Holden Caulfield Innocence

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When you hear the title , “ The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger, for the first time you might think of a baseball catcher, or fields of rye, or something absolutely boring. When you begin it, your brain is amazed that it’s not about sports or food, but about a young boy telling you a part of his life. The boy goes by the name Holden Caulfield. He is 16 years old taking his time after getting kicked out of yet another school. In the span of a few days he makes his way home but not to his parents due to the fact that they don’t know that he got kicked out again. Holden encounters many people along the way home and thinks about many things.He expresses a great deal of charm with children. Holden ponders about his late brother, Allie, his …show more content…

When someone you really love or look up to dies at a young age, the experience impacts you by feeling that strong pain hurts or makes you mad. Holden’s little brother, Allie, “got leukemia and died…on July 18, 1946” (Salinger 38), when Holden was thirteen . At the young age of 13, Holden has to deal with that grief of losing a brother and the date will forever have a impact on him. Holden sees Allie as the nicest and “most intelligent member in the family” (Salinger 38). When having younger siblings, Holden smiles on the fact that he is doing amazing things with his brain. Also, because Allie dies when he is eleven, Holden does not understand why someone with the amount of talent Allie possessed would have to die before growing up. Despite his death, Holden continues to think about Allie and does not “enjoy seeing him in that crazy cemetery…surrounded by dead guys and tombstones” (Salinger 155). Seeing him in the cemetery really hits Holden that his brother is with the non living, and as he would put it “depresses” him. Salinger is trying to portray to the audience that the adolescent experience can be heartbreaking, painful and the pain of not getting all the answers can anger you, but it also shapes

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