Catcher In The Rye Loss Of Innocence Essay

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Ernest Hemingway once said, “all things truly wicked start from innocence.” In J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, it is shown that even those who are not seen as innocent, once were. The main character Holden, tries to preserve this innocence to help it sustain its purity in people he notices it in. The novel revolves around teenage boy Holden Caulfield who is troubled by the problems he sees in the adult world. He struggles with the fact that everyone must grow up at some point and tries to protect those who have yet to come into this corrupt world of adulthood. The theme protection of innocence is predominant in the novel, shown through symbols which reflect Holden’s many values and motivations such as his love for children, hatred for …show more content…

Holden has a compassion for children and thinks they should stay as innocent as they are. He shows that he wants to help them do this when Phoebe asks him what he would like to do with his life. He tells her “I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s all I’d really like to be” (173). He explains to her that he pictures children playing in a huge rye field and he would be the one to stand at the edge of the cliff insuring that the children do not run off as he catches them. He believes the “catcher in the rye” means to save children from losing their innocence. Yet, the song where he gets this job in his mind ironically talks about having casual sex, yet he tries to make it seem the opposite, by portraying the fantasy of protecting innocent children. Another way Holden shows that he wants to be a protector of innocence is when he notices ‘Fuck you’s’ on the school walls that Phoebe goes …show more content…

This shows how he longs to stay innocent and keep his relationships that way as well- adults have feelings for one another and they are “phonies” so he should try to keep away from those types of feelings. One of the memories he has of Jane is when they are both on her front porch and her stepfather comes to ask her for cigarettes. She does not answer him, even when she is asked a second time. When he leaves, Holden asks her what was going on. She does not even answer Holden, and soon begins to cry. “I don’t know why, but it bothered hell out of me… Then she really started to cry, and the next thing I knew, I was kissing her all over-anywhere-her eyes, her nose, her forehead, her eyebrows and all, her ears-her whole face except her mouth and all” (79). This shows the sympathy Holden feels for her relationship between her stepfather. Holden explains that him and Jane never had any sexual relationship together; only held hands and when he tries to comfort her-protecting the innocent- by kissing her, while avoiding her lips, as it would be too sexual to do with her and would make him feel guilty of breaking borders between them. Overall, Holden tries to ignore that he truly has feelings for Jane by pushing them aside and finding imperfections and avoiding kissing her lips, since having any sexual relationship would take away from her innocence which he is trying to

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