Caulfield and Batman

I've been reading The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and researching the censorship and banning that have taken place throughout the years. One of the authors I keep coming back to highlights the extreme paranoia accompanying the repeated decision to deny adolescent readers access to Salinger's novel. Pamela Steinle maintains that the invention and use of the nuclear bomb was the even that rocked America's faith in individual's abilities to choose correct action. Adults no longer trust the conceptual abilities of teenagers because the adults have lost the solidity of their own thinking because humanity now has the capability of destroying the planet. So, Holden Caulfield (the main character in Catcher) is not a character to be trusted as he questions American social structures and importance of adult interaction throughout his journey. He is a 'hero' who bleeds, experiences fear, and stands as an outside observer of society.

Recently, I listened to a podcast that discusses the cultural shift from the heroic, perfectly untouchable Superman to the dark, twisted character of Batman. It seems that with the advent of nuclear firepower, society no longer looked for a hero that could save them from looming disasters. Suddenly, there was a need for a hero who could enter into dark, difficult problems facing ordinary people. Or, as my podcasting friends pointed out, there was a need for a hero that could be met in the grocery store when he ran out of milk, bleed if you punched him in the nose, and die if a bullet was fired at his chest. As the moral framework of society was being shaken from the obliteration of Japanese men and women, an ordinary someone was needed who could prove himself better than the bleak experiences that created him.

Being so much more than simply disgruntled and malcontent with the world he lives in, Holden Caulfield's piercing observations sever him from the community of human experience as he stands apart from society, judging, critiquing, and attempting to better the forces that created him. Playing the part demanded by his social status, Bruce Wayne's nightly transformation into Batman allows him the space to subvert the system that created him and provides the opportunity for rebellion against the current societal framework. Both in the remote position of being able to push against perceived moral boundaries, Caulfield and Batman raise questions and force readers to question the legitimacy of cultural morality and the individual's contribution therein.