Holden's Innocence example essay topic

It is a fact of life that no one can remain young forever. Some teenagers cannot wait to grow up and get out on their own away from childish rules and parental limitations. For other teenagers the thought of the adult world conjures images of negativity and responsibilities such as going to work everyday, dealing with undesirable people, and being part of a stiff society. However, mediums do exist between these two contrasting worlds.

Unfortunately, Holden Caulfield, an adolescent struggling with growing up in the novel The Catcher in the Rye, is not aware of these mediums. To him the two worlds seem to be as different as heaven and hell with no purgatory in between. Holden has no positive adult role models, his only concern is preserving innocence and the only people he truly cares about and respects are children. Holden Caulfield fears the transition from child to adult in J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye because childhood is so inviting and adulthood is so ominous.

Not only is the general image of the adult world ominous to Holden but the actual adults in his own life seemed to live hopeless lives as well. According to Holden they are greedy, phony, corrupt, boring, and in many cases all or more than one of the characteristics. Holden encounters a prostitute, named Sunny, the first night out of Pency Prep at a trashy hotel. Sunny's loss of innocence and her corruption sadden Holden greatly. They are nearly the same age yet she already fell into the dark adult world (Lundquist 15). Holden can still see her youthful innocence in her expression, "like fun you are" (Salinger 94).

He thinks, "It was a funny thing to say. It sounded like a real kid" (Salinger 94). Holden becomes extremely depressed and in effort to preserve some innocence, he does not have sex with her. "Sexy was about the last thing I was feeling.

I felt much more depressed than sexy" (Salinger 95). The prostitute's pimp, Maurice, exemplifies greed when he uses violence to extort another five dollars from Holden (Salinger 101). It is not only the low class society that bothers Holden; he can not even stand ministers. Their phony voices they use when they give sermons (Salinger 100). Lawyers also leave a bad taste in Holden's mouth. He thinks they are all right if they save lives of honest people, unfortunately he doesn't see that happening.

In his eyes they just make a lot of money and then go around playing bridge and golf, and drinking martinis and acting line hot shots (Salinger 172). He goes on to say that even if lawyers did save innocent people it would not be that they really wanted to help, they would just do it for the attention and hype (Salinger 172). All of these examples show Holden's extreme view of the adult world. He does not have what most people would consider rational ideas about growing up. Holden's first hand experiences reinforce these ideas of an awful adult world. Mr. Antolini is an old teacher of Holden's and his last hopes of finding an innocent adult role model for him self (Lundquist 31).

Mr. Antolini talks to Holden for a long time but finally finishes and Holden falls asleep. He awakes to Mr. Antolini stroking and petting his head. Horrified at this seemingly homosexual advance, Holden's hope of an adult role model dies and he reverts into childhood, fantasy, and psychosis (Lundquist 33). Holden goes on to say that that kind of thing has happened to him about twenty times since he was a kid and he can't stand it (Salinger 193). Now, because of his traumatizing experiences, Holden's view of adults is permanently negative and suspicious. This negative and suspicious attitude towards adults and maturity drives Holden to try to preserve innocence, his own as well as others.

One of the themes in the novel is phony versus honest. This closely relates to the theme of children because children are never phony in Holden's mind. Children are associated with honesty, innocence and sincerity - Holden's ideals (French 95). The Catcher in the Rye is not only about innocence though, it is "actively for innocence, as if one's child ness were an existential possibility" (Lundquist 63). Existing as a child, it seems, is what Holden wants most.

James E. Miller says, "In one sense, his quest is a quest to preserve innocence that is in peril of vanishing - the innocence of childhood, the spotless innocence of a self horrified contamination in the ordinary and inevitable involvement of life" (12). This puts Holden in a terrible situation because he wants to preserve innocence but in order to do that he can not be at the same level as the virtuous. Therefore, Holden's desire to save innocence is ironic because he must leave it to save it (Lundquist 61). Holden is at a crossroad and is not yet prepared to leave childhood, so he acts younger than he really is.

Lundquist concludes, "Because he can neither save his evil world nor live in it as it is, he retreats into fantasy, into childhood" (66). Holden never comments on his own behavior being that of a twelve or thirteen year old (French 82). Lundquist explains that Holden is honest and innocent in his comments (70). He tells the reader his honest reaction to Mr. Spencer, an old, dogmatic teacher from Pency Prep, when he lectures him about schoolwork.

He does not censor his criticism because he is ashamed of thinking it. Holden is not passing judgment but merely stating his reaction (Lundquist 73). His reaction to Mr. Spencer is almost entirely negative because Holden is overly sensitive to the phony adult world as well as to the fragile innocence of childhood. He reverts back to na " ive fantasies of childlike Jane Gallagher and his younger sister Phoebe (French 73). Holden's most memorable love affair, based on daily checker games, was with Jane Gallagher. She is Holden symbol of Romantic love, which is also innocent love (Lundquist 69).

Holden is afraid Jane's innocence will be lost because of Stradlater, Holden's roommate at Pency Prep. Holden's innocence will in part be taken along with hers because they were so close and he thinks of her as hope for purity in the world (Lundquist 70). Perhaps the most compelling evidence of Holden's concern for preserving youth is his dream of being the Catcher in the Rye " - one who stands on the edge of a cliff near a rye field where thousands of children play" (French 101). Holden describes to Phoebe what he would really like to do. He wants to be the Catcher in the Rye. He pictures children running around in a large field of rye by a big cliff.

He stands by the cliff and protects the children from falling by catching anyone who may come too close to the cliff (Salinger 173). The "fall" he is talking about is the fall from the innocence of childhood into the obscenity of adulthood. Holden is angry at the phonies of the world that impose corruption on the children. And what Holden wants a world populated by sweet children, untouched by the corrupt adult world. This is what Holden is trying to achieve as the Cat cher; he is trying to save children and himself from the "fall". The problem with all of this for Holden is that he is sixteen; he can not remain a child - he can not stand at the edge of the cliff and be the Catcher; he must fall off into adulthood" (Lundquist 24).

Holden has good intentions but because he fears falling himself, he can not protect anyone else. Holden's fear of adulthood relates to his fascination with childhood and innocence. For Holden, childhood is the source of the good in human life; it is in that state that human beings are genuine and open in their love for one another. It is when people become conscious in their relationships to one another, become adults, that they become 'phony' and logical and come to love the reason for more than the loved person (Lundquist 53). He glorifies and idealizes it.

Holden finds good in all children and almost all the children he encounters please him. Salinger uses intelligent children in his worlds, especially The Catcher in the Rye to create an idea that children have a special understanding that can almost never sustain growing up (French 48). "Other than children, the only people Holden respects completely (outside of books) are the two nuns who have managed to remain unstained by the world" (French 44). Holden is really taken by the kids he meets at the museum. The child is not embarrassed or ashamed that Holden tells him his pants are open (Salinger 202). Holden loves the child's modest openness, honesty, and innocence.

French sees these children as well as the other children in the novel as, .".. examples of wise innocence which the older protagonists of the story seem to have lost and struggle to recapture" (50). The wise innocence is what Holden loves about children. Holden loves Allie, his deceased younger brother, for those same reasons. He remembers only the good in Allie and when Phoebe asks Holden what he likes in life his first response is, "I like Allie" (Salinger 171). Holden then defends this response when Phoebe tells him it is not a real liking because Allie is dead.

He tells her that a person does not stop liking someone just because he or she dies, especially because Allie was so much nicer than anyone living was was. "Allie becomes for Holden a kind of saint-ideal... he functions as a symbol of goodness" (Lundquist 37). Holden describes Allie's baseball glove in a composition he does for Stradlater (Salinger 38). He likes Allie's mitt, so much because Allie wrote poems and quotes so he would have something to do while standing in the outfield. Holden does not only comment on Allie's mitt, he goes on to praise his intelligence, his behavior, and his demeanor (Salinger 38). "But it wasn't just that he was the most intelligent member in the family.

He was also the nicest, in lots of ways" (Salinger 38). Holden tells the reader of the violent angel he felt when Allie passed away. Allie's death devastated him so much that he slept in the garage that night and punched out all of the windows (Salinger 39). "It was a very stupid thing to do, I'll admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was doing it, and you didn't know Allie" (Salinger 39).

Nowhere in the novel does Holden show such a great love, attachment, or care for a person (besides Phoebe). When Holden is on the verge of a breakdown he asks Allie not to let him disappear every time time he steps off the curb. When he makes it to the next curb he thanks Allie (Salinger 198). Holden does not seem to care very much for his parents or his brother D.B. who became a great disappointment to Holden when he sold himself to Hollywood. Holden is not attached to his older family members, only his younger siblings. Holden's younger sister, Phoebe, is the only other person whom he adores like Allie.

Phoebe is "a clever, precocious ten year old, Phoebe functions as Allie's living counterpart and Holden's salvation" (French 40). He loves her youth and honesty and will do anything to preserve it. She is really the only person Holden is able to talk to. It is significant that Holden is able to communicate with Phoebe because it is the only successful communication in the novel (Blotter 17). Holden almost calls Phoebe many times throughout the novel in his need to converse with someone who is real and not phony. "You should see her, you never saw a little kid so pretty and smart in your whole life" (Salinger?

). While Holden is changing for the Lavender Room he comes very close to calling Phoebe, wanting to talk to someone with sense (Salinger 66). Phoebe is for Holden a sign of unmatched childhood beauty (French 39). He enjoys simple things such as reading her school notebook. He says, "It didn't take me long, and I can read that kind of stuff, some kid's notebook, Phoebe's or anybody's, all day and all night long.

Kids notebooks kill me" (Salinger 161). Although Holden still fears adulthood and his love for Phoebe and innocence grows stronger, he eventually does realize that youth does not last forever. As Holden watches Phoebe go around the carousel at the end of the book he is afraid she will fall as she grabs for the gold ring. He then realizes he can't say anything; the kids must fall and learn.

This shows his dream of being the Catcher in the Rye ceases and he himself is falling. He realizes everyone must grow up but it makes Phoebe's innocence even more special (Miller 16). Holden has now realized that innocence does not last forever. He is able to be happy watching Phoebe in her unblemished state of purity and innocence. He enjoys it even more because he is mature enough to know that it will not last forever. Just as the music will stop and the carousel ride will be over, Phoebe will grow up (Miller 11).

Holden becomes overwhelmed with emotion when he says, "It was just that she looked so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around in her blue coat and al" (Salinger 213). Holden is still afraid of growing up, but he makes an important step when he accepts (the fact that all people must grow up). He is happy and content to watch his little sister that he loves so much. Since Holden is so happy with childhood and so completely turned off by adulthood he fears his inevitable change from youth to adult. He has no positive adult role models and no real interests other than preserving children and he is unable to communicate with anyone other than children. Holden is unable to accept growing up with an open mind.

He sees only phoniness, greed, and corruption; it is this narrow-minded idea that is the basis of his problem. He does not see any uncorrupted adults. Once Holden learns that an adult is able to remain pure at heart if so desired, he will be a balanced individual. Unfortunately Holden feels alone in his quest which to him is an impossible mission. Since Holden is telling the story to a psychiatrist it is evident that he is facing his fear. It seems Holden just needed his own "Catcher in the Rye" to help him through his difficult time.