Some background info…
 Published
in 1951
 Author: J.D. Salinger
 Main character: Holden Caulfield
 More than 60 million copies sold to date (one
of the world’s top sellers)
 J.D. Salinger has never let it be produced as
a film
 One
of the most frequently taught books, but
also one of the most banned
 Banned in many areas, schools, etc.
 Why? Profanity, sex, alcohol abuse,
prostitution…
 Became a symbol of counterculture in the
50’s and 60’s (representative of alienation
and isolation for the post-war generation)
 Mark
David Chapman blamed his obsession
with the book for making him shoot and kill
John Lennon
 John Hinckley Jr. (the guy who tried to kill
Ronald Reagan) was also a Holden Caulfield
fan
Comes from the poem
“Comin’ Thro’ the Rye”
by Robert Burns,
written in 1782















Beowulf (2. 31, 15.20)
"Lord Randal" (2.31, 15.20)
Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa (3.4)
Ring Lardner (3.4, 18.7)
Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native (3.4, 15.18, 15.20)
Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (3.4)
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (15.20-27)
William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (15.20)
Robert Burns, "Comin Thro' the Rye" (16.3, 22.51-55)
William Shakespeare, Hamlet (16.6)
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (18.5)
Rupert Brooke (18.7)
Emily Dickinson (18.7)
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (18.7)
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (18.7)
Historical Figures:
 Benedict Arnold (21.27, 25.56, 25.65)
 Wilhelm Stekel (24.54, 24.56)















>The Atlantic Monthly (2.3)
Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (4.1)
Song of India (4.1)
The Ziegfeld Follies (4.16)
Cary Grant (5.6)
Vogue (8.50)
The Baker's Wife (10.3)
Raimu (10.3)
The 39 Steps (10.3)
Robert Donat (10.3)
Peter Lorre (10.23, 10.30)
Gary Cooper (10.43)
The Lunts (Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne) (16.6)
Sir Laurence Olivier (16.6)
The Saturday Evening Post (17.6)







Movie: Conspiracy Theory
Guns N’ Roses song: “Catcher in the Rye”
Chinese rock band: Catcher in the Rye
Green Day song: “Who wrote Holden Caulfield?”
Influenced the writing of novels: Less Than Zero by Bret
Easton Ellis, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by
Stephen Chbosky, A Complicated Kindness by Miriam
Toews, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and Ordinary
People by Judith Guest
The Ataris wrote a song where the first and last line of
the lyrics are the same as the first and last line of the
book
The Catcher in the Rye was a main theme behind the
anime series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_refer
ences_to_the_novel_The_Catcher_in_the_Ry
e