Catcher In The Rye Becoming An Adult

In the novel The Catcher and the Rye by J.D Salinger, Holden expresses his hate for the idea of growing up and becoming an adult, as he sees the majority of adults as phonies. Along with that, he regards the process as taking away your innocence and freedom. With his view of adulthood, he hates the idea of children having to go through what he did and losing their innocence. He often praises children, placing them as superior to adults.
Holden feels that he has to protect children from losing their innocence like he had. When in his little sister’s school, he finds vulgar writing on the wall, “I hardly even had the guts to rub it off the wall with my hand...But I rubbed it out anyway, finally” (201). When he sees it, he becomes angry thinking about the children seeing it and wondering what it meant. However, he overcame his …show more content…
He doesn't want to become one of the adults that he sees and criticizes constantly. He doesn't want to join the general public and live a basic life like everyone else. “If anybody wanted to tell me something, they’d have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They’d get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I’d be through with having conversations for the rest of my life” (198). In this part, Holden is contemplating running off to somewhere mostly secluded and living a different life, and is willing to give up conversations completely. It shows how judgmental he is of people, and how he feels about socializing and about others. He is kind of anti-social, which is one of the reasons he is having trouble adjusting and accepting the fact that he has to grow up. He believes him not wanting to socialize, or not socializing at all, would shield him from becoming a person he doesn't want to be and being a part of the adult world. If he does not have to talk, he doesn't have to be responsible. If he does not have to be responsible, he does not have to grow