Salinger techniques for his implied readers (the study of The Catcher in the Rye thorough readeroriented approach)

What has made J.D. Salinger's sole novel, The Catcher in the Rye, despite being repeatedly banned by authorities, one of the most frequently challenged and read novels of twentieth century? Being a frequently read novel and a banned one at the same time, have made the novel one excellent model to be scrutinized according to Reader- Response theory. Based on the theories and approaches of reader- response, especially those of W. Iser, the prominent figure of the theory, the present study attempts to unravel the mystery of the novel. According to reader response theories, reading is an interaction between the reader and the text. It is, after all, the readers who construct the meaning of a literary work. Emphasizing the active role of the reader in creating meaning, Iser, who is one of the most outstanding theoricians in reader-response criticism, believes that the meaning emerges out of the 'interaction between the text and the reader' in which the reader brings his/her own literary and non-literary background to the text in order to write the unwritten parts of it. Iser's phenomenological attitude towards a literary work makes him to emphasize more on the concepts such as gaps and indeterminacies, anticipation and retrospection. Being recounted by an unreliable narrator creates a lot of gaps and ambiguities in the novel so that calls the reader to a manifold interaction with the text to construct the meaning. It can also be claimed that one of the main reasons for the popularity of the novel, even years after it was first published, is Salinger's deftly use of such motivating elements all through the novel.