Catcher In The Rye Essay: Corrupt Evolution Of Man

The Catcher in the Rye Essay Prompt #4: Corrupt Evolution of Man Leaves, their colors changing from green to yellow and yellow to orange, eventually reaching death in a final crippled and brown stage. Once lively and radiant, now only the shells of their former selves. The process of the leaf cycle, symbolically melancholic, is identical to various other universal processes. What begins must end, and that which has ended must have had a beginning. In humanity, this often takes the form of nostalgia and a reluctance to mature. With such emphasis placed on the innocence of childhood and the corruption associated with adulthood, people often attempt to preserve such purity. Robert Frost 's common theme of the futility of preserving innocence in

This establishes the idea that the beginning of spring symbolizes birth, as that is when the flowers bloom. He then goes on to describe the plant’s death in the winter, showing that loss of innocence and the initiation of growth and maturity is inevitable, just as the change of the seasons. The analogy shows that, despite the idealistic portrayal of childhood, innocence is merely a fleeting beauty–a perishable good. Furthermore, Frost uses an allusion to the biblical story of “The Garden of Eden”, stating, “Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief…”(Frost 5-6). In the Bible, Eve eats an apple in the Garden of Eden, representing humanity 's loss of innocence. This action had wicked implications, showing that a loss of innocence is directly related to sin and evil. This ultimately establishes the theme that loss of innocence is not a rite of passage into adulthood, but an inevitable travesty. This theme ultimately shows that the purity of adolescence is corrupted and skewed by societal standards and all that is wholesome must become tainted by humanity’s debasement in order to