What Is The Catcher In The Rye Argumentative Essay

Adults tell kids that they will grow up and likely be successful and have a satisfying life, but in The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger says that growing up isn’t necessarily good. He says that people are kinder and more tolerant towards children, and as people grow up, they have to worry more about doing good. Innocence is bliss, because younger people don’t realize all of the negativity around them because people are trying to shelter them from unpleasant realities. However, as people grow up, they will notice more negativity because they will come to see evil in life and become more skeptical about the way the world works. In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger shows growing up as something bad, since younger people don’t realize things that they start to notice as they grow older that will make them more cynical about the way the world works.

When Holden is walking down Broadway, he sees a little boy walking nearby. “He was just singing for the hell of it, you could tell. The cars zoomed by, brakes screeched over the place, his parents paid no attention to him, and he kept on walking next to the curb and singing…” (128). The little boy’s parents aren’t paying attention to him. They appear to be poor and the whole family appears to be walking in the middle of chaos. However, the boy is able to ignore what’s going on around him and find his own happiness. The song, which is what the book is named after, is narrated by someone who does not really care about a woman who has been kissing her lover and is running home, even though it would have been a big deal for the era. Similarly, the little boy is able to recognize the many sounds and events surrounding him and not care. Holden sees some of himself in the little boy, since he was also not close to his parents. However, instead of ignoring negativity in life, Holden takes his anger out on the people around him by being negative and