and
social media changed completely its discourse on gender to more traditional roles
encouraging women to give up their jobs to men and return home. Actually, number
of magazine articles and advice books encouraged women to leave their jobs and
embrace their roles as wives and mothers and even them not to be afraid to marry
young and that cooking and house holding is socially more uplifting than any other
activity. As a matter of fact, this attitude led to the rise of a sort inflammatory
femininity picturing then ideal woman as a mother and wife.
In the 1950sthe struggle against racism and segregation entered the mainstream
concerns as in 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that separate educational facilities for
black children were inherently unequal challenging the traditional segregationist Jim
Crow legislation. Of course many Americans in the South resisted the new
governmental tendencies and used violence and intimidation to prevent blacks from
asserting their rights. The Afro-American fight for their civil rights will our next
subject when we start Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.
In addition to that, there was a political climate of paranoia about the rise of
communism and the perceived threat it presented to the national prosperity known
as the Red Scare. Actually, the period saw a rising tension between the US Aand the
Soviet Union known as the Cold War. It resulted from a number of factors among
them was the American attempt to stop the spread of communism which many
politicians .believed to be a threat to their democracy and capitalism. The idea that
communism needed to be contained by diplomats as an evil force influenced the
American foreign policy for decades and many Americans worried that communists
or subversives could destroy America from the inside. The topic will further
developed in the second semester
Jerome David Salinger was born on January 1st 1919 in New York City. He
was an avid reader and eager young writer but he struggled in the institutional
confines of various schools and received many poor grades. After working in and
for his father's business in Austria and then serving in World War two seeing active
duty in some of its most famous battles, Salinger saw firsthand the disturbing rise to
power of the Nazis. Salinger was institutionalized for depression and post-traumatic
stress disorder after the war and after his discharge from the hospital he began
critical work. His first and only novel, The Catcher in the Rye, was published
in1951 and captures and reflects those tensions between success and fear that
characterized the period. Effectively, the novel fluctuates thematically between hope
and disillusion reflecting the then prevailing general atmosphere. The book was also
largely autobiographical as certain elements of Holden Caulfield's character parallel
the author’s personal experience. For instance, Holden like Salinger fails to thrive at
school finding the conventional environments stifling and meaningless and drops
out a number of times. Both Holden and his creator find significance in meaning
and narrative whether fact or fiction and in the manipulation of words; like Salinger
Holden seeks anonymity in New York City and fantasizes about disappearing. As
Salinger worked on the novel during the war, some critics find in Holden's despair
and anger the expression of his generation wartime trauma. Even if the novel was
initially addressing an adult audience, it was quickly appropriated by teenagers who
often saw themselves in Holden’s personality.
It is significant that during the 1950s African-Americans and white Americans
started to integrate more rock and roll which was the mixture of rhythm and blues
the music of the two cultures highly appreciated by the youth of all the races.
Moreover, the lyrics contained sexual connotations encouraging dancing and sexual,
promiscuity that many parents did not like because they thought it caused juvenile
delinquency. However, rock and roll became linked to youth rebellion all over the
country. At its publication, the critical reception to book was and still is
controversial. It generated immediate praise, criticism and joy but it outraged the
publisher who first objected to some characters mainly Holden and proposed
modifications, but Salinger refused to tame his main character. Salinger quickly
found another publisher. It is noticeable that The Catcher in the Rye has topped lists
of banned books for decades as it initially shocked readers in several ways mostly
with its obvious use of taboo language and topics. However, the critical attitude
with which the novel dissects the society has very become a hallmark, and it quickly
climbed to the top tier of the New York Times bestseller list; it was garnered as the
book-of-the-month . The Catcher in the Rye became incredibly influential in the
1950s and extends beyond the world of literature. The process of discovering one's
adult identity and leaving the relative safety of childhood is its major theme and
which lifts the book beyond a personal or even a national experience to be a
universal human concern, and even Holden is a reassuring and attractive character
as; however, crazy he may act from time to time connection to other caring
humanists always possible. Even after JD Salinger's death some biographers have
claimed that he worked on other stories about Holden and that these stories was
someday be published. The Catcher in the Rye truly remains both beloved and
controversial for decades as its mysterious recluse author JD Salinger died in2010.
The novel deals with the crucial but hard to talk about human issues of depression
and alienation. It challenged the processing feelings things like suicide, sexuality,
perversion and taboo topics. Throughout his life Salinger published a number of
short stories but The Catcher in the Rye is his only novel. The book is an iconic
arguably American novel, an existential coming-of-age story that is both the
adventure of a specific likable opinionated young narrator and a universal work that
deals with highly relatable themes and symbols about society and modern living in
America. It is the most famous work of reclusive author, and while its popularity
and appeal haven't waned, t continues to remain a lightning rod for controversy to
this day. Salinger himself became a famous literary recluse, refusing celebrity and
burning fan mails, and even refusing to have his picture printed in later editions of
his work. While The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951, the themes like
childhood sex alienation and identity, and the symbols that represent those things
like Holden's deceased younger brother baseball mitts, Holden's red hunting cap, the
Museum of Natural History in New York and it's frozen in time preservation of
Memory, the promise of and curiosity about the ducks in Central Park and even the
title itself a Robert Burns line, pulled in miss remembers all make the novel a
powerful upsetting, intellectually provocative book about growing up and reflecting
on the human condition.
The story opens with Holden Caulfield the narrator saying that he will tell what
happened when he was expelled for boarding school. He is a likeable young man
imaginative, but he is also unreliable and judgmental with a tendency to let his
alienation, depression and various traumatic memories cloud his ability to fully
enter the adult world. Holden is sixteen during the story, and he has been expelled
from Pencey prep, a nice boarding school. He recounts the events that drove him
away and decides to spend some day son his own in a harsh unforgiving New York
City, before he returns home for the holidays letting his family know he won't be
going back to school. After fighting with his roommate over a date with a girl he
had liked and respected, then taking the train and painfully trying to flirt with a
classmate’s mother, He takes a room in a seedy motel. Holden's noble fantasies
about heroically protecting the innocence of children, something he struggles with
as he transitions into adulthood, stand in sharp contrast to his glimpses of perversion
surface-level chatter that he catches from time and time as he moves around New
York. Holden longs for intimate company and seeks it out in various key characters
like three women from Seattle drinking in a hotel bar, Sally Hayes a girl he used to
know that he goes on a date with, and a prostitute named Sunny as well as an older
friend, and most importantly his beloved sister Phoebe. All the while drinking and
feeling miserable and alone, Holden sneaks home to visit Phoebe becoming
convinced that he shouldn't runaway and that ultimately his transition into
adulthood won't necessitate his enacting wild unrealistic fantasies.
At one point, Holden visits his former teacher, a man who cares for Holden and
comforts him but also strokes his head while he was sleeping in an inappropriate
way showing that even likeable considerate adult allies are morally fallible, adding
to Holden's perspective on phoniness and his distrust of the adult world and its
complex ulterior motives. The novel uses the language of the adolescent swearing
and fascinated with sex within a period some people idealized as a time of virtue
and moral purity. These people believed that the period celebrated the importance of
family and there are popularized images that capture this feeling, such as the father
marring the lawn, the wife vacuuming in high heels, and children playing in the
backyard. However, beneath America's apparent moral triumph, lay deep-seated
anxieties surrounding shifting gender roles, economic uncertainties, and racial
tensions. There was a belief that sexuality and immorality would lead to the
breakdown of the country's delicate social fabric. The Catcher in the Rye captures
the atmosphere of anxiety and repression of the 1950s; it was considered to be
extremely controversial and was by a number of schools as the Christian Science
Monitor concluded that the novel was not fit for children to read, and Holden
Caulfield was preposterous profane and pathetic beyond belief. Many critics believe
that the novel serves as a resonant expression of alienation from a society that is
corrupt and phony. Its dark side is associated with the assassination of the Beatle’s
star John Lennon. Mark David Chapman, the man who assassinated John Lennon,
was found reading a copy of the novel on the night he murdered Lennon. During his
trial, he reads the passage from the book where Holden told his sister Phoebe that he
wants to be the catcher in the rye. In the climax of story, Holden watches joyfully as
his younger sister rides a carousel and realizes he must let her reach for the gold
ring The Catcher in the Rye ends with a seventeen year old Holden recounting his
experiences from a hospital in California where it appears he is recovering from
tuberculosis, and refuses to answer questions about his future or what happened
when he went home. He explains that despite his negative experiences, having
talked about them made him realize how much he misses everyone and how he
plans to return to school again making its somehow more optimistic than the course
of the story..
The Catcher in the Rye is a frequently banned book ironically because the story
of transitioning from childhood into adulthood. It deals with challenging and
emotionally evocative adult themes deemed inappropriate or too taboo for younger
readers who may find themselves relating to hold it more than they may want to
admit. Holden's struggle is one that has endeared him to all manner of readers for
decades. Indeed, Salinger's only novel was revolutionary not just for the way it dealt
with adult language and themes, but how it did so in ways that were equally coarse
and seamless through the portrait of a young man's walk through an angry world,
and an unreliable narrator whose negativity speaks to his own traumas and losses,
something considered by many readers and critics to be a masterpiece to this day.
Salinger once referred to his book as a spiritual autobiography reflecting and
juxtaposing the contradictions between a financial optimism and a psychological
and generational discomfort. Its narrator and protagonist, Holden Caulfield, became
the symbol for unfettered individualism that challenged cultural oppression and
social conformity.