Innocence In The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger Essay examples

Holden isolates himself from the surrounding world. Due to him isolating himself he now views society as phony mass where people have fake personalities and fake emotions. In this world he only views a minute group of people as not phony, people like Jane and his sibling’s Allie and Phoebe. In fact, even Holden finds himself as phony, “I’m the most terrific liar,” (Salinger 19). Due to that viewpoint he pushes away people and opportunities with his pessimistic. “People never notice anything,” he loses hope in a human’s capability to listen and care, this idea prompts his lies (Salinger 12). He frequently lies about his friends, his feelings, and most of all his identity. “Rudolph Schmidt” I told her,” he tells Ernest’s mother assuming she

The Catcher in the Rye is one of J. D. Salinger's world-famous books about the disgruntled youth. Holden Caulfield is the main character and he is a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up, Holden separates the “phony” aspects of society, and the “phonies” themselves. Some of these “phony” people in his life are the headmaster whose friendliness depends on the wealth of the parents, and his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection. This book deals with the complex issues of identity, belonging, connection, and alienation. Holden senses these feelings most of the time and is guilty about many things in

“Don’t tell people what you are thinking, or you will miss them terribly when you are away” (Salinger 214) says Holden Caulfeild as he warns the world. Salingers novel pinpoints the many fears and phobias of growing up from an immature, pessimistic, “everybody’s a goddam phony” perspective that makes it relate-able to young transitioning teenagers. Salinger's Caulfeild is afraid of growing up and the unknown prospects of entering the adult world after experiencing a life changing event. Holden, clinging to his innocence, most importantly learns how the Phony adult world not only treats people like HC poorly, but it kills them.

Humans develop through childhood with innocence and purity, while remaining vulnerable to the corruption of society. The novel, The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, reveals the complications of Holden Caulfield’s childhood and the loss of his innocence, which motivate Holden to protect other children from society’s darker aspects. His misunderstanding of a poem, Coming thro’ the Rye portrays his desire to “catch” children from falling into harmful situations. Holden continues to show his concern about society’s negative influence on children when he witnesses profanity and vandalism on the public buildings. In addition, the constancy of the carousel music pleases Holden because the music represents the eternal innocence of childhood.

(Salinger, 135) Due to his fear of change, Holden also feels the need to know exactly what his future entails. This is specifically hinted at through his conversation with the cab driver, where he questions, “Well, you know the ducks that swim around in it? In the springtime and all? Do you happen to know where they go in the wintertime, by any chance?”

Holden has experienced clusters of severe trauma throughout his entire life. His brother Allie died of Leukemia a few years ago and Holden was so upset that he punched all of the windows out in his garage that night. Neither Holden, nor his family have yet to deal with the loss of Allie, which clearly affected Holden very much. Also Holden was a witness to James Castle’s suicide at a private school that he once attended. James Castle had been bullied and could no longer handle the situation, so he resorted to suicide by hurling himself out of a building window and falling to his death. Although Holden was not incredibly close with James Castle, he was still affected deeply by the sight of the incident.

Therefore, Holden maintains a lack of responsibility through the duration of the book and takes pleasure in attempting to hinder the road to maturation. As Holden Caulfield’s state of mind becomes more coherent, he has an apparent disconnection from the world and reality. Holden’s vision of being the “Catcher in the Rye” reflects upon his idea of innocence to protect his own and every child’s youthful

Holden Caulfield, the narrator and the main character of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, is a young adult, who, at first seems to simply describes his four day adventure in New York City after bring expelled from his forth school. However, at the same time he narrates more; through his many experiences, which he describes in the book, we can see the themes of the work. The theme that definitely stands out is the loss of innocence. Holden portrays himself as an individual, who does not want to grow up and change. From the beginning, it is obvious that Holden does not like anyone, except children. To Holden, the world around him, the adult world and all of its members, is phony. In other words, the innocent world of children is

Everyone is innocent and pure during their youth, it is only when they begin to age into adulthood where they become corrupt and unscrupulous. In this coming of age fiction titled The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Salinger shows through the character of Holden Caulfield the jarring life of a depressed teenager trying to find his way. Having the trait of innocence is something everyone has while they are young, but change is inevitable, happening in mental ways rather than physical ways. Holden’s mental need for innocence is displayed when Holden is angered after he sees that, “Somebody’d written ‘Fuck You’ on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy” (221).

Childhood is a miraculous thing, and gaining maturity is one of the most important things in childhood. J.D. Salinger displays this perfectly with his coming of age novel The Catcher in the Rye. This coming of age novel has set the tone for many other novels of the like. The main crux of the novel focuses on maturity and how it affects the characters. This is very apparent with the main character Holden Caulfield, and Salinger uses this character to subtly create a commentary on maturity. Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, Holden is not the only character who demonstrates this claim, but he is the best example. As the novel progresses the reader can see shifts and changes in Holden’s character, and these shifts are what make The Catcher in

J. D. Salinger’s famous symbol of “the catcher in the rye” brilliantly conveys Holden’s desire to save both himself and young children from entering the artificial adult world. At an initial glimpse, Holden’s longing to be a catcher in the rye may appear as rather confusing and meaningless, however, the notion possesses significant symbolic connotation. He depicts an image of “little kids playing some game in this big field of rye” with no older figures to supervise the youth but himself (page 173). Holden assumes the responsibility of preventing the children from falling over the cliff into the dangers of vulgarity and superficiality which he associates with adulthood. The wish to preserve innocence and maintain youth’s integrity is symbolized

A Lost Child in New York: An Analysis of The Catcher in the Rye In The Catcher in the Rye, a novel by J.D. Salinger, the main protagonist, Holden Caulfield wanders the streets of New York after having been kicked out from Pency Prep. Holden spends his time trying to find a solution to his expanding problem: growing up. Throughout the novel, Holden comments on his distaste on people’s superficial and phony behavior, something he associates with the adult world. The disingenuous behavior causes Holden to view the adult world negatively and it becomes his driving reason to protect childhood, but later accepts the inability to keep innocence forever.

A child never sees the world as complicated as an adult does. A child is always innocent until they see what a cruel world we live in. In the novel The Catcher In The Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is always trying to protect the innocence of the little children. He does this because of his own struggles growing up. Holden’s enemy is the world and how cruel it can be. Holden is trying to make people keep their innocence and he is trying also trying to keep it himself. We are all innocent at some point, but we can’t hold on to it forever.

When non stop nagging about the ducks, it was actually Holden 's way to worry about adulthood and losing his innocence. Holden questions a cab driver and asks, “ You know those ducks in the lagoon … by any chance, do you happen to know where they go… when it gets all frozen over?”(page 60) Holden called a cab to a hotel and asked the driver about the ducks after he accidentally told him his address even though he doesn 't want to go home. Hoping the cab driver knows a little something about the Ducks Holden asks, “ ‘Do you… know where [ the ducks] go in the wintertime … does somebody come around in the truck or something and take them away, or do they fly away by themselves-- go south or something?’ ”(page 82) It was a Saturday night, in a cab, he was feeling kinda lonely and asked the driver if he knew where the ducks go. Holden seems to know where the Ducks actually go indicating he knows he will be okay as an adult but still nags the question to certify the answer. Annoyed with the response he got from the cab driver Holden exclaims, “

Have you ever thought about what happens when you grow up? How do we change in the process? Or where our innocence disappears to? The book “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D Salinger, as we read through we start to follow what the main character has to say about it. The catcher in the rye is about a boy named Holden, Holden finds himself stuck between adolescence and adulthood, although throughout the book it shows that he wants to keep it that way. Holden Caulfield is a troubled teenager that deals with death, academic struggles, and his life problems. He gets expelled from Pencey Prep and decides to take a vacation. He goes to New York City were the readers get to know more about him, like how Holden usually goes through a depressing stage. Holden searches for even tiny traces of innocence left from adults to believe that there is still hope. This essay will include three different aspects of innocence from the novel, Holden and how he takes place as the protector of innocence in Catcher in the Rye, children and how they represent innocence in Holden’s eyes, and innocence in Holden himself.