Innocence may be preserved in a child indefinitely. However, influences from both family and society impose standards of maturity on children which gradually strip the youthfulness away from a child. Additionally, children may isolate themselves or face ostracization, which leads to the degradation of a child’s purity as he begins creating his own unique worldview apart of his community. Parents are the closest influence on a developing child. Therefore, their mature actions are bound to accumulate over the child, instigating his growth from childhood innocence. This is especially true when parents perform their intense habits in front of their kids. This is outlined by Theodore Roethke who recalls his father through a poem. He states how …show more content…
This leads to a loss of innocence as the child begins maturing individually and creating their own unique worldview. J.D. Salinger Highlights this in Catcher in the Rye through Holden Caulfield, and then reveals the huge remorse which this character faces for isolating himself. Near the end of the novel Salinger reveals that Holden “sort of [misses] everybody [he] told about…” (Salinger) his life and with whom he interacted. This demonstrates that Holden did have some meaningful connections in his life at one time, but eventually lost them because of his isolation, which caused a large amount of regret and loss of his innocence. This is most evident as Holden states that he even “missed that… Maurice...” who was a pimp that solicited Holden earlier in the book. That scene, in which Holden hired a prostitute, was the penultimate indicator that Holden was isolating himself. Even though he is a teenager, Holden traveled to a city alone to perform mature tasks in order to prove that maturity to himself. These grown up activities ultimately lead to Holden’s dissatisfaction with adulthood. By the end of this novel, Holden is stuck reminiscing about his past and yearning to go back his childhood. Because of his isolation and desire to be mature, Holden essentially lost all of his innocence and fully transformed from a child to an adult. Similarly many children lose their innocence as a result of their own changing views of the world. Seamus Heaney outlines this in “Blackberry Picking” where he states that, “each year [he] hoped [his blackberries would] keep” but “ knew they would not.” (Heaney) This is an important reminder that time is the ultimate thief of childhood. Despite a lack of outside influences, Heaney compares his childhood to blackberries to convey that eventually, both would rot. In time, he knew that nothing completely pure in his
The author J.D. Salinger was able to represent the theme: the loss of childhood innocence, by describing the internal as well as the external characteristics of the main protagonist Holden Caulfield. Holden is portrayed as innocent due to his “lousy vocabulary” and also his childish mannerisms. His constant use of the term “boy” is ironic when Holden himself is a boy at heart. While internally Holden Caulfield may appear to be naive; this representation contrasts with his external appearance. Holden is struggling internally to be himself and is clinging on to his innocence, at a time where his body is continuing to become more mature and transitioning out of adolescence. The reader is able to note his struggle because of Holden Caulfield’s
In The Catcher in The Rye, by J.D, the main character, Holden, can be seen as a troubled teenager growing up in a less than perfect society. Throughout the novel Holden struggles with the fact that many young and innocent kids will grow up and see the world from a different perspective. He naturally becomes worried for all future generations who will one day grow, as he did, and loose their innocence. The fixation of youth and innocence can be seen in the title of the book, as well as throughout the novel.
In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden, cannot accept that he must move out of childhood and into adulthood. One of Holden’s most important major problems is his lack of maturity. Holden also has a negative perspective of life that makes things seem worse than they really are. In addition to Holden’s problems he is unable to accept the death of his brother at a young age. Holden’s immaturity, negative mentality, and inability to face reality hold him back from moving into adulthood.
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
Many readers will agree that The Catcher in the Rye is a coming of age, but some may disagree that it is not because of Holden’s personal view of children. The disagreement may have resulted from Holden’s childish acts, such as, being
Teenage years are difficult. Time tells this story of struggle again and again. The Catcher in the Rye is a classic novel showing the struggles a teenager goes through while transitioning into adulthood. The main character, Holden Caulfield, is a judgmental and temperamental boy who struggles to see the positivity in life. Throughout the story, Holden searches to find himself, as he feels forced to grow up. He holds onto aspects of his childhood and isolates himself so much that it is even harder for him to transition. J.D. Salinger uses the red hunting hat, the museum and cigarettes as important symbols in the story to convey the themes of transitioning from childhood to adulthood, loneliness, and isolation.
It takes many experiences in order for an immature child to become a responsible, well-rounded adult. In J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger’s main character Holden Caulfield matures throughout the course of the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Holden is a juvenile young man. However, through his experiences, Holden is able to learn, and is finally able to become somewhat mature by the end of the novel. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s story represents a coming of age for all young adults.
J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye features a complex narrative surrounding a troubled young student, Holden Caulfield. Difficulties he faces throughout the story force Holden to confront his fears of adulthood and maturation and the responsibilities therein through the difficulties he faces throughout the story. Academic controversy surrounds whether Holden learns from these confrontations and adjust accordingly, maturing throughout the story. While initially this seems rather subjective, a thorough analysis of Holden’s actions throughout the story as well as of the symbolism injected by Salinger makes it quite clear that Holden does undergo a significant maturity arc as the story progresses. Holden’s social development and maturation
Holden Caufield emphasizes on the loss of innocence in children. He feels that once they lose their innocence, they will soon turn into phonies like everyone else. The loss of innocence is very common in the development in human existence. It is caused by many factors. Past a certain age, children are either forced or led unintentionally into a pathway of corruption. A child is also known to lose their innocence by desires, fantasies, and attention. But once they lose their innocence, they tend to desire to go back and pretend to be young again. In the Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden discusses the importance of innocence in children's lives. He feels that once a child loses his/her innocence, he/she will soon be leaded to a
In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye, Holden Caulfield, a seventeen-year-old boy, transitions from childhood to adulthood. The death of Holden’s little brother signifies the beginning his loss of innocence and growth of maturity. As he enters adulthood, Holden views society differently from his peers by characterizing most of his peers and adults he meets as “phonies.” Thus, Holden takes the impossible challenge of preserving the innocence in children because he wants to prevent children from experiencing the corruption in society. The Catcher In The Rye embodies Holden’s struggle to preserve the innocence of children and reveals the inevitability of and the necessity of encountering the harsh realities of life.
In J. D Salinger 's novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist, Holden, goes through many hardships in his journey to self-knowledge. In the beginning, Holden has to deal with being kicked out of school and not having any place to call home. He is also struggling with the unfortunate tragedy of the death of his beloved younger brother Allie. At the same time, Holden is trying to deal with growing up and accepting the adult world. Throughout the novel Salinger addresses the conflicts faced by a young man struggling with the trials and tribulations of growing up while also confronting personal loss and loneliness along the way.
In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is portrayed as a young, troubled individual. He tells us his story from the mental institution where he is currently residing. Holden is a 16 year old going through many different adolescent changes. He is expelled from his prep school for flunking too many subjects. He drinks, smokes, sees a prostitute, is punched by her pimp, goes on dates, spends a great deal of time in the park, and really does not do a great deal else. Holden is a very hard person to figure out and analyze. Throughout the whole book, Holden constantly changes his mind about things and has various conflicting thoughts. The experiences that Holden goes through illustrate the divide between adults and
Instead of acknowledging that adulthood scares and mystifies him, Holden invents a fantasy that adulthood is a world of superficiality and hypocrisy (“phoniness”), while childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty. Nothing reveals his image of these two worlds better than his fantasy about the catcher in the rye: he imagines childhood as an idyllic field of rye in which children romp and play; adulthood, for the children of this world, is equivalent to death—a fatal fall over the edge of a cliff. His created understandings of childhood and adulthood allow Holden to cut himself off from the world by covering himself with a protective armor of cynicism. But as the book progresses, Holden’s experiences, particularly his encounters with Mr. Antolini and Phoebe, reveal the shallowness of his conceptions.
Holden Caulfield plays a timeless character in the sense that his way of life is common for the American teenager, in his time as well as now. Today parents dread the terrible and confusing adolescent years of their child's life. In J.D. Salinger's book, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden is in this terrible and confusing point of his life. At this point in his life, as well as in modern teenager's lives, a transition occurs, from child to adult. Holden takes this change particularly rough and develops a typical mentality that prevents him from allowing himself to see or understand his purpose in life.
In J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, a young man named Holden Caulfield is on the edge of adulthood. He is a bright kid but struggles with many mental diseases mainly because of the passing of his brother Allie. This has caused him to not focus on school and has got him kicked out of many schools. He did not have many friends and he did not like many people. He thought of everyone as phony. Holden does not want to confront adulthood in fear of losing his childhood because of the fear of change, conformity to the phony world and the passing of his younger brother Allie.