Catcher In The Rye Loss Of Innocence Quotes

Because the loss of innocence reveals society’s realities, recognizing innocence is to value ignorance. Holden is afraid that if he loses his innocence, he wouldn’t be any different from all the “phony” adults in the world. In the book Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Salinger shows the thematic idea of how the desire to protect innocence can result from one’s own loss of innocence. Holden uses his red hunting hat as a protective shield around him, the idea of having sexual intercourse with a prostitute, and the graffiti written on the walls of the elementary school.
Starting off, Holden has a very strong bond with his red hunting hat because he finds the hat as a sense of comfort and innocence. The hat also resembles his uniqueness that

Right after Holden saw the graffiti, he instantly thought about the children seeing it and tem losing their innocence, “thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant” (120). This scene shows the literary device of symbolism. The graffiti represents the loss of innocence. Before the graffiti, he thought of the school as a place of joy and now he is broken because someone ruined that type of happiness for him. The graffiti also symbolized the corruption of the adult world. There is also characterization here because it reveals Holden’s desire to preserve Pheobe’s innocence and not her turning into Holden’s idea of an adult. Holden says, “I kept wanting to kill whoever'd written it. I figured it was some perverty bum that'd sneaked in the school late at night” (120) which means that he instantly thought that an adult would do something like this. This reveals the literary device of characterization because we see how low he thinks of adults which is why he wants to keep Pheobe and the prostitute’s innocence so they don’t end up like someone like a “perverty bum” or a