What is a Cultural Icon?
What is a cultural icon? “A cultural icon is an object that represents some aspect of culture. In most cases, cultural icons are created at pivotal points in history,” (Lamb). In order for a book to become a cultural icon, it has to resonate with the public. It has to have universal appeal that transcends generations; it must speak to the masses. A cultural icon must be popular, but also have literary merit. Hot books of the moment like Fifty Shades of Grey are popular, but the literary merit is questionable. A cultural icon gets people talking years after being published. The influence of the book must still be felt today.
A cultural icon must withstand the test of time. Some books are clearly products of the time they are published and while speaking to the people of that era, they feel dated after a few years. A cultural icon feels fresh no matter what the year is. The ideas contained in a cultural icon remain relevant and speak a truth that is timeless.
Even though a cultural icon takes place in a certain era, the originality of story, characters, and ideas come to the forefront. Some books just have a universality about them that people identify with long after the date of first publication.
A book that has withstood the test of time and undeniably qualifies as a cultural icon is The Catcher in the Rye. The power of Catcher lies in Holden Caulfield and the fact that most people feel disillusioned with the world at one point or another during their lives.
The Catcher in the Rye is one of those books that people either love or hate. When it was first released in 1951, it became an immediate hit. “Within two weeks, it had been reprinted five times, the next month three more times—though by the third edition the jacket photograph of the author had quietly disappeared. His book stayed on the best-seller list for thirty weeks, though never above fourth place,” (Whitfield).
That popularity has not dwindled and the book remains a favorite of many Americans. “The Catcher in the Rye has sold more than 65 million copies worldwide. And if 65 million people have bought the book, that means that hundreds of millions are likely to have read it. It’s tough to get a hard count on this kind of thing, but it’s something like the eleventh bestselling single-volume book of all time. A recent Harris poll has The Catcher in the Rye, sixty-two years after its publication, as the tenth –favorite book of all time among American readers,” (Shields).
Who would’ve thought a book about a misfit teenager could sell millions of copies and remain as important in 2015 as it was in 1951? What is it about Holden Caulfield that keeps readers—young and old—interested in a kid who is pretty disenfranchised with, basically, everything?
For the few who haven’t read the book, let me give you a rundown. Holden Caulfield is sixteen and gets kicked out of Pencey Preparatory because he flunked four out of five of his classes. He catches a train back to New York, gallivants with a prostitute (but doesn’t actually do anything sexual with her), gets punched in the stomach by the prostitute’s pimp, goes on a date with Sally, gets drunk, visits his little sister Phoebe, visits his old English teacher, and takes Phoebe to the zoo (where she rides the carousel).
At the end, Holden alludes to his current state of mind. “That's all I'm going to tell about. I could probably tell you what I did after I went home, and how I got sick and all, and what school I'm supposed to go to next fall, after I get out of here, but I don't feel like it. I really don't. That stuff doesn't interest me too much right now. A lot of people, especially this one psychoanalyst guy they have here, keeps asking me if I'm going apply myself when I go back to school next September. It's such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question,” (Salinger).
One of the great things about the novel is that the author doesn’t tell the reader what is going on with Holden—Holden is very self-aware and tells us. “A first-person narrative by Holden Caulfield, or rather, a dialogue between Holden and the reader, this novel is unique in literature by the apparent absence of the author. Salinger's authorship is not an exercise in control in Catcher, but an exercise in presentation. The result is an intimacy between the main character and the reader (as they participate in the story) which is rare in literature. Rare too, is the mechanism by which the narration, rather than explaining the plot, becomes the plot itself,” (Overview).
Many argue that Holden is not simply some made-up character, but is really J.D. Salinger speaking through his character. “That voice is Salinger, direct and unfiltered by the artifice of third-person camouflage. It’s his life, his thoughts, his feelings, his rage, his big beautiful middle finger to the phonies of the world,” (Shields).
The Catcher in the Rye was something different in 1951. It went against the grain and didn’t try to fit the mold—it broke it. “Catcher became the literary anthem of a generation. Disaffected young people in the 1950s suddenly found a voice: Holden wasn’t interested in getting the good job, the house in the suburbs with the 2.5 kids, the perfect dry martini, the right clothes. He was a rebel for a generation desperately in need of one. This was the Eisenhower ‘50s. A war-weary country was back at war—a cold war against the Soviets, a hot war in Korea—and what the country wanted was conformity,” (Shields).
Catcher takes the traditional view of growing up and entering adulthood and turns it on its head. This is a character who wants to preserve innocence. “Expelled from boarding school, taking a respite in New York City to clear his head, Holden tries to delay the onset of adulthood, viewing grown-ups as shallow phonies. Moreover he is invested in protecting innocence, trying to prevent children like his younger sister Phoebe from falling off that “crazy cliff” into a corrupting adulthood. This theme explains in part why Catcher proved so controversial when it first appeared in 1951: The book fundamentally challenged conventional wisdom about growing up in America,” (Golub).
Holden introduced Americans to what true adolescence felt like; it wasn’t covered with flowers and glitter, it was real and ugly and honest. “Catcher wasn’t the phony America that Madison Avenue was foisting on a public that had just discovered television. It wasn’t the insanely paranoid America of the McCarthy hearings or the sanitized America of Disney. It was real. Real thoughts, real feelings, real pain,” (Shields).
Holden doesn’t want to grow up and admits to his immaturity. “I was sixteen then, and I'm seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I'm about thirteen. It's really ironical, because I'm six foot two and a half and I have gray hair. I really do. The one side of my head--the right side--is full of millions of gray hairs. I've had them ever since I was a kid. And yet I still act sometimes like I was only about twelve. Everybody says that, especially my father. It's partly true, too, but it isn't all true. People always think something's all true. I don't give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am—I really do—but people never notice it. People never notice anything,” (Salinger).
What’s really interesting is the fact that today, adulthood has been pushed back a bit for many young people. Children are living at home longer or moving back after college and aren’t in such a hurry to grow up and become “official” adults. “We now view adolescence as a stage that can easily last into college and well beyond. As a result of cultural messages that encourage Americans to stay youthful and socioeconomic imperatives that force many young adults to delay marriage and move back in with their parents, we are now a society that mirrors Holden’s skepticism about embracing the signifiers of adulthood. We have become a “not-growing-up” culture. And 60 years later, Holden Caulfield remains our iconic adolescent,” (Golub).
Holden’s realistic attitude and somewhat low expectations are not necessarily bad traits to embrace. We can’t always expect to win, so we have to accept that we will fail from time to time; we have to learn to deal with this fact of life. “But people don’t outgrow Holden’s attitude, or not completely, and they don’t want to outgrow it, either, because it’s a fairly useful attitude to have. One goal of education is to teach people to want the rewards life has to offer, but another goal is to teach them a modest degree of contempt for those rewards, too. In American life, where—especially if you are a sensitive and intelligent member of the middle class—the rewards are constantly being advertised as yours for the taking, the feeling of disappointment is a lot more common than the feeling of success, and if we didn’t learn how not to care our failures would destroy us,” (Menand).
As Holden says in Catcher, “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though,” (Salinger).
I’ve got to agree with Holden. These books really are rare. Catcher just happens to be one of them. Salinger was notoriously reclusive. He all but disappeared after the publication of Catcher—the only novel he wrote. While it was his sole novel, what an impact it had. Talking to him on the phone would have been interesting, especially if the theory of Holden being Salinger’s true self is true. Holden had so much to say, therefore Salinger must have had even more to share. I would have loved to hear more of Holden Caulfield’s adventures.
While The Catcher in the Rye isn’t for everyone and has its critics, it is more than deserving of this nomination. Catcher has inspired generations of people and is just as important today as it was in 1951. Holden is still relevant in 2015; not many literary character hold that distinction sixty-four years after they were created. Holden truly is a nonconformist for the ages
A cultural icon must withstand the test of time. Some books are clearly products of the time they are published and while speaking to the people of that era, they feel dated after a few years. A cultural icon feels fresh no matter what the year is. The ideas contained in a cultural icon remain relevant and speak a truth that is timeless.
Even though a cultural icon takes place in a certain era, the originality of story, characters, and ideas come to the forefront. Some books just have a universality about them that people identify with long after the date of first publication.
A book that has withstood the test of time and undeniably qualifies as a cultural icon is The Catcher in the Rye. The power of Catcher lies in Holden Caulfield and the fact that most people feel disillusioned with the world at one point or another during their lives.
The Catcher in the Rye is one of those books that people either love or hate. When it was first released in 1951, it became an immediate hit. “Within two weeks, it had been reprinted five times, the next month three more times—though by the third edition the jacket photograph of the author had quietly disappeared. His book stayed on the best-seller list for thirty weeks, though never above fourth place,” (Whitfield).
That popularity has not dwindled and the book remains a favorite of many Americans. “The Catcher in the Rye has sold more than 65 million copies worldwide. And if 65 million people have bought the book, that means that hundreds of millions are likely to have read it. It’s tough to get a hard count on this kind of thing, but it’s something like the eleventh bestselling single-volume book of all time. A recent Harris poll has The Catcher in the Rye, sixty-two years after its publication, as the tenth –favorite book of all time among American readers,” (Shields).
Who would’ve thought a book about a misfit teenager could sell millions of copies and remain as important in 2015 as it was in 1951? What is it about Holden Caulfield that keeps readers—young and old—interested in a kid who is pretty disenfranchised with, basically, everything?
For the few who haven’t read the book, let me give you a rundown. Holden Caulfield is sixteen and gets kicked out of Pencey Preparatory because he flunked four out of five of his classes. He catches a train back to New York, gallivants with a prostitute (but doesn’t actually do anything sexual with her), gets punched in the stomach by the prostitute’s pimp, goes on a date with Sally, gets drunk, visits his little sister Phoebe, visits his old English teacher, and takes Phoebe to the zoo (where she rides the carousel).
At the end, Holden alludes to his current state of mind. “That's all I'm going to tell about. I could probably tell you what I did after I went home, and how I got sick and all, and what school I'm supposed to go to next fall, after I get out of here, but I don't feel like it. I really don't. That stuff doesn't interest me too much right now. A lot of people, especially this one psychoanalyst guy they have here, keeps asking me if I'm going apply myself when I go back to school next September. It's such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question,” (Salinger).
One of the great things about the novel is that the author doesn’t tell the reader what is going on with Holden—Holden is very self-aware and tells us. “A first-person narrative by Holden Caulfield, or rather, a dialogue between Holden and the reader, this novel is unique in literature by the apparent absence of the author. Salinger's authorship is not an exercise in control in Catcher, but an exercise in presentation. The result is an intimacy between the main character and the reader (as they participate in the story) which is rare in literature. Rare too, is the mechanism by which the narration, rather than explaining the plot, becomes the plot itself,” (Overview).
Many argue that Holden is not simply some made-up character, but is really J.D. Salinger speaking through his character. “That voice is Salinger, direct and unfiltered by the artifice of third-person camouflage. It’s his life, his thoughts, his feelings, his rage, his big beautiful middle finger to the phonies of the world,” (Shields).
The Catcher in the Rye was something different in 1951. It went against the grain and didn’t try to fit the mold—it broke it. “Catcher became the literary anthem of a generation. Disaffected young people in the 1950s suddenly found a voice: Holden wasn’t interested in getting the good job, the house in the suburbs with the 2.5 kids, the perfect dry martini, the right clothes. He was a rebel for a generation desperately in need of one. This was the Eisenhower ‘50s. A war-weary country was back at war—a cold war against the Soviets, a hot war in Korea—and what the country wanted was conformity,” (Shields).
Catcher takes the traditional view of growing up and entering adulthood and turns it on its head. This is a character who wants to preserve innocence. “Expelled from boarding school, taking a respite in New York City to clear his head, Holden tries to delay the onset of adulthood, viewing grown-ups as shallow phonies. Moreover he is invested in protecting innocence, trying to prevent children like his younger sister Phoebe from falling off that “crazy cliff” into a corrupting adulthood. This theme explains in part why Catcher proved so controversial when it first appeared in 1951: The book fundamentally challenged conventional wisdom about growing up in America,” (Golub).
Holden introduced Americans to what true adolescence felt like; it wasn’t covered with flowers and glitter, it was real and ugly and honest. “Catcher wasn’t the phony America that Madison Avenue was foisting on a public that had just discovered television. It wasn’t the insanely paranoid America of the McCarthy hearings or the sanitized America of Disney. It was real. Real thoughts, real feelings, real pain,” (Shields).
Holden doesn’t want to grow up and admits to his immaturity. “I was sixteen then, and I'm seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I'm about thirteen. It's really ironical, because I'm six foot two and a half and I have gray hair. I really do. The one side of my head--the right side--is full of millions of gray hairs. I've had them ever since I was a kid. And yet I still act sometimes like I was only about twelve. Everybody says that, especially my father. It's partly true, too, but it isn't all true. People always think something's all true. I don't give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am—I really do—but people never notice it. People never notice anything,” (Salinger).
What’s really interesting is the fact that today, adulthood has been pushed back a bit for many young people. Children are living at home longer or moving back after college and aren’t in such a hurry to grow up and become “official” adults. “We now view adolescence as a stage that can easily last into college and well beyond. As a result of cultural messages that encourage Americans to stay youthful and socioeconomic imperatives that force many young adults to delay marriage and move back in with their parents, we are now a society that mirrors Holden’s skepticism about embracing the signifiers of adulthood. We have become a “not-growing-up” culture. And 60 years later, Holden Caulfield remains our iconic adolescent,” (Golub).
Holden’s realistic attitude and somewhat low expectations are not necessarily bad traits to embrace. We can’t always expect to win, so we have to accept that we will fail from time to time; we have to learn to deal with this fact of life. “But people don’t outgrow Holden’s attitude, or not completely, and they don’t want to outgrow it, either, because it’s a fairly useful attitude to have. One goal of education is to teach people to want the rewards life has to offer, but another goal is to teach them a modest degree of contempt for those rewards, too. In American life, where—especially if you are a sensitive and intelligent member of the middle class—the rewards are constantly being advertised as yours for the taking, the feeling of disappointment is a lot more common than the feeling of success, and if we didn’t learn how not to care our failures would destroy us,” (Menand).
As Holden says in Catcher, “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though,” (Salinger).
I’ve got to agree with Holden. These books really are rare. Catcher just happens to be one of them. Salinger was notoriously reclusive. He all but disappeared after the publication of Catcher—the only novel he wrote. While it was his sole novel, what an impact it had. Talking to him on the phone would have been interesting, especially if the theory of Holden being Salinger’s true self is true. Holden had so much to say, therefore Salinger must have had even more to share. I would have loved to hear more of Holden Caulfield’s adventures.
While The Catcher in the Rye isn’t for everyone and has its critics, it is more than deserving of this nomination. Catcher has inspired generations of people and is just as important today as it was in 1951. Holden is still relevant in 2015; not many literary character hold that distinction sixty-four years after they were created. Holden truly is a nonconformist for the ages