Opposition to Catcher in the Rye

Opposition to Catcher in the Rye

'The novel has long ignited disapproval, and it was the most frequently banned book in schools between 1966 and 1975. Even before that time,

however, the work was a favorite target of sensors. In 1957, Australian Customs seized a shipment of the novels that had been presented as a

gift to the government by the U.S. ambassador. The books were later released, but Customs had made its point that the book contained

obscene language and actions that were not appropriate behavior for an adolescent. In 1960, a teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was fired for

assigning the book to an eleventh-grade English class. The teacher was appealed and was reinstated by the school board, but the book was

removed from use in the school.'

'The following year in Oklahoma City, the novel became the focus of a legislative hearing in which a locally organized censorship group sought

to stop the Mid-Continent News Company, a book wholesaler, from carrying the novel. Members of the group parked a "Smutmobile" outside

the capital building during the hearing and displayed the novel with others. As a result of public pressure, the wholesaler dropped the critcized

books from its inventory. In 1963 a delegation of parents of high school students in Columbus, Ohio, asked the school board to ban Catcher in

the Rye, BRAVE NEW WORLD and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD for being "anti-white" and "obscene."'

'After a decade of quiet, objections arose again in 1975 in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, and the novel was removed from the suggested reading

list for an elective course entitled " Searching for Values and Identity Through Literature." Based on parents' objections to the language and

content of the book, the school board voted 5-4 to ban the book. The book was later reinstated in the curriculum when the board learned that

the vote was illegal because they needed a two-thirds vote for removal of the text.'

'In 1977 parents in Pittsgrove Township, New Jersey, challenged the assignment of the novel in an American literature class. They charged that

the book included considerable profanity and "filthy and profane" language that premoted premarital sex, homosexuality, and perversion, as

well as claiming that it was "explicitly pornographic" and "immoral." After months of controversy, the board ruled that the novel could be read

in the advanced placement class for its universal message, not for its profanity, but they gave parents the right to decide whether or not their

children would read it.'

'In 1978 parents in Issaquah, Washington, became upset with the rebellious views expressed in the novel by Holden Caulfield and with the