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Catcher In The Rye Education

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The English curriculum of American high schools includes works such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo and Juliet, The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, and Macbeth. However, another book causes fierce debate about its inclusion in literary relevance. The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most controversial texts to grace the public education system with its heavy use of slang, mature scenarios, and bleak views of society. However, all of these subjects impact high schoolers much less than worried parents or teachers would expect while actually promoting practical, constructive themes, and for this, The Catcher in the Rye should be taught in high schools today. Although The Catcher in the Rye explores many suggestive topics, it has an overall …show more content…

Education does not exist to humor parents with useless academia and imagination, but rather to learn how to act when students reach adulthood and must react to real scenarios in a competent and informed manner. In fact, many students complain how the American education system fails to prepare them for real-life situations, while providing information that will never be used again by students. However horrifying to the book’s opponents, the book’s situations represent those which students will likely need to face and react appropriately to later in their lives. In this sense, no other high school curriculum book approaches the comprehensibility of The Catcher in the Rye. Readers can experience failure, independence, regret, and depression as well as more specific difficulties through the experiences of Holden. For example in a moment of impulse and curiosity, Holden abuses his independence and hires a prostitute for his hotel room. After an argument over price arises and the prostitute’s manager, Holden recounts, “Then he smacked me… All I felt was this terrific punch in my stomach” (115). Through tough situations such as this, high schoolers can learn fairly accurately how to act when thrust into a world of freedom and opportunity. Without actually partaking in similar decisions as Holden, readers vicariously live through Holden and experience the failure Holden receives when he makes a wrong, uninformed decision. Opposers of this book’s teaching in high schools may argue that other more tasteful books teach the same lessons as The Catcher in the Rye in a nicer manner. Other books simply do not provide accurate societal lessons as straightforward and frequent as The Catcher in the Rye. The messages of other books can often be lost in irrelevant details of plot and the avoidance of clear themes while Salinger’s lessons apply directly to the lives of readers who are in direct

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Lastly he points out how banning this book will not protect children from everywhere else they can learn about the “cons” of the book in a different environment. Blei’s view on the topic of banning opens one's eyes to the reality of how information about profanities and other obscenities can be transferred to teenagers in ways that may pose a bigger danger than a book. He ties it to Catcher by stating that the book has been thoroughly inspected over the years, so all the themes and messages of the book have been revealed, so there is nothing to hide from parents and teachers. The point of the book has been made clear, and it is a just one, so hiding this book from children is having the opposite effect from what the people banning it want. Catcher in the Rye is a book about a teenager discovering himself, and shouldn’t be censored as it can be very useful and insightful for teenagers or people of the right mental capacity, as to appreciate the book.

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As the book starts Holden describes his childhood and how he has been kicked out of several school and once more again from his currently school, giving a sense of irresponsibility and no care in the world. Holden later on mentioned slowly the loss of his brother due to leukemia and how he reacted outrageously by breaking the windows of his garage home. As a reader one would view that behavior as abnormal, but Peter Shaw descried it as a normal behavior for a fictional character in the 1950s and by mentioning that Holden, “is presenting in a somewhat different manner than are the sentimentalized young people in other novels if his period” (par. 3), admitting that Holden was somewhat of an outcast of a character even for its time he is still considered normal. Shaw also challenged the reader’s view of Holden by emphasizing that Holden is not a real person, but a fiction character developed in the 1950s and in fact a mad psychological character is normal and made the reading rather more interesting and acceptable during that time. As readers someone may come across as understanding Holden’s behavior due to a loss and everyone mourns differently and as Shaw said, “ the one period of life in which abnormal behavior is common rather than exceptional” (par.

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In the paradoxical personality of Holden we discover something much deeper. As Holden makes himself out to be tougher than what he actually is, Salinger introduces stubbornness. Holden’s true nature of gentleness and sensitivity offered throughout the book often brings bedlam into his life, though Salinger brings into

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Gerald Graff’s argument on how educational systems are missing a great opportunity to tap into “street smarts” and focus them into a path of academic work is indeed convincing (Graff, 198). After all, anyone who’s been through the American educational system knows odds are often stacked against the “street smarts.” This is especially true in english classes, where one is often required to read boring and somewhat heartless books like, 1984, Beowulf, and the majority of Shakespeare’s classics. This is not to say these books are bad or shouldn’t be read during one’s schooling years, instead, the problem is one of apathy. For instance, in my high school years I never even remotely liked to read books Othello, but I loved to read magazines and

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Salinger is a wonderful novel with rich educational content and it should not be withheld from students because of what is deemed inappropriate and “explicit” language and content. Moreover, The Catcher in the Rye is an educational book that should be included in the sophomore English curriculum because out in the real world, life experiences are not censored or banned to protect you, sophomore students are at the age where they are old enough to know what is appropriate and what isn’t and they can read a book that has bad words in it, and if a book is banned for such a thing as bad language, the students are the ones being shorted because they are missing the educational value of the

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Catcher in the Rye Banned or Not? Coming in on second place on the top ten banned book list the novel, Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, has been banned for various reasons. (“Banned”) They believed it promoted drinking at a young age and it brought up the idea of becoming atheist. Multiple incidents like, the assassination of John Lennon, by Mark David Chapman have occurred because the murder said he killed Lennon because of a text in the book.

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Many other books have been banned due to the same or different reasons, however, “The Catcher in the rye” is the most famous.

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The Catcher in the Rye has a compelling history of censorship that I find both interesting and disturbing. All of my family are avid readers, and I was taught early in life the importance of books. I was homeschooled since the second grade and was never denied the right to read any book.

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In 1985 J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye was banned in a Florida high school for merely being unacceptable. The timeless American classic that represent the teenager struggle perfectly has been deemed “unacceptable” since its release in 1951. Continually it has endure scrutiny for its dark depiction of adolescent.

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In The Catcher in the Rye, the author J.D. Salinger, introduces the protagonist; Holden Caulfield. Holden feels the sense that he cannot choose between the two worlds. For example, he makes it seem as both of them are complete opposites from each other. In the book, Holden wants to keep his innocence, but he also wants to grow up and toss that innocence away. He still keeps his childhood personality by constantly obsessing over things that shouldn’t matter.

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