Catcher In The Rye Values

Holden has very noble goals, he wants to protect children’s innocence. He says to his little sister “‘Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around-nobody big, I mean-except me. And I’m standing on the edge of

Throughout the story Holden emphasizes his love for childhood innocence. In a passage he says “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the golden ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything.” (Salinger 211) This immediately points to his affinity for innocence and not having the limits of being and adult. The

Through Holden’s critique of others, we see that he is strongly against people who are hypocritical, conceited, and who conform to society. Phonies are more interested in putting the best version of themselves out for people to see rather than being their true

In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden’s outlook in life is either the innocence of childhood or the cruelty of adulthood. He believes that the innocence of childhood is very valuable and it should be protected from

He's having a conversation with his sister and she asks him what he plans to do with his life and he respond with "I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. 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. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all." this quote here shows a lot about how holden feels about childhood and that he will play the role as the protecter of their inocence.

This shows just how shallow Holden can be. Moreover, on pages 168- 171, Holden refers to Sally as being “goddam stupid” and a “phony” because she physically/mentally was absurd and didn’t agree with Holden when he suggested they leave to go somewhere far away. This shows that if you didn’t agree with Holden or match his standards, you would be seen as lesser of a person in his eyes. By using repetition of the words “phony”, “goddamn”, and “moron” the meaning of the word is lost. He refers to almost everyone including teachers, parents, friends, and siblings (except Allie) as a “phony” or “moron”.

Every parent want to protect their children from all bad things because they do not want their children to grow up. This is the protection of innocence. The Catcher in the Rye, cover this theme and the author of the novel is J.D. Salinger. The character in the novel who has demonstrated protection of innocence is Holden because he got mad when someone wrote “fuck you” on the wall, imagining himself protecting children from falling off the cliff and worried about what Stradlater was going to do with his old friend Jane. Holden demonstrated protection of innocence by getting mad when someone write “fuck you” on the wall.

Holden himself is guilty of being phony because he is hypocritical at times throughout the book. Holden is angered by the words written on the school walls because kids will see the word and later think about them.Since he believes in child innocence, he wanted the writings on the walls to be covered. Although, Holden Believes in child innocence he goes around smoking, drinking, and having close experiences with sexual activities. In the novel, he claims to hate people who repeat themselves, yet he repeats the same words over and over again throughout the book. He claims to be illiterate, yet he reads a lot. He says something, and his actions don’t relate with his words, therefore making Holden a

The memorable carousel scene contains a large indication that Holden is beginning to let go of his compulsion to protect innocence: “All the kids were trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the goddamn horse … If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them” (211). It can be inferred from this quote that Holden understands that children are eventually going to lose their innocence and there is a point where it is necessary to let them. This does not overwrite Holden throughout the book, however. Holden still wanted to protect his and other children’s innocence, but in this moment of character development, he realizes his can’t.

Holden’s dream is to be a “catcher in the rye,” saving children from falling off the edge of a cliff as they play in the rye fields. “I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big rye field and all. … nobody’s around… except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff… I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff... I’d just be a catcher in the rye and all.” (224-225). In this vision, the cliff is symbolic of childhood and innocence, and Holden is standing on the edge of it. He wants to save the children from falling off the cliff and losing their innocence, or growing up, but Holden never admits that that is what his dream is really about. The reason Holden wants to protect innocence so much is because was forced to grow up quickly due to the death of one of the best people in his life, Allie, and he doesn’t want any other children to go through that. His dream is to save children from being exposed to the harsh truths of the world, but he thinks of it in a more metaphorical way so it is easier to understand and visualize, using his imagination to express his feelings in a more concrete way, similar to how a child

According to psychologytoday.com, “Genuine people are comfortable presenting their ideas without expecting or needing to convince others they are right”. Holden often thinks poorly of others and he doesn't verbally communicate any of his thoughts. Also Holden goes on dates with girls even though he doesn’t like them, he just feels lonely. In the book referring to Sally, Holden says, “I wasn’t too crazy about her, but I’d known her for years” (Salinger 61). Holden is also a phony whenever he decides to hire a prostitute.

Adding on, Holden has a vision of helping children when asked what he wanted to be by his sister, Phoebe. “‘... And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start going over the cliff… I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.”’(Salinger 191) This vision that Holden has doesn’t necessarily mean that he is catching the children because if they fall they’ll get hurt. In contrast, this means that Holden is catching the children from falling into the adolescent into the deceptive adult world. The only way for children to preserve their innocence is by them not being exposed to the unreliable, corrupted world that phonies live in order for their innocent world not being corrupted. Holden is seen in chapter 25 protecting the children metaphorically. “I saw something that drove me crazy. Somebody’d written ‘Fuck You’ on the wall. It drove me damn crazy. I thought how Phoebe and the other little kids would see it, and would wonder what the hell it meant, and then some dirty kid (mentally not physically who has been exposed to cruel phony world) would tell them…” (Salinger 221) Holden rubs the words to protect the children; however, he ends up finding another one that cannot be rubbed off. Holden realizes that he can’t literally protect the children and that it is natural for them to grow up and face the treacherous adult

Holden always talks about people being phony, and how he doesn’t like people for a reason. Holden is actually a phony person him self believe it or not. Holden is a liar he lies about most things that he doesn’t like or things he doesn’t feel comfortable talking about. When something goes wrong Holden immediately blames someone else for his mistakes, it’s never his fault. He hasn’t really decided what to do with his life. He wants to find out how things work and why things happen. At the same time he is insecure and also feels like he is never good enough. He thinks the adult world is phony. He wants to be an adult just like a lot of all the other people in the world but when he gets mad or they upset him he treats them as a child and runs away. He really wants to be friends with

One of the major themes in this novel is innocence and how Holden wishes to protect the innocence of especially young children. He believes that growing up means losing your innocence and entering the superficial, unauthentic (or phony, as he likes to call it) world of adults. Incidentally, Holden is caught up in limbo between the world of a child and that of an adult. This causes Holden to doubt his place in the world and leaves him in a depressed state

Holden fails to represent the voice of real people first by judging others and calling them phonies. He takes the success of others and criticizes it, yet we never hear about his successes or anything good he’s done. An example of this comes up in the first chapter where he says, “Now he’s out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute” (Salinger, 2) He calls his brother D.B. a prostitute just because he’s in Hollywood trying to make a name for himself. In the eyes of a normal person, D.B is not being phony or anything like that, he’s just fulfilling a dream of his. The fact that Holden cannot wish well on his brother, just speaks to the epitome of his pretentious behavior. Holden also says, “It was very phony-I mean him being a big snob and all” (84) In this quote, Holden is referring to Ernie who is playing the piano and appears to be very good. Again, here is Holden degrading someone just because they are doing better than he is. He mentions how people are marveling over Ernie and