Holden Caulfield Conflicts

In the novel “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D Salinger. The main theme is to protect the innocence in people, specifically children. Holden begins his story in Pennsylvania, at his former school, Pencey Prep. He then recounts his adventures in New York City. The main characters in this story include Holden Caulfield. Holden is a very complex character. He has a very angsty, angry, and escapist personality. He classes most other people as "phonies" yet craves closeness with another person. Instead of facing his problems, he prefers to run away from them. The major conflict is within Holden’s psyche. Part of him wants to connect with other people on an adult level, while part of him wants to reject the adult world as “phony,” and to retreat into his own memories of childhood. Holden’s many attempts to connect with other people over the course of the novel bring his conflicting impulses, to interact with other people as an adult, or to retreat from them as a child, into direct conflict.

A majority of the book recounts Holden’s quest for connection, follows him through dozens of encounters large and

He spends the whole book trying to figure out how to navigate through childhood to adulthood. These adolescent problems include Holden’s protection of innocence, his disgust for the phoniness of the adult world, and his alienation from society. The books show that these problems have a great impact on him. Holden behaves almost erratically and impulsively and has negative attitudes towards almost everything and everyone he meets. Throughout the novel, Holden sees the protection of innocence, especially of children as a primary virtue. It is very closely related to his struggle against growing up. Holden’s enemy is the adult world and cruelty and artificiality. The people he admires all represent or protect innocence. He thinks of Jane Gallagher, for example, not as a