Lessons learned from 2014
Personal Thoughts
I was fourteen years old when I first read The Catcher in the Rye. I was given an open-ended reading assignment for my English final, the last paper I needed to write in the 8th grade, which meant I could choose any novel I wanted. And after a recommendation from my older brother, I had my mind set on it. My teacher had some skepticism about letting a pre-teen read such a “risqué” novel, but I was ultimately given permission.
I immediately fell in love with the story. An angsty teenager with a foul mouth, a complex for lying, and a horrible behavioral streak that clashes with his soft heart, unresolved trauma, and the hope to just one day help others. I felt this profound sorrow for this poor boy, and I couldn’t believe such an interesting and complex character could exist. And while I kept that love for Holden and his story, I never encountered anyone else who read the novel until my Junior year.
During the spring semester, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the lesson plan. We were actually going to read The Catcher in the Rye in class! I was so excited to reread the novel, and even have some classmates to share it with. I laid restless thinking about the class discussions to come, where I could get even more out of this tiny red book. But instead I was met with disappointment. Comments and questions like “This story is boring, is all he does complain?”, or “This kid is really annoying, what’s wrong with him?”, and even “Why did he call his roommate handsome? Is he gay?” By the end of the first two weeks, the overwhelming majority of the class had started using Sparknotes instead of reading. After a class average of sixty percent on the first few pop-quizzes, our teacher ended up dropping the book for the class and moving on; something I’ve never seen before, or since.
I was at a loss for words. I was asking myself, “What do you mean you don’t care about this poor guy? How are you just gonna write him off and move on, just because you find him annoying? You don’t see how beautifully complex Holden’s story is? Don’t you want to see where he ends up?”
I never forgot the lesson I learned that day, nor how frustrated it made me feel. It was the first time I ever saw how easily and convenient it was for some people to just completely write someone off they had already labeled. No second thoughts, no change of opinion, no effort. And as I grew, I never would have predicted just how common that mentality was. It is so easily apparent to witness in our current society, whether it's a post on social media, an overheard conversation on the bus, or a discussion that gets brought up over family dinner. I went off to college and I watched labels that started as “annoying”, “risqué”, or “gay” evolve into “troubled”,“problematic”, and “guilty”. At its core, it is simply the silent acknowledgment that someone was different, or acts in a way that most of us struggle to understand.
