Friday, November 19, 2010
Catcher in the Rye: A killer's favorite book
The Catcher in the Rye has been linked to several murders. Many serial killers have been found with the book. The Catcher in the Rye is the book preferred nine times out of ten for psychopathic killers. A well known example of this would be the assassination of former Beatles member, John Lennon in 1980 by Mark David Chapman. Another well known example is after John Hinckley, Jr.'s assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981. The police found The Catcher in the Rye, among half a dozen other books, in his hotel room. The question is whether the idea that this book causes insanity, or forms people who intend to kill to buy it and it all is coincidence. A questioning variable would be that Caulfield never killed anyone. He may have been rebellious and alienated, but he never commited murder. Maybe serial killers have decided to alter Holden's character, or maybe reading the book is merely coincidence.
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This is pretty amazing. The fact that a book can inspire so much violence (especially a book like Cather in the Rye) is horrible. I think it would be super interesting to find out why this happens. What exactly inspires the killing? I hope no one from our class felt that way!
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don't think that the book was the cause of the trouble per se. I would be willing to bet that these examples were already disturbed men who just happened to identify themselves with Holden. The reading of the book may not have been coincidence for them, as both seemed to have previous connections to it before reading it as adults, but the fact that they both identified with the same book could probably be seen as a coincidence.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that multiple killers/ attempted killers have identified with Holden and his story. I completely agree with Tanner's commen that these men were already disturbed before they read Catcher in the Rye. Not everyone that reads Catcher in the Rye is a murderer (otherwise, Mr. Kunkle would be in some trouble). I do think that the book did push these men over the edge. Chapman thought Lennon had become phony and that what pushed him to kill him.
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