Examples Of Loss Of Innocence In Catcher In The Rye

Tiffany Madison said “No one loses their innocence. It is either taken or given away willingly.” In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden is a young boy who is not willing to give way his own innocence. Salinger tells us that to grow up, is to accept loss of innocence. In order to grow up, one has to accept being phony at times, however, Holden refuses to do this showing he is not ready to grow up. At the beginning of the book, Holden introduces his brother D.B., who happens to be a terrific writer. When D.B. was young and at home he wrote great short stories, but went big into Hollywood and became a prostitute. What Salinger suggesting is that in growing up you start to follow what will give you more money, making you a phony at …show more content…
Holden begins to accept it towards the end of the book, but naturally struggles to cope with it at times. Holden lost his brother Allie to leukemia and never really seems on to move on with it. Throughout the book, he gets stuck thinking about Allie, and when his sister Phoebe asks him what's one thing he likes a lot he answers Allie, and he truly loved him. Holden reacts to his death like any other would react to the loss of something or someone we love; Glorifying instead of moving on. Holden struggles moving on, harming himself and preventing him from maturing, he refuses to give away his innocence. But Holden’s reaction was normal of his age. After James Castle jumped out of the window to his death, Holden tells us everyone stood there and just looked at him. Not one of the students knew how to react, similar to Holden not knowing how to cope with Allie’s death. The students were, not mature enough to do it. Mr. Antonelli showed maturity when he went and picked up Castle’s body, “and carried him all the way over the infirmary. He didn’t even give a damn if his coat got all bloody”(174). What Salinger proposes is that mature man is able to put up and deal with death. What stopped the students from helping James Castle but didn’t stop Mr. Antonelli was innocence. It is possible that the students felt shame for his death, because of how they treated him, but not guilt or some sort of …show more content…
When Holden arrives at Phoebe’s school, he steps into the bathroom and spots writing on the wall saying “fuck you”. Holden was bothered by it because he knows that kids don’t know what it meant and didn’t want them to find out. What Salinger suggest from this is that not knowing about sex is part of being innocent. It’s part of the adult world which kids are not ready for. Holden often talks about sex, and how complicated it is, specially for Jane. When they were sitting on the porch playing checkers, she was asked for cigarettes by the booze hound that was married to her mother. But she doesn’t reply and drops a tear, to such a simplistic question, suggesting that something was wrong. Similar to the Mr. Antonelli occurrence, Holden knows it has to do with something sexual as Jane's stepfather would “run around the goddam house, naked. With Jane around, and all”(32). Holden knows that Jane’s innocence was stripped when she encountered this. Salinger suggests that unwanted sexual interactions removes innocence, especially at a young age. This experience could affect the person on the long run. In the future, the person might struggle finding a partner, simply because the intercousre could bring up the bad memory. An experience which Jane was not ready for. Like the kids at Phoebe’s school, Holden is innocent because he can’t see sexual intercocurse as a natural