Catcher In The Rye Loss Of Innocence

The novel Catcher in the Rye, written by J. D. Salinger, is about a character named Holden Caulfield who suffers from severe depression while roaming around the city of New York. He is often unable to connect with people and finds the world as an evil and corrupt place. Holden explains that all he wants to do in such evil world is be the catcher in the rye, which is symbolic to his desire of protecting children from losing their innocence in the corrupt world he seems to live in. However, towards the end of the novel this idea is suggested to have changed. This is very important as it reveals the theme of the book, which is loss of innocence, and whether or not Holden succeeded in his dream of being the catcher in the rye. For this, I believe

One of which is in his description about adults. Holden believes regular adults such as the headmaster of pencey are “the phoniest bastard I have ever met in my life,” (Salinger 17). Holden’s similar negative description of just about every adult he meets conveys that he is very against the idea of children growing up and becoming like them, more seemingly as he describes kids very positively because he feels that in the world he lives in children hold the only good and he feels he should preserve that by protecting what makes them children; their innocence. Holden’s view could be clearly explained in that, “The only way to redemption in Salinger’s world-there is no other good. Innocence is all. Love is innocence,” (The saint as a Young Man). Furthermore, Holden’s idea of protecting the children's innocence from the adult world is shown in his enthusiasm to be the catcher in the rye. Holden explains that he pictures a cluster of little kids playing in a field of rye and “What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them...I’d really like to be,” (Salinger 191). Holden says this after Phoebe asks him what is one thing he would be if he could, which shows the reader in the context that the fall means losing innocence, that he wants to protect the children in his world from such fall. Therefore, this quote conveys that Holden's initial view is that children should not lose their innocence as he feel his place in this world is to preserve it. Additionally, Holden shows that he should protect children from the loss of innocence when he visits Phoebe’s school. There Holden says, “Somebody’d written ‘Fuck you’ on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought of Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it,”