Catcher In The Rye Loss Of Innocence Analysis

Holden wants to protect people’s innocence which cause to reflect about his innocence time and how they have changed. When Holden was younger he would visit the Museum of Natural History almost every Saturday. The charter Holden believed “the best thing, though in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was,” (Salinger 135). Holden thinks about this because he realizes that people and himself are always changing, but things around him necessarily aren’t changing. When people start to change, their innocence will slowly go away because they are growing up. Holden also goes back and thinks about when he was young and innocent at the museum. Also he reflects about the times he “used to play checkers with [Jane] ,” (Salinger 36) . Holden and his friend Jane Gallagher use to play checkers and he often goes back to the memories of Jane and him because he was happy and thoses times with Jane were innocent.

Holden get upset and mad when he walks to his younger sister phoebe's school and sees a swear word painted on the wall “ it drove [him] damn crazy,” (Salinger 221). He gets upset because he doesn’t like that the kids at the school are going to wonder what the word is and eventually find out what it means and use the word. When he thinks about the kids’ innocence being affected it made him mad because he wants to protect them from the bad things in the world. Holden learns throughout his life that when he was exposed to negative experiences it changed him and made him depressed. He doesn’t wants the kids at the elementary school to have to deal with that even if it's not as extreme as to make them depressed. Holden wants to protect their innocence by “rubbing it off with [his] hand,” but was scared of a teacher thinking he wrote it (Salinger 221). Holden doesn't want to get to get accused of destroying kids innocence because he values their innocence so