Why Is The Catcher In The Rye Banned

In the 1950s through 1960s, about twenty books were banned. One of these books included the now award-winning novel The Catcher in the Rye. This is a story about a 16-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield as he is in New york alone after being kicked out of his Prep School. In this novel, J.D. Salinger addresses the topic of human sexuality and offensive language from the perspective of Holden Caulfield. In the 1950s and 1960s, books that spoke about sexual topics and had very explicit language were not viewed as acceptable. Due to this, the novel was banned by many different states and schools. Teacher and parents alike believed that the inappropriate language and descriptions in this novel would remove the innocence from their children (Seed, David). Censorship is the act of denying certain information from the public because many people, institutions or the government has banned it. Censorship can also be cutting out any words, passages, or images from anything published if it is considered offensive or explicit (“Censorship”). In a book censorship that is small it is mostly led by a school board whereas the larger scale book bans are led by the government or religious institutions. The reason governments will ban a book is mostly because what the book is displaying or telling is a threat or completely different view than …show more content…
Offensive language was part of this censorship. Throughout the novel the protagonist uses an abundance of swears while speaking to other characters. In the 1950s these swears were the curse words that are used are half the reason this book was seen so offensive. Parents did not want their children to read this language and end up using the same words as Holden Caulfield did in this book. Many adults believed the innocence of their own children would be taken away due partly to this language and they believed the book would influence them to do inappropriate things (Seed,