Catcher In The Rye

EDU 314

Catcher essay questions

Amy Whitaker

What is teachable about Catcher in the Rye in the secondary classroom? What special approaches do you think would be necessary? What is the profile of the students who would benefit the most from a study of this novel?

This novel deals with the rites of passage to growing up. Holden deals with handling adult situations and coming to terms with letting go of childhood. He wants to be older but hates the phoniness of the adult world that he sees all around him. He wants to protect other kids from having to grow up. A kind of perpetual Peter Pan. Teens will relate to him in the fact that he hates his parents' generation, their quaintness. He tries to challenge their ways but finds that all must in the end, grow up.

Teachable about this novel would be the literary elements of theme, motif and symbolism. The themes in the novel are alienation as a form of self-protection, the painfulness of growing up, and the phoniness of the adult world. Motifs are the recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop the text's major themes. The motifs in this novel are loneliness; relationships, intimacy, and sexuality; and lying and deception. Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. The symbols in the novel are: The "Catcher in the Rye", Holden's red hunting hat, the Museum of Natural History, and the ducks in the Central Park Lagoon.

Given the content and language in this novel, a letter should be sent home to the parents before reading it.