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The Catcher In The Rye By J. D. Salinger

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Analysis of Characters and Themes in The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger was born in 1919 to a wealthy Manhattan family. He grew up in the same social conditions as Holden Caulfield does in The Catcher in the Rye. The last thing Salinger cared about was being a successful student because he was very lazy, without care for his responsibilities and tasks. Salinger flunked out of many prep schools, and his parents sent him to a military academy named Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1936 (Lundquist 7-10). Many critics believe that he modeled Pencey Prep, the school that Holden attended, after Valley Forge. Two weeks after J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye was published, it became an instant hit. The story about the life of a disoriented sixteen year old boy had people going crazy. The book remains popular today and has been over the years because of its brash style and its anti-establishment attitudes ("The Catcher in the Rye" 116). It was The Catcher in the Rye’s vulgar style that made parents all around the country worried about their children reading it. They did not like the language of the main character or his anti social attitudes, so parents around the country protested against The Catcher in the Rye and got most book stores to remove it from the shelves. The book was a terrible role model for teenagers during the 1950s ("The Catcher in the Rye" 116). Many critics believe that The Catcher in the Rye was based off of J.D Salinger 's life and

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