Loss Of Innocence In The Catcher In The Rye By JD Salinger

Loss of Innocence in The Catcher in the Rye
Author JD Salinger was drafted into the army during World War II for several years, and, upon his return, he wrote his novel The Catcher in the Rye, a novel about a teenage boy named Holden who wanders around New York following his expulsion from Pencey. It is then interesting that his topic of choice was children, who seem to be an unlikely topic because of their innocence. Salinger perhaps chose this topic because the ideas of innocence and loss of innocence are so intertwined with his experiences at war. In his novel, JD Salinger argues that innocence and corruption are not separated by a fine line and that they coexist in individuals as Holden learns that children need to be allowed to fall from

When he is at the Phoebe’s school to say goodbye to her, he sees “fuck you” written on the wall. He rubs it out, but realizes that he could never be able to rub off all of them in the world and says, “That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write ‘Fuck you’ right under your nose” (264). The description of a place that is “nice and peaceful” convey a simplicity to life that suggests the idea of innocence that Holden admits will be corrupted. Based on the tone, Holden is evidently sad about this. When Holden says that “somebody” will sneak up, it reflects how Holden feels negatively about his realization. When he envisions this “somebody,” he assumes that some “pervert” snuck into the school to write the message when it is much more likely that it was done by a student, which is significant because though he sees that children will be corrupted, he does not realize that children themselves can be a source of corruption. Holden is afraid of children being a source of corruption because in his mind, he draws a distinct line between innocence and corruption and believes that once corrupted even a little bit, children cannot retain a degree of innocence. This is why Holden is so obsessed with where ducks go in the winter. When he is in a cab heading to Edmont Hotel, he asks the cab driver, “‘You know those ducks in that lagoon right near Central Park South? That little lake? By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over?’” (78). The ducks in this passage represent children, and the lake freezing over represents