# of Words: 298

Over the course of 3 days, a rich kid who can not stop getting expelled from every college he attends wanders around Manhattan trying to get (1) drunk and (2) lucky. No, it's not the storyline of an unreleased Gossip Girl season (RIP). It is the storyline of Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger's beloved, prohibited, reviled, worshiped, and--well, let us just say polarizing 1951 novel about a depressed prep school boy with a heart of gold.

After rocketing almost immediately to the top of the bestseller lists, The Catcher in the Rye began its run on the banned books list. Not that we are surprised by this (profanity, sex, alcohol abuse, prostitution--need we go on?) , but we're a little surprised that it's also so common in high school English classes. Is there's something more going on than the ramblings of a depressed and admittedly immature sixteen- or seventeen-year-old?

Boy (as Holden would say) is there.

Reaching all the way back to the coming-of-age Bildungsroman tradition, The Catcher in the Rye is a book about a teenager trying to find a way to be true to himself while growing up in a world full of phonies--and a book about post-World War II America burrowing into the "phoniness" of consumerism when attempting to pretend that the injury of the atomic bomb did not happen. No wonder The Catcher in the Rye ended up as a sign of alienation and isolation for the disillusioned and restless post-war generation.

And then there's J. D. Salinger himself, who stopped publishing and essentially disappeared from public view at the peak of his profession--almost like he was a sort of Holden Caulfield. So, is Holden really a stand-in for Salinger himself? What really happened between his three days from New York along with his "rest" out West?

Related Papers

A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen

Envision what Law and Order will be like at verse--Oh, dearest judge, do not slam your gavel; for when you do, justice will probably overtake. (No. Only... no.) Or what Orange is the New Black will be like when the offenders broke out from bizarre, flowery soliloquies in the drop of the hat. Or if Authentic Detective were put at a castle or among the upper-upper classes... because that is just where play took place. Ibsen is frequently called "the father of modern drama" because he helped......Read More

Antony And Cleopatra William Shakespeare

Antony and Cleopatra were fairly much the Brangelina of early times,only much more striking. Inside this catastrophe--composed by none other than Shakespeare himself around 1608--Mark Antony (no, not who Marc Anthony) and Cleopatra drop in love. Straightforward enough, right? Wrong. These two are not your typical star-crossed fans. Oh no. They both rule over two of the most significant empires in history: Rome and Ancient Egypt. The play opens into Cleopatra's palace in Alexandria, Egypt.......Read More

The Birthmark Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a 19th-century New England writer best known for writing The Scarlet Letter. Many of his works reflect his somewhat Puritan background and are highly moralistic. Hawthorne often holds certain moral values up as exemplary and, at the same time, points out that the guy is failing miserably in attaining them. In fact, he is frequently cited as a key player in the "Dark Romanticism" genre, where man's failures and flaws have been examined and criticized. See "Genre" for more......Read More

Related Topics