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Catcher In The Rye Loss Of Innocence Essay

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“some guys spend days looking for something they lost.” In the Catcher in The Rye by J. D. Salinger, Holden is faced with the loss of innocence. The novel is about the journey of this teenage boy in New York who is searching for some kind of reassurance or way to regain his innocence. This loss is represented mainly in his journey, his relationships and his development through the novel. Firstly, Holden was on a journey. Holden was unstable due to his loss and was in need for reassurance, a purpose to live for and a place where he belonged. He seeks reassurance from, the taxi drivers. “Well you know the ducks that swim around it? ... Do you happen to know where they go in the wintertime, by any chance?” In this metaphor he is not only talking about the ducks but himself. He is frightened by the idea of losing his innocence in exchange for adulthood and wonders what will happen to him. Throughout the novel he uses motifs to describe his fear and anger of this change. The motifs he uses are the museum, the cliff and the ducks. Holden is terrified of change. In the book he tries to become a catcher in the rye who protects innocent people from the corrupt adult world. Near the end he realizes he can’t protect them, which results with him …show more content…

Through the book Holden changes from a coward to man, immature to mature and black and white view to a grey view. In the beginning his view is clear-cut. He generalized everyone, making a judgment on society as a whole. Near the end he understood the world cannot be the romanticized version he dreams of. The advice Mr. Antolini gave was “the mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” In the beginning of the book he sees James castle as dying for a noble cause while in the end of the book he doesn’t run away like a coward he stays for phoebe and realizes that he can live humbly for

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