Holden is a controversial person in the setting of characters because he wanders on the bustling American streets as the modern version of Ulysses do, but his dream is so great and noble that makes him popular among the readers around the world. Holden himself is both simple and complex to make a final comment on him because he is not a pure hero nor a total jerk. The image of Holden is a controversial one in American literature and his appearance is a shock to American critics. The Catcher in the Rye is a landmark fictional work after World War II because of its rapid and sustained popularity. Adam Moss recorded that it had become “one of those books that influence one generation after another, causing each to claim it as its own.”(Hunt, 2000:235). Sanford regards The Catcher in the Rye as “a formative book for young people in the 1960s, one of those novels to be tested against experience.” (1964:238). However, the book never failed to attract many critical attentions. The main story of this book is that making efforts to stay away from high school curriculum and libraries. The reason why huge efforts have been made to ban the novel from its publication is mostly because both parents and teachers worry that their children and students may be negatively influenced by the profanity and isolation of this novel. Critics who support Salinger think that the book is full of humor, wisdom and brightness. In one of his books, Paul Engle wrote that the story in this book was “” emotional without being sentimental, dramatic without being melodramatic, and honest without being obscene.” (1951:56). It is the poor spirit after World War II and the broken values of people that causes the isolation of the society which is specifically described in this novel. The world described in it makes people annoying, but the educational values is worth analyzing. Although America has become the most powerful country after World War II, there are also a lot of crises, including internal contradictions, declining fantasies among adolescents, indulgence into despair and corruption of belief and spirit. All this social modes at that moment exposed in this novel where the dream of Holden is about the American values and the failure of Holden’s dream is the failure of American values. The Catcher in the Rye is of paramount importance when it comes to conduct research and analyze the American society after World War II. By doing further research and analysis on this topic more information about the American and American values can be discussed.