J. D. Salinger was one of the most private and secluded celebrities of his time. His work connected with thousands who felt alone and misunderstood. However, Mark David Chapman claimed The Catcher in the Rye as the reason for the assassination of John Lennon. What events in his life caused him to hide from fame? Why did he naturally relate to social outcasts as no one before him? To understand his personality, one must understand his past.
Jerome David Salinger was born on January 1, 1919 in New York. As a teenager, he was sent to a boarding school, but he found it difficult to adapt to his new lifestyle. This particular school setting was used at the beginning of his best selling book, The Catcher in the Rye. He received poor grades in school and was transferred to a military school to complete his high school education. At Valley Forge Military Academy he demonstrated early signs of his writing talent. For example, he wrote the school’s anthem. His close friends said that the lyrics were meant to be ironic, but the school still accepted the song.
Salinger then spent five months in Vienna studying language. When he returned home he made two attempts at college. At Columbia University, Salinger met Whit Burnett. This man influenced Salinger greatly and helped Salinger publish his short stories in papers like Story and Saturday Evening Post. Salinger’s literary career seemed to be rising.
Suddenly, Salinger was drafted into the army. Though he was not there for long (1942 - 1944), he saw lifetimes of suffering. He fought at Utah Beach during the Normandy Invasion of France and at Battle of the Bulge, where 19,000 American soldiers died after forty-one days. Through all of this hardship, he kept writing and began his famous Great American Novel: The Catcher in the Rye.
The war took a heavy toll on his mental health. Upon returning home from the war he entered hospitalization after having a mental breakdown. There he met the first of his wives. Her name was Sylvia, and she was a German and possible and ex-Nazi. Their marriage only lasted eight months. Salinger had two children with his next wife Claire Douglas.
In 1951 Salinger finally published his major work The Catcher in the Rye. It resonated strongly with adolescents, particularly those who felt fear of the impinging adult world and the loneliness of existence. The narrator of the book shares many of the same opinions and life experiences with his author. For instance Holden Caulfield, the main character, recalls the two days leading up to his hospitalization in a mental institute. He also shares a strong disdain of Hollywood with his author.
As Salinger’s fame increased he withdrew from public view. He carried out Holden’s dream of moving to a cabin in the woods and held a strictly private after that. His publications slowed drastically and stopped completely with his last work in 1965 entitled "Hapworth 16, 1924." After his divorce to Claire in 1966, he had serious relationships several more times. Most notable of which was to Joyce Maynard when she was 18 and he was 53. The couple later divorced only 10 months later. Salinger died on January 27, 2010.
