Why Catcher In The Rye Banned

2 Pages 489 Words

Why the book was banned
The Catcher in the Rye has long ignited disapproval, and it was the most frequently banned book in schools between 1966 and 1975. Even before that time, 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 teenagers. In 1960, a teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was fired for assigning the book to a 7th grade English class. The teacher appealed to the court and was put back 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 books from its inventory.
In 1977 parents in Pittsgrove Township, New Jersey, challenged the assignment of the novel in an English class. They charged that the book included profanity that promoted 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.
The challenges to the novel have continued well into the 1990s. In 1991, the novel was challenged at Grayslake Community High School in Illinois for profanity, and students in Jamaica High School in Sidell, Illinois, cited profanities and the dep...