Salinger, Lennon and Chapman

The death of J.D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher and the Rye and several other classic American novels and short stories, made me think of one of the strangest – and saddest – stories of my lifetime: the killing of former Beatle John Lennon by Mark David Chapman in December 1980.

 Holding a copy of The Catcher in the Rye in which he wrote, “This is my statement,” Chapman waited for hours to shoot Lennon just outside his apartment in New York City.  Later, when given the chance to speak at his hearing (he pleaded guilty), Chapman merely read aloud a passage from the novel – a well-known section in which the novel’s narrator and protagonist, young Holden Caulfield, explains what a “catcher in the rye” is and why he wanted to be one.

A misfit in many ways, Holden feels deeply about his younger sister, Phoebe, and worries what will happen to her in a world that he judges to be “phony” and cruel and immoral.  Here are Salinger’s words, in Holden’s voice, that Chapman read at his trial:

“I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.”

Maybe it’s pointless to find a reason for the act of an obviously crazed person, but it sure seems that, in Chapman’s warped mind, he was “catching” young people from falling under the influence of Lennon, who had just released an album of new songs, “Double Fantasy,” and was reviving his career.  Chapman himself had been a devoted Beatles fan in his early teen years, but he had a troubled childhood and young adulthood that included drug abuse, religious obsession, and a suicide attempt.  At some point, he’d changed from a fan of the Beatles to a fanatic who targeted John Lennon – possibly as the “cause” of all his troubles.

Sometime between the murder and the hearing, Chapman wrote a note to the New York Times claiming that Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye was an “extraordinary book that holds many answers.”  And when I first heard of Chapman’s devotion to the book, I felt something like an answer myself. 

Ten years earlier, I had been a student in the English Education graduate program at New York University, taking a course on teaching adolescent literature with one of my favorite professors, Robert Berlin.  Usually relaxed and jovial, Berlin became very serious during the class in which he covered Salinger’s popular novel, and I’ll never forget his warning to us.  “Some of your students will identify with Holden Caulfield,” he told us, “and it is your job to make them understand that Holden is crazy.”  Indeed, Holden is institutionalized at the end of the novel.

I wondered if Chapman ever had an English teacher who taught him that important lesson about the book, and, if he did, why the lesson didn’t take hold.  Now, with the death of J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye is back in the news and maybe picking up new readers – let’s hope nobody views it the way Chapman did.  Reading classic books is worthwhile, and so is teaching about them and the lessons they contain for us.  But preserving life and making our world a kinder, healthier, and more caring place – that should always be our motivation.

Jim Von Schilling

January 29, 2010

About the Author:  Dr. Von Schilling teaches English and is the coordinator for the humanities faculty at Northampton Community College.  An expert on pop culture, he is the author of The Magic Window: American Television 1939 – 1953.  He is currently working on a book about the Baby Boom generation.  He is frequently consulted by reporters and writers from media across the country on topics ranging from the Boswell sisters to James Dean to Muhammad Ali.  He earned a bachelor's degree in English from Princeton University, a master's degree in education from New York University, and a Ph.D. in American culture from Bowling Green State University.  

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