"Classic ridiculousness of banning books and censorship..."
Spoilers ahead for J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.
We kicked off our discussion of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye with a brief look at the history of the book - did you know that, when it was first published in 1957, it was reprinted 5 times in two weeks!?
But hey, we can only think on the history of a novel for so long. This is about analyzing young adult literature, not just poking at it and admiring how well it did!
So we started talking about why it's presence in the ya genre. Why is it such a hit? We narrowed it down to four main categories with subcategories.
- voice: written like an adult remembering a teen, first person point-of-view (allows for the obsessive, critical, negative stream of consciousness)
- tone: blunt, sarcastic, negative
- theme: rebellion, escapism, sex, isolation, depression
- character: unreliable narration, stuck in the state between child and adult ("social misfit")
Professor wants believes that all character should be thought of as people, and people should be thought of complexly. (John Green would agree.)
Because of that, we spent a good deal of time talking about whether or not Holden was depressed. There's a fine line between teenage angst and actual depression, and Holden seems to walk it carefully. He lost his brother at a young age and longs for innocence (hence his, er, obsession with children). He constantly mentions that he's depressed and he has no mentor and has nobody to look up to. Why wouldn't he be depressed?
The next class also focuses on Catcher in the Rye and how it can be interpreted from three different viewpoints: political, psychological and ecocritical. Stay tuned!
Young adult history moment: Salinger's novel has been used a defense by the men who shot John Lennon, Ronald Reagan and Rebecca Schaeffer. "It doesn't mean if you like the book, you're a serial killer!"
Question for the comments: Is Holden depressed?
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