In the novel “The Catcher in the Rye” written by J.D. Salinger is about a young man named Holden who doesn’t know when to grow up and finds himself in hard situations. He struggles dealing with the death of his little brother, Allie and also gets kicked out of four schools. As Holden goes on a journey to find himself, he ends up finding out more about the world. The author J.D Salinger uses innocence as a central theme for the novel. The author J.D. Salinger uses a variety of symbols like the kids playing near the cliff, fuck you graffiti, and Allie’s death to show that Holden believes knowledge kills the innocence of kids. The kids playing near the cliff symbolizes Holden’s desire to protect the kids from falling into adulthood and losing their innocence. Allie and kids symbolize the “catching”.The cliff symbolizes adulthood .Holden believes that adults are all phonies (which is hypocritical of him because even Though Holden constantly talks about other people being phony he is himself often phony. At various times in the novel, he tells pointless lies, claims to like or agree with things he hates, goes out with girls he doesn 't like, all to try to feel less lonely and left out).In chapter 17 Holden says “Then, just to show you how crazy I am, when we were coming out of this big clinch, I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it. I 'm crazy. I swear to God I am”. This quote supports that Holden himself is a phony
Holden feels helpless and alone. In summary, Allie’s death plays a large role in forming Holden’s personality. He tries to graze over the subject without much emotion because Allie’s death was sudden and tragic, and he has been unable to seek support for most of his
Holden keeps "picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.” Thousands of little kids, and nobody big around except him. And he is “standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.” His job is “to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff”. If they're running and they don't look where they're going he will “come out from somewhere and catch them.”
Everyone is born innocent, but for one reason or another, people lose it. It’s an inevitable fact that everyone has to grow up, which Holden Caulfield learns throughout the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. One can’t stop or prevent someone from growing up because through life experience innocence gets lost. In this novel there is, the loss of innocence, Holden trying to prevent the loss of innocence, as well as the acceptance that it is all a part of life.
Right after Holden saw the graffiti, he instantly thought about the children seeing it and tem losing their innocence, “thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant” (120). This scene shows the literary device of symbolism. The graffiti represents the loss of innocence. Before the graffiti, he thought of the school as a place of joy and now he is broken because someone ruined that type of happiness for him. The graffiti also symbolized the corruption of the adult world.
To Holden, children are the greatest symbol of purity, a purity that he wants to preserve before they “fall off the cliff” of adulthood. Holden is fixated on the idea of being a savior. This tendency has most likely developed after the death of his younger brother Allie who will be forever fixed in a state of childhood. It is no wonder Holden sees himself as a savior of children, or simply the catcher in the rye, “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.
Meanwhile, in “The Catcher In The Rye”, Holden states clearly at the very beginning that “I’m not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything. I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy” ( The Catcher In The Rye, 1), meaning that Holden is only going
Along with the many people he meets during his journey home, Holden goes to see a girl named Sally. He tells Sally he loves her as a lie, just to prove to himself he can be crazy. Holden is lying to someone he could have a real relationship with, but ruins it. Holden says to Sally, “Then, just to show you how crazy I am, when we were coming out of this big clinch, I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it.
The novel The Catcher in the Rye in which we read for English was powerful. This novel was not any type of book it had much in detail and interesting things that got told. You might at the beginning think that the book is not that good and just go based off of the first chapter. Do not judge a book by it’s cover instead in this case the saying would be known as do not judge a book by the first chapter. You need to be able to read the whole novel in order to understand what happens in it and how the story is being told.
In Chapter 9-14 Holden Caulfield leaves Penecy Prep and heads to New York City. Where he will stay for a couple days before winter vacation starts and he will head home. Delaying breaking the news to his family he got kicked out of school for as long as possible. These chapters are where Holden’s loneliness becomes abundantly clear. The reader is subjected to many long rants by Holden about the company he wants, though he attempts to settle several times.
The fact that Holden calls everyone a phony, when he is the biggest phony himself. He starts off chapter 3 by stating “I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life.” (page 16). He spends some time in the novel talking about how good of a liar he is. This refers back to him holding onto his childhood innocence.
A. Allie’s death causes Holden to become obsessed with death and this obsession makes him believe that growing up and becoming a “phonie” is like dying; this belief that is planted inside Holden’s head when Allie died is what sends him on a quest to preserve children’s innocence and save them from the “death” of growing up. B. Salinger includes the traumatic story of Allies death that happened years in advance to provide an explanation for Holden’s obsession with death and how he sees loss of innocence as equivalent to dying. Allie died with his innocence still intact, so Holden does not want other children to grow up and have their innocence “die”. C. Holden even admits to being mentally unstable after his brother’s traumatic death when he says, “I was only 13, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all
The Catcher in The Rye was a novel published by J. D. Salinger in the year 1991. It is just one example of an extroardinary book that relies on symbols to relay the message, meaning, or theme of the text. Without these symbols in literary architecture, the readers would not be able to clearly understand the authors purpose within the piece. In Salinger's novel, The Catcher in the Rye, symbols such as broken records and an infamous red hunting cap enhance the novel to relay the authors purpose. The first main symbol that is explored within the piece is the main character, Holden's, red hunting cap.
Holden is the “Catcher in the Rye” to catch the children from falling off a cliff, which signifies the loss of their innocence. He didn’t want to become an adolescent, he wants to defend other children, so that they don’t lose their innocence. Also, if Holden was an actual person he would be able to fit at any high school today. For example, when Holden says “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 … mean, if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.
Society as a whole is something you make of it. If one wants to denounce the society they live in because it is “phony” that is because they’ve made the world around them phony. The character of Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye is a prime example of someone being stuck in the idea that society is unchanging. Society is just how a person perceives the world in front of them. The eye of the beholder is the one that creates the society of their choice.
Shouldn’t someone who acts tough and often brags know that they will never become a phony? The answer would be yes if Holden wasn’t so insecure. Holden’s childish ways cause him to never mature and figure out who he is as a person. We see many signs of Holden insecurities throughout the book, like the fact that he contradicts himself. An example of this would be when Sally and Holden are in the taxi and he tells her he loves her, he then counties to say, “It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it” (Salinger 139).