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Banning The Catcher In The Rye

Decent Essays

Many schools in America have debated the controversial novel, Catcher in The Rye, by J.D. Salinger for their students to read. Some of the schools that have debated it have even banned their students from independently reading it in libraries. The student body for the most part has reacted negatively to the Board of Education discussing possibly taking out the book from the curriculum. The the novel should not be banned in Canton High School because students can connect with Holden’s problems.
The book should stay in Canton’s curriculum because it helps relate to teenagers through the middle ground of adulthood and being a child and the common problems of loneliness and feeling out of place. The author of Catcher in The Rye lets teenagers …show more content…

One of the reasons why this book is chosen as teaching other people about teenagers’ problems is through, “ J. D. Salinger’s fashioned voice for Holden that enabled him to channel an alienated 16-year-old’s thoughts and anxieties and frustrations and being a voice that skeptically appraised the world and denounced its phonies and hypocrites and bores.” (Kakutani). The author makes it easy for teenagers to learn through the novel. “…My parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They’re quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father.” (Salinger 1). A lot of people can relate to this because many people at least a few times in their life has had strict parents. Similarly, teachers like English teacher Patrick Welsh of T.C. Williams High School of Virginia believes that, “Catcher in The Rye is truly a great novel” (Welsh) Also, death is something many teenagers and even children experience through loved ones as in, “My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder’s mitt. He was left-handed. He’s dead now. He got leukemia and died when we were up in Main, on July 18, 1946.” (Salinger 38). Death is something every teenager can relate to. The novel shows how Holden was undermined through his brother’s death which contributed to his sense of loneliness and feelings of

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