Catching a baseball may seem hard, but catching a person is even harder. J.D Salinger 's A Catcher in the Rye depicts the story of Holden Caulfield, a high school dropout who wanders the streets of New York City aimlessly looking for his purpose. A major theme of the novel is preserving the innocence of children. This theme persists throughout the book as Holden erasing profanity, in conversations and other symbols.
Throughout the novel, Holden is seen troubled by the thought of the adult world mixing with the innocent world of children. This can be seen as Holden erasing profanity. While Holden attempts to erase the “fuck you” from the wall he states that the profanity “wouldn’t come off” as it was “scratched in” which shows that he believes the adult world has been permanently stained and that once one loses their innocence there is no going back. One thing that permanently stained Holden’s own adolescence is the death of his younger brother Allie. After Allie’s passing, Holden states that he smashed all the windows in the garage resulting in permanent damage to his hand; However, the death also permanently stained Holden’s childhood innocence. Holden also suggests that “If you had a million years you couldn’t rub out half the ‘Fuck you’ signs in the
…show more content…
Holden supposedly wants to preserve this innocence as he realizes how treasured it was after losing his own at an early age. Catching a child nonetheless is a lot harder than catching a baseball. Holden trying to stop children from losing their innocence and growing up is futile and fruitless and his hopes of putting children in glass containers are impractical and frankly impossible. Allie was not only a catcher in baseball, but he was also Holden’s catcher in the rye. Ever since he passed nobody was there to catch Holden from falling into adulthood, which only shows that it is harder to catcher a person, than a