Holden's Innocence

Without thinking, he agrees to Maurice’s deal and prepares for his interaction with the prostitute. Captivated by lust, he felt he could use her for practice to gain more experience. “‘I figured if she was a prostitute and all, I could get in some practice on her, in case I ever get married or anything’” (Salinger 92). Later, the hooker arrives in Holden’s hotel room to quickly finish her job, however, he begins doubting his choice of agreeing to allow her infiltrate his hotel room and wishes for her departure. To encourage her to leave, Holden consistently lies, “‘I’m not in the mood, I just told ya. I just had an operation’” (Salinger 97). Attempting to demand her to leave, he realizes he was blinded by his lust instead of his reasoning. Instead of declining Maurice’s deal, he is glued to a terrifying situation he unknowingly involved

One main thing Holden is interested in and he makes this clear would be sex. He harassed Luce constantly about questions to do with sex, and was aroused by the sexual behavior displayed at Edmont Hotel. Another example of how Holden gets guilty easily and feels nervous would be when he was alone with a prostitute and got flustered with her sitting on his lap. Holden was quick to

He isolates himself and becomes offensive towards Sally in an attempt to preserve his feeling of individuality. Further illustration of Holden’s struggle would be when he agreed to have a prostitute in effort to feel some kind of companionship. When the prostitute arrives he decides that he rather just talk. Holden elucidates, “I sat down again and tried to keep the old conversation going. She was a lousy conversationalist” (Salinger, 125).

Holden is like most teenagers and physically he desires to explore that side of himself, but mentally he is not ready for sex, because he has not found the right person yet. This is rooted in his obsession with maintaining childhood innocence and his personal moral obligation to not partake in grown up acts whenever possible. Sexuality is another challenge Salinger uses to show a lack of growth, but also a lack of regression in this part of Holden. Holden is a virgin, but he makes it clear that this is entirely by choice, implying that he has had many opportunities to change this fact. "I've had quite a few opportunities to lose my virginity and all, but I've never gotten around to it yet." (92) Holden goes onto say that he always stops because something always goes wrong, or the girl he's with no longer wishes to continue. Later we see Holden struggle with the fact that he has yet to lose his virginity and so he gets a prostitute to come to his room while he is staying in a hotel. At first it seems that he is ready for this kind of intimacy, but not in the way one would expect. Holden acts as if it is an unpleasant experience that doesn’t wish to spend too much time dwelling on and he decides it on a whim. He just wants to get past this: "Anyway, I kept walking around the room, waiting for this prostitute to show up. I kept hoping she'd be good-looking. I didn't care

When he comes back from the bar late at night, he encounters the elevator man and tells him to send a prostitute to his suite, yet he fails in his sexual relationship with her because of his sexual innocence caused by his isolation. When the prostitute arrives, Holden tries to avoid any sexual talk, he then tells her that he does not want to do it, he says, “I’ll pay you and all, but do you mind very much if we don’t do it? […] the trouble was, I just felt more depressed than sexy” (Salinger 96). Holden

This shows that Holden strives to be more adult, but is frightened by sexual experiences. This is also shown in his anger about Stradlater and Jane. Once the prostitute arrives in his room, she undresses but Holden becomes uncomfortable and just wants to talk. He lies and claims that he had a recent surgery on his “clavichord”. Holden pays the prostitute

Holden’s attitude toward sex is contradictory, sometimes he says that he is horny while sometimes he feels the opposite. Holden states, “Sex is something I really don’t understand so hot. You never know where the hell you are.” (Salinger 82). This quote shows that Holden has very ambivalent feelings toward sex. He says that he does not understand it because sometimes he really wants to do it, even if it is with a

On page 123, Salinger uses the connotative word “peculiar” to illustrate Holden’s uncertainty of sleeping with a prostitute. Holden began to encounter mixed feelings and sudden thoughts

The turning point for Holden is when he doesn’t want to do anything with the prostitute. He just wanted to sit there and talk to her, which she did not enjoy at all. “ “Don’t you feel like talking for a while?” I asked her. It was a childish thing to say, but I was feeling so damn peculiar.

Holden then says yes without thinking the answer through. This shows that Holden is not able to think anything thoroughly because something is always bothering him. Holden goes to his room to get fixed up and look nice for the prostitute, but when the prostitute comes he then starts feeling uncomfortable. He then tells her that she should leave and pays her. Holden is trying so hard to find himself in this world but can’t.

"You did. You did,"..."Daddy'll kill you!"(Salinger 165). Holden is at a hotel and he was offered to get a prostitute so he pays for one and gets into a real weird situation with her which leads him into an even more horrible situation , but Holden isn't too good with situations like that so he lies to the prostitute so they won't have to have sex "The thing is, I had an operation very recently."..."On my wuddayacallit--my clavichord."(Salinger 96). When holden gets into bad situations he acts weird and lies to cover himself up.

     This is shown when Holden meets Sunny, a prostitute at a hotel. He pays her, but sends her back without having sex with her. He feels depressed and sorry for her. The next morning Holden has a date with an old girlfriend, Sally Hayes.

Mrs. Antolini, for instance, is forced to do all the chores at home. “Coffee, Gentlemen, finally,” Mrs. Antolini said. She came in carrying this tray with coffee and cakes and stuff on it. “Holden, don’t you even peek at me. I’m a mess”(Salinger 204). Mr.Antolini makes Mrs. Antolini prepare for Holden’s arrival, even though it is his guest and not hers. And on another occasion Holden gets ahold of not one but two prostitutes. He calls one by phone and gets rejected, the second time however he is offered in person by the elevator boy, Maurice. Holden agrees to purchase her for “a throw”. To his surprise she was as young as him. “She was very nervous, for a prostitute. She really was. I think it was because she was young as hell. She was around my age”(Salinger 105). The fact that this book condones prostitution as a social norm is atrocious. It shouldn’t be an option for women to sell their bodies in such a manner and this book makes it seem like a common choice women make. Holden did however make fun of D.B. by saying he was a

Lacking sureness in his own sexuality, Holden’s redundant use of the word “pervert” displays his anxiety over how well he can handle intimacy. Staying in the Edmont Hotel for a night, Holden spots a crossdressing man and “…a man and a

It is very disturbing that he says “sex appeal” instead of “beauty” because it really shows what his thinks of her. He starts flirting with her and says many lies to get her interested. Later on he says, “Then I really started chucking the old crap around… I had her glued to her seat”(50). Once again he is very disrespectful and rude and it is also very inappropriate to think like that to a mother of a classmate. On the other hand, he is very generous to the nuns that he meets on the train to Manhattan. It is very surprising when Holden does so many nice things to them such as pick up their basket, respect their beliefs and talk very gently because before he kept complaining about everything. Holden acts like a real gentleman, which could be because he sees the innocence in them. Holden admires them for trying to help others because later on in the novel the reader finds out that he wants to protect children from danger. During on point he says to them, “To tell you the truth, it was sort of embarrassing, in a way, to be talking about Romeo and Juliet with her. I mean that play gets pretty sexy in some parts, and she was a nun and all, but she asked me, so I discussed it with her for a while”(100). This is the only time that he is uncomfortable talking about sexual things because he respects that they are nuns and does not want to say something impolite. Holden even donates a lot of money when they did not ask for any and after