Talk:The Catcher in the Rye

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 January 2019 and 8 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Chaseshea. Peer reviewers: Icf17.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Theme section
I think it would be beneficial to add a themes section to the article as the themes discussed in the book are incredibly important to why the book has been so successful. The themes are currently discussed in the plot section, but I believe they would be better suited in their own section. If someone were looking for an explanation of the themes of the book they would find them difficult to locate without reading through the entire plot. Therefore, in an effort to make the information more easily accessible to readers, there should be a separate themes section for the article. Jhyde127 (talk) 18:33, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Poor grammer and punctuation
This article feels like it was written by a teenager. There is incorrect and excessive use of commas throughout and the writing style is immature and does not flow. 2604:3D08:1B84:A900:1D26:C652:2F9F:DDBD (talk) 07:41, 1 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Indeed. Sentences such as "Each Caulfield child has literary talent" don't even mean anything. The whole thing reads like a high school composition.


 * @2604:3D08:1B84:A900:1D26:C652:2F9F:DDBD Yes do agree. The plot section of the article is like a paraphrased version of the book or a summary of contents. Elontrump (talk) 21:06, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

John Cusack
Did John Cusack really say he felt he was too old to play Holden Caulfield in a movie version of Catcher in the Rye when he turned 21? Lots of 21-year-old actors can and do play 17-year-olds. It’s not much of an age gap.Bjohns81 (talk) 18:23, 18 November 2021 (UTC)


 * It's a huge age gap.

Peter G Beidler
Peter G Beidler's 'A Reader's Companion to J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye' should very much be link to this article2601:602:A080:1F30:1CE9:C0B3:463A:14B5 (talk) 22:57, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

The plot section is too long
Billy, I have restored the tag that you removed.

The plot summary section of the article is far too long at 1,136 words, greatly in excess of the 400 to 700 words recommended by the MOS:PLOTLENGTH and WP:NOVELPLOT policies. Plot summaries are precisely that – summaries of limited length for the convenience of the reader. Summaries of excessive length burden the reader looking for the gist of the book.

Dragging Taylor Swift into it in your edit summary is irrelevant (even assuming for the benefit of the doubt that there really are longer "plot" summaries of her songs at Wikipedia – I won't waste my time checking your claim). Songs don't have "plots" but if descriptions of her songs truly exceed 1,136 words, as you claim, then you have the option of trimming them.

Please do not remove the tag from the article again as this is an inarguable example of Wikipedia policy being ignored. It is why the template was created. Spideog (talk) 17:53, 16 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia 'policy' is ignored in a large percentage of non-science entries. For example, there is political bias (to put it mildly) in almost all Middle East entries.