Adam Golub

Adam Golub

1/30/2010 @ 4:15PM

American Adolescent

When it was published in 1951, J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye introduced an iconoclastic image of adolescence that has captured our imagination ever since. Over the years the story–and voice–of Holden Caulfield has permeated our classrooms, shaped our youth culture and influenced the branding of American-style rebellion. Unlike its famously reclusive author, The Catcher in the Rye has never left the public eye. As we pause to reflect on Salinger’s passing, we should also consider the ways in which his best-known work still resonates in American culture.

In the 1950s the wildfire popularity of The Catcher in the Rye–several million copies were sold in the first 10 years–paralleled the rapid rise of the teenager as a new social category and marketing niche in the United States. In the years after World War II, an autonomous youth culture emerged with tastes in music, fashion, film and language that differed starkly from those of the older generation. The mass culture industry rushed to both shape and respond to these tastes while pollsters and journalists set out to decipher the alien mores of teen society. Meanwhile many Catcher readers lauded Salinger for capturing the modern adolescent vernacular. A reviewer in Time magazine, for example, observed that Salinger could “understand an adolescent mind without displaying one.” In the popular imagination, then, Holden quickly became synonymous with this unusual new creature–the American teenager.

Of course this new image of adolescence had an edge to it, which Salinger’s novel helped shape as well. The oppositional tone of Catcher in the Rye came to be seen as an early salvo against the perceived blandness and conformity of postwar society. Holden’s rants against phonies soon reverberated alongside the strains of Elvis and Bebop, the declamations of Kerouac and Ginsburg, the yawps of James Dean (“You’re tearing me apart”) in Rebel Without a Cause–these were the emissaries of angst, individualism and cool in ’50s America. Catcher was a part of the collective cultural howl that announced the arrival of the young rebel on the postwar scene.

Catcher‘s influence reached beyond young people into the very schools they attended. In U.S. classrooms, Salinger’s novel has led a kind of double life. On the one hand it remains one of the most frequently assigned “coming of age” stories. On the other hand The Catcher in the Rye has been one of the most censored books in America. Objections to the novel erupted not long after its initial publication, with critics denouncing the book’s use of vulgar language, its antisocial narrator and its general scorn for authority. Such objections are still voiced today; as recently as 2005 Catcher made the “Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged” book list put out by the American Library Association.

Perhaps one of the most important legacies of Salinger’s novel is the way in which it anticipated a shift in American attitudes toward adolescence. As cultural historian Morris Dickstein points out, The Catcher in the Rye “is not a growing-up novel but a not-growing-up novel.” Indeed Holden does not wish to come of age. Expelled from boarding school, taking a respite in New York City to clear his head, Holden tries to delay the onset of adulthood, viewing grown-ups as shallow phonies. Moreover he is invested in protecting innocence, trying to prevent children like his younger sister Phoebe from falling off that “crazy cliff” into a corrupting adulthood. This theme explains in part why Catcher proved so controversial when it first appeared in 1951: The book fundamentally challenged conventional wisdom about growing up in America.

In the 1950s, under the shadow of the Cold War, the life stage we call adolescence lasted a relatively short time. High schools prepared the majority of students not for college but for the responsibilities of adulthood. A “life adjustment” curriculum taught students to dress right, date right, engage in civic life and take on the trappings of maturity. Notably Catcher in the Rye called into question this entire program of social engineering, with Holden exploding the notion that adulthood was something to strive for. What was the rush?

While Holden’s stance on adulthood went against the grain in the ’50s, today it has become mainstream. We now view adolescence as a stage that can easily last into college and well beyond. As a result of cultural messages that encourage Americans to stay youthful and socioeconomic imperatives that force many young adults to delay marriage and move back in with their parents, we are now a society that mirrors Holden’s skepticism about embracing the signifiers of adulthood. We have become a “not-growing-up” culture. And 60 years later, Holden Caulfield remains our iconic adolescent.

Adam Golub teaches American Studies at California State University, Fullerton.

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