![]() ![]() ![]() Since 1951 when it was first published, The Catcher in the Rye has served as a resonant expression of alienation for several generations of adolescent readers and adults who have considered themselves at odds with the norms and institutions of American society. Yet the novel promotes solidarity with the protagonist, and one can imagine countless readers concluding: yes, the world is awash in materialism, shallowness, and insincerity, but I, like Holden, am different. Just about everyone Holden encounters, including his teachers, his classmates, his friends, and his fellow New Yorkers, is a “phony,” behaving in accordance with artificial conventions and disguising self-interest underneath a veneer of amiability. ![]() The readiness of teachers to embrace and assign this novel, despite its implicit indictment of the American educational system, is evidence of its extraordinary capacity to appeal even to those whom it risks insulting. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951) opens with the sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield’s disillusioned departure from what may be the last in a series of schools that have failed to inspire, nurture, or support him, followed by a painful, sleep-deprived odyssey through the streets of New York City. One of the most widely taught novels in the United States, J.
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